When you start to promote a new mobile application, you should pay attention to two things that are Data Monitoring & Analysis and Detailed Promotion Planning. In order for your marketing to operate efficiently, it is very necessary to do a good job of market research in the early stage, do a good job of user positioning, and then plan the channels that fit your application.

3 Things You Need to Know Before Starting A Mobile APP Promotion

Data Monitoring and Analysis

In the initial stage of APP promotion, the general idea is "Establish Promotion Channels - Data Monitoring - Adjust a priority by data". How much the time you can save to achieve your desired goal depends largely on your channel optimization.

Detailed Promotion Planning

There’s so many detailed works in the initial period of APP promotion. To arrange the things well is very important. You may need to do research about the topic as which channels suitable for your app, Who is your main competitors, what about the marketing, and What are the resources around you.

After understanding these two points, let's talk about how to do it.

1st, Do research about your application: know yourself & your opponent

1. Product User Positioning

The works about the end-user positioning may affect the results of your app promotion. You should to know something clearly. The right promotion channel decided by your target users’ habits and their ways to shop.

1) What does your product do for your customers?
2) Who are the right users of the product? Where are they?
3) What do our customers need? What kind of needs can we meet customers?

After you understand the answers to these three questions, the general direction of promotion will be clear. And it will be more convenient to make subsequent promotion strategies.

When I joined a game company, the first thing I did was to go straight to the product manager and ask him for the competitor analysis of the product. I will study it carefully and ask the manager about the target audience and the features of the products.

If you feel that it is still not enough, you can also do questionnaires online and offline to enrich your information and invite the potential users for in-depth interviews.

2. Find out all the detailed functions of your APP

In addition to clarifying the target audience of your application, you also need to understand the functions and details of your own products.

3. Competitive product research

As an APP marketer, you need to understand the promotion data of competing products. For the analysis of apps in the same category in the app market, you may not know their business models, but at least you need to know who your real competitors are and what are the exclusive features of similar products.

The traffic of competing products: Pay attention to their downloads on iOS and Android, and use detailed data to understand user data as true as possible. Both iOS and Android have some third-party tools to check traffic statistics.

There are many ways to research which popular keywords are promoted by competing products. You can use Appying to search for the popularity of competitors' brand words and whether they have been on the hot search list. Use tools such as Appannie/ aso100/ Appduu to monitor the changes in keywords.

How to investigate the marketing resources of competitors' products? The product manager will conduct product research from the functional perspective, and you can check whether the competitors' promotion channels and promotion methods are worth learning.

What promotion methods the competitors have chosen; what advertisements they have made; which partners they have, etc. All these can be learned by collecting data or some analysis tools.

2nd, Establish & Expand Marketing Channels: make users find you.

When a product has just been developed, the channel is blank and there is no market foundation. Do these basic things well, at least when users search for you, they can find you easily. Regardless of whether the market channel is large or small, it is a controllable action that can positively guide users, so why not try to optimize it?
In order to improve work efficiency and shorten the effective time period, you need to sort out product information and channel information in an orderly manner, such as--

1. Prepare a detailed description copy of the product, screenshots, one-sentence description, keywords, market classification and other content;

2. Prepare a data analysis template, including App retention, activation, new additions, function usage, etc., as well as the effects of various channels;

3. Apply for developer accounts in major application markets, collect statistics on traffic and download brought by major markets, and regularly select and maintain according to the data;

4. Prepare documents for the first release requirements, recommended rules, and the relevant person in charge of the application market. If you have any questions about the first release rules, you must first study and clarify.

5. Application market promotion group and other resource's accumulation. Much app market news is released through official groups for the first time. Join these groups so as not to miss some events and topics.

6. Collect and study the prices of mainstream paid promotion channels, the charging situation of various promotion methods, CPT (market positioned pay per day), CPA (pay for results), CPD (bid for bidding, pay for download), CPM (per thousand people) Cost), according to needs, develop a paid promotion method suitable for your application and develop a multi-channel combination promotion plan.

3rd, Build brand marketing: let more users know you.

Building a brand is not a matter that can produce results in a short time. You must take time to settle down and study and ponder, and spend some time waiting for the results. In any case, it is necessary to reach out to your users, show them your product, let users experience your product and amplify the positive aspects of it.

1.Forum, community account registration and classified management.

1）Register and classify forums and community accounts.

Understand the rules of each platform, the rules of posting, and record them into a detailed excle file for easy reference and future circulation. If you have sorted these things, find some interns to help you complete the basic work.

Whether it is a forum based on the application market or a vertical forum in various fields, as long as the method is used well, it is extremely easy to obtain early target users and pseudo-target users. For the newly released APP, your first seed users are most likely from the forum. Of course, it is also good to do SEO for your own brand by the way.

2) Determine the degree of investment in social media according to the product positioning.

Social media is still very hot, and also a considerable help for your brand. If you play well, it can have a good promotion effect. But we must first look at the company's positioning for social media promotion.

The operation of social media is more than just posting articles and content, or engaging in activities in ordinary times. If you want to really attract users, you must analyze and produce content according to the product situation, target group, consumer psychology, product advantages, relevant current hot spots, etc., to ensure that the content you provide is either high-quality content or valuable features.

If the company can guarantee a certain amount of investment in social media channels, it can be well planned. If it is difficult for the company to have full-time people to do it, and it is even impossible to establish a social media operation team, then you have to lower your expectations for the output of social media channels.

3) Usually accumulate resources of friends who are engaged in media work.

Some people will ask their acquaintances when they first start promoting the app: can you help recommend friends who work in the media? When they find relevant contacts, they are not very good at preparing, and they rushed to post a product introduction, and then asked: Our app has just launched, can you help me publish a report about my app in your media?

From the perspective of market operations, the general rule is to spend money to save time, or save money but consume time. Either you spend money on it, or you spend time and effort to write a good article, or you have a deep friendship with him, or else others are not obliged to help you with advertising content.

4) Prepare some activities in advance, what if it gets hot?

In the early stage of APP promotion, don't think about reaching the sky one step at a time, and design an event that is popular all over the country overnight. You can do some activities suitable for your product according to the characteristics of your product, whether it is a prize collection, prize competition, inviting users to experience your product, seed user's offline gathering, or making a fun H5 page.

It is better to make a plan for promotion activities before the APP goes online. You can do some activities in conjunction with the application launch, or you can check whether there are major festivals within one month before the application launch, and plan some activities by the name of celebrating the holidays. After all, after the product is actually launched, if the team is relatively small, you may be very busy and have no time to take care of this work. And events are also one of the good ways to retain users in later operations, so you must prepare in advance.

Summary

After we went through all the processes and marketing stages of an APP promotion, we consciously organized the basic work. The above are some of the experiences we have summarized. For different APPs, the promotion methods will be different. Please adjust according to the product positioning. Next time, we will talk about how to monitor and optimize the effect when doing paid advertising.

App profit model

1. Advertising fee: homepage advertisement (20,000-30,000/year), channel advertisement (10,000-20,000/year), inside page advertisement (less than 5,000/year), etc. (mature platform: tens of thousands/day, just a few hundred at the beginning One day/person).

2. Bidding search ads: when searching by keywords, pay per click according to the bidding mechanism; pay according to ranking first, second, and third (eg: Google keyword ads, etc.).

3. Keyword search ranking: direct access to member shops or member website services through keyword links (such as Google SEO natural search ranking).

4. Interviews with famous experts: propaganda reports on well-known companies and entrepreneurs (ranging from thousands to tens of thousands).

5. Trade: The industry website appears as a third party, and the first thing to know about all the supply and demand information on the platform is the company; it can bring customers to the company.

6. Licensing fee: for members of the mobile portal website, the license is awarded separately; to improve the sense of honor of the members.

7. Magazines: magazine advertising fees, article reporting fees, etc.

8. Attracting venture capital: If the members reach a certain number, they can find venture capitalists to settle in.

9. The company's stocks are listed or transferred as a whole (transfer of assets after gaining profits).