In this era of apps, an app for your E-commerce business is essential. Once you identify the necessity of having an app, the next moment you start searching the best app builders and try to implement the latest innovational ideas on the app and finally you’ll build a mind blowing app. Soon or later after publishing the app, it is discovered that your app is not getting enough attention or downloads. All the effort that you have put in to build the app has become in vain. This is not that you want. Influencing the users to download the app is not easy. Even though there are some minor (but important enough to affect the app download count) points we don’t take into account while we are publishing an app to the app store.
Read on to learn more about the strategies to influence app downloads and sales.
#1: Marketing while developing
This is the best time to start announcing and letting the users get to know about your app. Give them hope that the app which is about to launch is something that they have been waiting for.
Take advantage of the meet-up groups and internet forums in order to make sure that the launch of your spp is known to all the targeted customers. Moreover, you’ll get valuable feedback and ideas to put it into practice.
#2: App store optimization (ASO)
If sending app download links is not just the way you want your app to be reached to a crowd, app store optimization is the first option which has to be considered. Discoverability comes before making the users download the app.
Main factors that effect ASO are
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- The title and the keywords: The title should carry a keyword which has the largest search traffic. Google keyword planner or ahref tool can help you with this. This is mainly to reach the targeted customers of your app. Changing the title often is not a good idea as you can see once your app gain popularity, it will be hard for the new users to discover the app.
- App downloads: The download count of the app really means for this but at the same time this is not a factor which is completely on our control.
Pro tip: Include the app name or the best keyword to the package name.
#3: App name | App title
The title of your app is the first thing that you show off to the users, besides the name is the most important ranking factor which is taken into consideration. Hence you can spend some time to get it right. Including the prime keyword to the to the name are add-ons. Make sure it doesn’t look spammy. Even if the app has a name not related to the app content, you can give a subtitle like the below example.
#4: App Icon
The quality of your app really matters here. Rather than remembering app names people capture images. Create an app icon with high quality and of course, you can choose unique shapes for your app icon. App users should be able to identify the app just by seeing the app icon.
A symbol or a letter can be used as an app icon. Do not use long words as they are hard to fit in such a small space. Instead, you can use the first letter of the word, which is probably you store name, brand name.
Icon Color
While choosing app icon colors you can choose vibrant colors for your app. Choose a color which is suitable for most of the background color. Most of the apps are in blue color. Choose blue if you are okay competing with the top companies app.
A/B testing
Before submitting your app to the app store, create several variations of the app. In order to know how users are gonna react to the app, tools like UsabilityHub’s Five Second Test and Pickfu can be used.
#5: Uploading the app
Along with the app, you can upload the screenshots and video to the app store. Create a video in which the working, and usage of the app are properly depicted. Before installing the app, the users take a look at the app video and the screenshots.
App Description:
The app description is categorized as
- Short description-A short preview field which can carry 80 characters.
- Full description- This can include up to 4000 characters. Write the description using keywords. Do not stuff the keywords into the description because, its ‘Google’s Smart Algorithm’. Write a convincing and appealing description for your app which makes sense.
Screenshots:
Adding the screenshots to the app store page is necessary to achieve complete app store optimization. Upload all the screenshots that approved by Google and Apple.
Online tools such as AppLaunchpad can be used to generate the app’s screenshots. You can add texts to the screenshots and make it easy for users to understand.
#6: Reviews
Users rely on ratings and reviews of a mobile app before deciding to download it or not. Moreover, it is not in our control. The only thing which you can do here is asking the happy users to comment reviews. A positive review comes from a positive customer. Ask for them when they are in a Good Mood – Maybe after the customer winning a coupon or after purchasing a product from the app.
Sometimes people purchase fake reviews to increase the amount of buzz the app is receiving. This is not a good idea because this might cause to suspend the app entirely. You wouldn’t want to risk this. At the same time, organic reviews are more valuable to your business because you can learn from it and know the actual feedback what users think about the app.
#7: Revenue
In order to increase the sales/revenue through the app, here are a few tips to consider:
Social media influencers:
Influencers are the best alliance which you can depend on while getting your products offshore.
Consumers seek a third party recommendation before they buy a product. And this is where you take advantage of. The loyal customers of the influencers have the potential to drive more customers to your app. Other than this, this will give a better social media exposure. Get tied up with the influencers within the same domain and increase your revenue just by appearing in their stories and recommendations.
User lifetime value ( ULV ):
The total net profit of an organization from any given customers is called the customer lifetime value (ULV). Maximise the user lifetime value (ULV) to increase the app revenue.
Present the ads like a game which requires the user’s participation. When users spend time in a joyful manner the chances to download your app is more.
In native Ads, you can present the Ad content without interrupting the users. This is possible because the add adapts the layout and functionality of the website in which the add is displayed.
Implement growth haking techniques:
Using out of box marketing experiments in order to transform the business to the next level is called growth hacking. The main goal is to acquire more customers and increase revenue.
Use Deep linking:
A uniform resource identifier(URI) is used to link to a specific location or page within a mobile app. Deep links to the app content are allowed in deferred deep linking, even when the app is not installed. There are many ways to do deep linking. Mails, notifications, Email, Social media, and SMS are used for sharing deep links to direct to the product page in the app.
#8: Country | Localisation
Regional success is also a factor which has to be considered. It can influence the ranking of the app. At the initial stages, it will have only a small significance but later on, it builds upon itself and creates a snowball effect. The localization appeals to native users in that particular country or region. There are plugins such as WPML which enables multi-language features in the app.
#9: Backlinks
Building backlinks to relevant pages can improve the ranking of your app. When an external website links to your app, a backlink for your app is created. There are free and as well as paid backlink submission sites. Ensure the link to your app is listed there.
pro-tip= Backlinks from Youtube Videos produce more effect in long-term.
#10: Social Proof
Social proofing helps to increase a visitor’s confidence in your app. The basic idea behind the social proofing is the normative social influence. For example, If you are searching for some page online and see a testimonial from an influencer whom you admire, we call it as social proofing. Get product review from your loyal customers and post them on your Youtube channel to build trust.
Also, a blog is an example of social proofing.
Users will conform to be liked or accepted by social influencers.
#11: Regular updates
Keep looking for new ideas which can be implemented in your app. Removing the errors and improving the performance of the app will help to achieve greater user experience. The usability of your app is dependent on the number of updates that you make. Minimum one update should be made per month.
Along with that don’t just sent push notifications once in a blue moon. It should be periodic and engaging to your target audience. Your app should be at the top of their mind when thinking of buying products online.
An app is the best approach to brand your business. Other than that apps have many advantages(Reduced cart abandonment, instant engagement with push notifications, faster checkout). Overall, making the customers download your app is as important as building the app with great features.
The initial stage of marketing to updating the apps regularly and steps in-between are crucial to increasing the discoverability as well as to increase app downloads/Making Sales via Mobile App.
If you have read till here, You might be interested in our new E-book where we unveiled successful apps and other growth hacks which worked for them in order to build their brand on mobile.
Notify the users about the sale which is yet to come. Here you can use push notifications and Emails to capture users attention.
Sujith Reghu: Writing on WordPress and WooCommerce with an unflinching focus, and trying to woo the unyielding Google bots.