Compelling Mobile Marketing or How To Get Your Mobile Apps Noticed

You think your app has what it takes to make it on the App Store or the Android Market? Think twice! Mobile marketing might well be the name of the game.

Hello folks! I hope you have been having a great time and you have found the business opportunity of the season! If you still have not done so, do not give up! Keep on looking and keep up the good work you have been doing! Eventually, opportunities will come along. Yet, you do not have to wait for prospects to knock on your door. You have to find them first! How? Well, mobile apps, as I pointed out in an older blog post could be a shortcut to greatness. Nevertheless, as you already know, not just every mobile application is meant to be! There are plenty of barren applications that gather virtual dust on the shelves of the mobile app stores. Yet, you already know what went wrong and why those applications never took off. Whereas a fail concept can lead to a fail application, there are other reasons why otherwise great apps remain unnoticed. Mind you, it has nothing to do with their features, their performance, their usability, and/or the user experiences, which they offer. Instead, the problem could be rooted in their very poor marketing! Is it possible? Read on to find the answer for yourselves.

Mobile applications are the new black. Everyone talks about them, almost everyone uses them, and most importantly, everyone wants to have one for his or her business. Hence, some people do brainstorm a lot, or not so much, and come up with a brilliant idea for an app. Others, however, do brainstorm a lot, but they eventually come up with a pretty bad and unappealing concept. Since I already covered the notion of stillborn applications, it is high time I moved on and I talked about apps that actually stand a chance. Following this line of thought, it should be pointed out that ssome apps of top-notch quality share the fate of their ill-conceived fail brethren. No, this has nothing to do with Lady Luck. Instead, it has something to do with the marketing efforts that are put into the bringing of these applications to life.

With the risk of becoming somehow banal, I will repeat myself on this one: no product and/or service markets itself. In fact, there are very few examples of such rare occurrences. Instead, products and/or services rise to market power and receive this extra luster of fame and glory as a result of vigorous marketing and creative campaigns. No matter how good your mobile brain child is, it needs a solid dose of marketing in order to capture the imagination of the respective target audience. Coming up with a great idea for a mobile application and/or doing an awesome job developing it is just the tip of the iceberg. The real trial of fire happens when your mobile application hits the market. Depending on your marketing efforts, it can generate lots of downloads or just a small number of the latter. Yet, the dynamics of the mobile market work differently and even if your application does not take off as initially expected, pursuant to your marketing efforts, things can change. Or the other way around. Nonetheless, you need some sort of consistency throughout the entire life cycle of a mobile application. Otherwise, you would have spent a fortune in vain.

So, what exactly does marketing for mobile apps entail? The simple, yet complex answer is multiple elements. It starts with building a nice, interactive website and generating some buzz before even submitting your app for review. It necessitates a lot of heavy blogging. It involves some serious engagement on Twitter, Facebook, and any other relevant social media channel. It might even call for a small marketing campaign prior to or upon the release of your mobile app. In a nutshell, marketing for mobile apps is not so different from marketing for any other product and/or service. The main distinctions, however, stem from the very nature of mobile platforms and the way to reach mobile device users. People should be able to find you on both mobile application stores and the web. Yet, some companies and/or individuals believe that the only thing they require is to write a crisp, powerful description of their application for the respective mobile application store, add a few sleek photos, come up with a few keywords and they are good to go! This is WRONG! You need the whole package and your mobile store marketing efforts need to be complemented and backed up by your web marketing, your social media marketing, and even your viral marketing campaigns. Very few apps are destined to get into the great apps category. The bar is set way too high and the chances that your mobile masterpiece could end up there are… slim, to put it mildly. Hence, prepare to work very hard in order to make your app popular and strive to attract as much attention to it as possible! The more publicity, the better! You can even try to promote, (not advertise) it within the realm of popular forums pertaining to the related industry or industries. Once your application is out, do not forget to give away some of your promotional codes to important industry bloggers or people of influence. If you do not know any of those, do not despair! Give promo codes away to friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc, and ask them to write an objective review of your application. Most of them would not mind doing so.

In case that your application has certain problems, get ready to squash bugs or to offer extra enhancements! Be as responsive as possible and try to meet customers' expectations. Be engaging, enable people to send you support requests via various channels (support form embedded in your app, support form on your website, help via Twitter, assistance on Facebook, support via good old e-mail, etc.), and encourage them to provide you with feedback. Do not forget that customer support is of primary marketing importance!

I know that the briefly described marketing tactics might sound overwhelming, but there is no other way around it. You have to invest in order to promote your product and eventually, reap the benefits of your hard work. After all, your app is not the only great thing on the mobile application places and stores and it needs to stand out marketing-wise in order to get into the spotlight. Nothing sells on its own. If you think otherwise, wake up and get a grip! Just harness your creative powers, get your marketing engines started, and head out to the mobile highway to success! You’ve got nothing to lose!

Well, this is all for the moment! Mind you, I did not get into the specifics of each and every marketing technique and tactic, as this article would become incredibly long. Instead, I will leave some material for future articles! Once again, thank you very much for taking the time to read this piece! If you want to read more marketing tips or tricks, subscribe to the marketing feed that rocks, follow our wise phrases machine Stuff We Say, join on Twitter, or feel free to contact us if you think we can help you succeed in business! Stay tuned for our next marketing session that involves a feature on how to write great descriptions for mobile apps on the App Store! Till then, stop just dreaming! Start accomplishing!