As you may have guessed, the mobile apps business sector is one of the fastest-growing areas for new business. Forecasters predict about 20% compounded annual growth until 2025 on popular download platforms such as Google Play and Apple’s App store. This is about four times the growth in other industries on average, which is great news! On the other hand, this means a barrage of competition, so naturally entrepreneurs in this sector must work hard to uncover the most effective marketing strategies for mobile apps.
At Tenato, we have had the pleasure of providing market research, business strategy and marketing execution services for many of these exciting new businesses. Whether they are strictly apps, or mainly web-based remote services, there are certain strategies that are unique to kind of business.
So, here’s our take on how to strategize and market your mobile app effectively.
1. Define your Distinctness
If there are similar apps out there, it is critical to define what will make yours unique. This can only be done by starting with careful research – looking for strengths, weaknesses, and features of competitors, and seeing what needs are not well fulfilled in the market. From there, you can strategize – what do you stand for – why do you exist? And what vision do you hope to become? You need to be about more than just making money to connect at the personal level with your users.
For example, when a Canadian back-country tourism client of ours was competing with larger US companies, we needed to define what was unique. Our clients had better, more granular, first-hand knowledge of the Canadian marketplace. How could we put this across? Real photography, not stock photography. More detailed, Canadian-ized descriptions of each service provider. Social media feeds showing users actually experiencing things.
The risk is that the site and reviews may look less perfect than stock photos would. But when users see that those are actual photos of experiences offered on the site (e.g. showing real mud, rain, and snow on specific trails), this clearly verifies their authenticity and first-hand knowledge.
2. Create a Memorable Brand
Industry measures show that most people have 40 – 90 apps on their smart phones, but only use 6 – 9 per day. That means that you’re not just competing with the apps that do the same thing yours does. You’re competing for the real estate on page one of their smart phones!
Your name and your icon must be truly memorable and unique. This is not the time to do it yourself – unless you’re a trained branding expert. You need something easy to say, easy to spell, fun, and very simple graphically. It’s got be clear when it’s at its tiniest. So if it appeals to a kid aged 5, you’re in the ballpark.
3. Double-sided marketing
Almost all applications we’ve seen require two sides to the marketing:
- Service providers on one side (usually businesses, whether they are specific kinds of retailers, or service providers, or landlords) and
- Users on the other, i.e. the people who may need the app to access these services.
This can create a chicken-and-egg scenario where you cannot market to users unless there are service providers first. But the service providers will sometimes give you the brush off if you don’t have a lot of users already.
To ensure success, you need a slick presentation, and low (or free) entry fees to get the service providers to at least appear on their app as a starting point. A great name, logo and app mock-ups go a long way. But doing a show/tell on your marketing plan for the app will also get buy-in….tell them where you plan to advertise, and show them your dazzling creative concepts that are sure to get attention. This will amp up enthusiasm and set you apart.
4. Local is fine to start
We had one app client whose concept showed very strong interest in the research phase (the service providers were dying to jump on board), but then client decided not to move forward. A new competitor in a nearby city had suddenly popped up, and they were better financed with a nearly identical concept.
While you may believe that “this country (whichever country that may be) isn’t big enough” for two head-to-head apps doing the same thing, think again. Their competitor soon changed its mind and folded as well. Today, neither city has the service, which was really something these cities needed.
The lesson is that competition shouldn’t deter you from a launch. Companies are so complex that things can implode for a million reasons you’ll never know. All you do know is that you can keep pushing and doing your best.
I also think that it is perfectly acceptable to be a star-performer in your own backyard (or choose the best backyard) for a good long while, and become entrenched there. You need not take over the entire national position right away. Being bought out by a larger competitor later could be a perfectly great thing to have happen, or who’s to say an app can’t be profitable just in one city of a decent size?
5. Prepare for the hands-on work
Starting an app because you want passive income? It’s not really as hands-off as you might think.
You will need direct-sales staff to bring on service providers (although a good remote team can be making phone calls from their home offices), help them set up their profiles, and sometimes even baby-sit them as they learn how to use the system.
There is also an ongoing need for technical support, especially for the service providers. If you don’t want them to quit using the app and go back to their old manual methods, you’ll need personal, ongoing support.
Someday, the whole process will be streamlined to minimize the hands-on factor, but I’d count on at least 5 years of serious labour to get there!
6. Help your service providers market the app
You will likely need to provide things like door decals, posters, and digital mail-outs for your service providers. This ensures they’ll be marketing for you – i.e. saying “Now you can reach us on this app!” pro-actively.
Assume your service providers are like your dealers. But remember that they may not already be good marketers. So giving them a kind of marketing kit should be budgeted in your launch plan.
7. Ensure you plan SEO into your website(s)
For years, we would write and build websites, and then throw them over the fence to an SEO expert to optimize and to try to get links. This was the wrong approach, and we strongly recommend you avoid it.
We now know that the structure of the website itself must account for the kind of traffic you want to generate. Get your key offerings into the top-level menu, not buried under menu levels for “services” or “products”. I have also noticed that many app developers put up websites that cater only to one side of the equation: either they are trying to attract service providers, or trying to get the consumer traffic.
Your website should either do both, or there should be separate websites for each function. Think about the need(s) you are solving (e.g. deliver a cake in “City”) vs. “Software for a catering business” and build the website structure around those key phrases. There is a great book by Will Coombe that clearly lays out this concept.
8. Use your personality to build a community
Anyone can hire a few developers and put up an app. What makes you stand out is the feeling around your brand, and the community you build around it.
Work on building knowledgeable, first-hand descriptions of your service providers, and projecting yourselves as real enthusiasts for what you do. This will give users the feeling that you’re much more than just “middle-men” between them and the given service. Much like any retailer needs to prove its mettle (e.g. a bike shop – why go to a local shop if you can buy it online? Because hopefully the bike shop is going to give you a feeling of expertise and cater to your needs).
This is the case with your app – and although there is no face-to-face aspect, there is still ample opportunity to write real posts, show your faces, and give people meaningful expertise.
9. Use a Blend of Traditional and Digital
You may think that because an app is a digital product, that all of your marketing efforts should be digital.
Not the case. As mentioned in point #3 above – think about conquering your first city. What makes sense for marketing this one location? How should you be known here, wherever here is?
One obvious place to start is with your service providers – help them spread the word via their customer email lists or in-store visuals.
You can also use local publicity, or a stage a funny and eye-catching launch event that will help generate the publicity. Or consider some traditional things like local radio or even outdoor to get known in the neighbourhood. You could even partner with relevant community groups (e.g. boy scouts/girl scouts) to distribute flyers and donate in exchange.
These are how things get talked about and built upon, and they can often be less costly, and more impactful, than focusing only on online pay-per-click ads for raising local awareness.
We suggest having these things working in tandem with your online marketing – like the SEO discussed above, social media, and any profile-boosting ads you choose on the app distribution platforms you select.
10. Track and Respond
Naturally you are going to be monitoring all the traffic on your website and your app, and as people make transactions, you should be sending out requests for reviews.
Some of these reviews will sting. This is why you need to practice the “Empathize – Solve – Make up” method. Empathy being “Oh no – yikes – so sorry!” type of remark. Solve being “We’ll send another order right away.” and Make up being “We’ll also give you a free credit you can use for your next order” i.e. money back, or a free offering to the customer. And post all of these online, so people can see how quickly you respond, and that you care.
When tracking traffic on your website or app, be sure to watch the flow of traffic, and work to get the navigation down to as few steps as possible – getting rid of any rat-holes that people may be falling down. Consider your app to be in a state of constant improvement.
One of our clients had this philosophy: Every legitimate complaint by users and service providers went on their “to do” list, which then became part of the ongoing upgrades. Take criticism as a favour to move you toward becoming the best!
To Sum it Up
When marketing an app, you must be creative enough to compete globally, because the competition is global.
But remember to stay focused enough to establish your presence in one core location first. Once you have the success there, it’s an exercise in rinse-and-repeat that you can take to other cities.
That way, you’ll be building your virtual business in a rock-solid manner, and no competitor with a half-hearted effort can take away the ground you gain.
On the upside, a competitor may offer you some good coin for your business if you’re really entrenched. Or, if you expand wisely and carefully, you can make the same offer in reverse!
Are you considering launching a new app?
Get some great strategic insight with a free initial consultation from Tenato Strategy.
