It doesn’t need any expert to say that most people spend a considerable portion of their digital time on mobile apps. But surprisingly, the vast majority of users only use a handful of mobile apps for different purposes. While these handfuls of top apps across categories get the most out of user time, user engagement and corresponding business conversion, the vast majority of apps struggle to get a share of this pie of success.
Well, this is why app branding is so essential for app development projects. Some app developers recently found micro-influencers are playing a significant role in augmenting their reach and pushing user acquisition. Of course, there are several other strategies, but not all of them may work the same way for every app project.
Here we explain top strategies to spread the word about your mobile app.
Personalised user experience
Since apps are highly individual specific interfaces, most app users prefer a personalised user experience with custom features and user interaction elements as per their particular preferences and requirements. When an app user finds an app to address his preferences, he gets more delighted to use the app.
Personalised user experience helps push user engagement and business conversion for most leading apps. Naturally, it is now a time tested strategy for promoting your app brand far and wide.
Smooth user onboarding
User onboarding refers to the techniques and interactive elements helping to introduce an app to the users. Typically, user onboarding involves overlaying messages with graphic elements and signs, short introductory video; text prompts, tutorials, etc.
First of all, the user onboarding should be short, sweet and thoroughly engaging. Secondly, all the onboarding elements should boast effective branding elements and signs that can create a good impression on the users.
User-centric app design
Mobile app branding strategy should always focus upon creating the look and feel that directly connects the user expectations and user taste.
Suppose you have conducted thorough user research and created a user persona aggregating your target audience’s key attributes. In that case, you already have an idea about their preferences, and your user interface design should follow these user-preferred elements.
A user-centric design can make the user experience satisfactory and create a better brand impression.
Gamification
Gamification referring to game-oriented features for non-game app environments, is already famous for pushing user engagement. Some of these gamification elements include scores, contests, challenges, badges, trophies, leaderboards, bonuses, etc. These tools help motivate the users and thus push user engagement.
On the other hand, when users share their scores and achievements with various apps with other prospective users on social media and other channels, the app enjoys more exposure than gamification techniques.
Social media outreach
Social media can be effectively used as a low-cost marketing medium to reach out a broader audience. Social media platforms targeted by thoughtful, interactive, entertaining, and relevant posts can help an app brand find traction.
One can utilise both social media advertising to gain traction at a quick time and with little efforts. It is advisable to create business pages on Facebook and accounts with Twitter. For the rest of the channels, you need to select platforms based on the app niches and your app audience. Instagram and Pinterest are great for visual contents, and Linked are great for B2B and professional apps. You can also use an integrated chatbot and live chat function to reach out to a broader audience.
Landing Pages
A landing page is a super effective marketing tool used by many businesses and mobile apps to make quick inroads into their target audience. Landing pages are web pages designed to serve a specific mar_keting goal, such as generating leads for app user acquisition. The key is to develop a great landing page that instantly finds traction and user engagement.
Landing pages allow fast achieving a particular action through a well-thought-out web page design. For an app, the publisher can also design multiple landing pages targeting various user segments across geographic, gender, demographic and behavioural categories.
When designing a remarkable landing page for your mobile app, make sure it comes with appropriate text telling you interestingly about the benefit of opting for the option presented through a Call to Action button. There should be accompanying screenshots describing the basic flow and working of the app.
Influencers and opinion leaders
This is another socialising strategy for mobile app branding and promotion that deserves special attention. It has been seen that near and dear ones always get the most favourable judgment from the buyers and users across the niches. This is why even people with social clout within certain circles can work as your brand ambassadors and help your app make inroads into the target audience.
It is advisable to reach out to people with expertise in your niche and a considerable following. If you are a game developer, you can reach out to some gamers with great fan following for their gaming skills. If you are a garment retail app, popular fashion models and social media personalities well known for their dressing can be approached.
These days, micro-influencers and opinion leaders across the board hold the key to helping brands reach out to a broader audience. You can quickly turn audience focus to your brand through these influencers.
Conclusion
Any business can opt for commercial ads to reach a bigger audience and push the app brand in the market. But even after spending thousands on commercial ads, there’s no guarantee of success. Hence, it is practical for apps to start with low budget and effective channels and gradually widen the reach through app branding. When it comes to solid branding exercise for an app, it is essential to utilise all channels instead of relying too much on one platform.