Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store have seen a massive surge in the number of newly launched apps in 2020. According to Statista, Android users could access approximately 3.48 million apps in the first quarter of 2021. Meanwhile, Apple users were close behind with 2.2 million iOS supported apps to use as they please.
Additionally, just in August 2021, there were approximately 66 thousand mobile app releases on Google Play Store. If that number makes your head turn, you’re in for a treat – August 2021 recorded the lowest number of app releases ever since March 2019 till the said month.
As a result, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that launching a new app isn’t the end goal. Instead, the struggle reaches new heights with the added pressure to attract users in a highly competitive market.
Common Challenges You Are Most Likely To Bump Into
Developing a new app and launching it in the market does not come close to the struggles you’ll have to face once it is out in the wild. Every app entrepreneur’s worst nightmare is to invest time and money into developing the perfect app, only for the hype to sizzle away with time. Unfortunately, this nightmare is closer to reality than anyone likes to admit.
However, the possibility to achieve the same level of success as TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram and Snapchat is not a pipe dream. Generally, the challenges you are most likely to face after launch are:
- Establishing your app as unique
- Successfully drawing in new users
- Adapting to recent market trends
- Sorting out funding issues
- Frequently updating app
- Developing marketing strategies
While you can quickly resolve five of these six issues with the right team and dedicated professionals, attracting new users can pose a more significant challenge than you might expect.
What’s Keeping Users From Your App?
Before you learn how to attract new users, let’s try to figure out why people might not be paying attention to your app in the first place. After all, retention capability is one of the most crucial factors determining any app’s success.
Otherwise, even if you attract new users, they’ll uninstall your app immediately, and god forbid they leave a poor rating on the store. According to reports, there is an average loss of 77% daily active users on an app. Moreover, Ankit Jain, the CEO of InfinitusAI, believes that the first 3-7 days are the most crucial for any app entrepreneur.
Within this time frame, you can lose your users due to various reasons. Some of these are:
- The app does not fulfill any specific needs
- It is not visually attractive
- The app is challenging to decipher
- Too many notifications
- Advertising bombardment
Therefore, the sooner you figure out how to address these issues and tweak your app accordingly, you won’t have to worry about retention any longer.
5 Guaranteed Techniques To Draw In New Users To Your App
The success of any app depends on the number of users who find it helpful and actively engage with it without fail. Hence, there are a few key elements that you need to factor in to develop the perfect user acquisition strategy, such as:
- The target audience
- Your competitors
Your app needs to address the needs of your audience, keeping along with the changing trends in the market. Additionally, your user retention also depends on you staying one step ahead of your competitors at every turn.
On that note, let’s look at some ways you can capture the user’s attention and make your app their number 1 choice.
Provide additional services
Suppose both you and your competitor’s assignment help app runs on AI. But your app provides additional professional essay writers as an add-on service. In this case, students are bound to leave your competitor’s app to install yours in a heartbeat.
The primary consumer psychology behind this is that users would always choose to use an app that they believe provides them more benefits than the other. So even if your writers are available in the paid version of the app that many students cannot afford, it is still a better option than one that doesn’t provide them with the choice of the benefit.
Focus on ranking high on app stores
You’ve heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO); now get ready for App Store Optimization (ASO)!
Suppose you have an app that can provide essay help services to students. So, when any potential user who types in the keywords “essay”, “writing help”, or “free essay”, can be able to view your app at the top of the results, ensuring you can draw in the maximum users whose needs you can address.
A few simple ways to ensure your app doesn’t get buried under the hundreds of similar ones are:
- Include keywords in the title tag
- Create a catchy app icon
- Make your information descriptive
- Localize your app for the target market
Drive in organic growth
Out of the approximately 7.9 billion people on this earth, almost 4.66 billion have active access to the internet. This staggering number bodes well for your app as, with the right strategies in place, you can draw in customers to your app organically by keeping an eye on the costs.
The best way to drive organic growth is to mix it with paid ads. After building a website and setting up your social media handles, you need to post content relevant to your target audience. But keep in mind that it should provide something unique and helpful to your audience.
Once you have captured your potential users’ interest in the content, your paid advertisements can easily redirect them to install your app.
Rely on paid ads
Paid advertisements can be extremely costly, especially if you plan to depend on them solely without investing in high-quality content. However, through paid ads, you can reach millions of people instantly.
Advanced technology makes it easier for you to tweak the settings and ensure that your ad reaches your potential target market instead of random people on the internet.
Jump on the video bandwagon
The audience engagement with Instagram Reels, Tiktok, and YouTube Shorts has been seminal since 2020, and it’s a missed opportunity if you don’t join the trend. Creating short videos less than a minute long doesn’t take much time and helps you showcase your app’s benefits in a fun, creative manner.
You can include your promo videos on the mobile landing pages to make it easier for users to find them. People are hungry for new content every day, and short videos provide the right level of entertainment in the busy lives that everyone leads. While it can be challenging to figure out how effective these promotional videos have been, there is no doubt that they can help spread the word about your app to a broader audience.
Summing it up
When you spend your time and energy developing an app, it’s no surprise that you’d want users to discover it and benefit from its uses. But you cannot expect to throw user acquisition techniques in the dark and expect people to show up all of a sudden. Only with the proper application of the right strategies can you draw in new users and show them the wonders of your app.
Author – Clara Smith is a marketing analyst at a reputable firm in the US. She has graduated from the University of Kent before moving to the US to support her ailing parents. In addition to her daily job, Clara loves to indulge in his painting hobby every weekend and attends workshops regularly.