11 Pre and Post Launch Mobile App Marketing Pitfalls to Avoid

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11 Pre and Post Launch Mobile App Marketing
Pitfalls to Avoid
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Consider having to compete with only 500 apps in
the entire App Store. Sounds like every app
marketers dream! When the App Store was launched
in 2009, that is what the landscape looked like.
Four years later, in October 2013, Apple
announced that the number of apps in the App
Store crossed a line to a whopping 1 million,
generating a record-breaking 10 billion in
revenue. Not one to be left behind, Google Play
caught up soon enough and crossed the 1 million
apps mark within a few months. As the number of
apps in the market skyrocket, the challenges for
app marketers continue to grow. While some
miraculous overnight successes will pop up every
now and then, having an app marketing plan in
place now is crucial to the success of every app.
Heres a list of 11 pitfalls to avoid during your
apps pre- and post-launch phases that will help
improve your chances of success.
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Pre-launch Pitfalls
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1. Not Investing in Market Research

• Researching the key players in the category your
  app operates in can give you some great insights
  into what your target audience values in an app.
• How are other apps named? Are they memorable?
• Which categories are they targeting?
• Which keywords are they ranking high for?
• An analysis could prove to be very useful in
  getting your app in front of the right audience.

• Create an excel sheet with this key features
• Categories
• Price
• Device Compatibility
• Feature 1
• Feature 2

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2. Not Having a Feedback Loop
So, lets say you spend a great deal of time
developing features that you think will make your
app a rage once its out, and you get your entire
team to send in their feedback on the app. But,
are they the real target customers of your app?
Beta testing is the first opportunity to get some
unbiased first-hand feedback from your target
audience. Identify your target customer, find out
which channels will help you reach them, and
recruit beta testers. Actively engage with them
to learn as much as you can. Reward active beta
testers and put them on the early sign-up list so
theyre the first to know when your app is out.
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3. Not Getting Marketing Involved Soon Enough

• Although finishing up development and releasing
  your app might seem like the most crucial tasks,
  making sure that your app gets discovered is
  equally important. However, very often, planning
  the marketing activities for an app is one of the
  most neglected areas of app development.
• Besides this, companies often make the mistake of
  getting the marketing team involved very late in
  the product development phase. This can be
  dangerous since they are the ones who plan the
  go-to-market strategies for your app. They need
  to understand every feature built into the app.
• Here is a basic checklist of activities that your
  marketing plan should include
• Find out the USP of your app Know what makes
  your app unique.
• Optimize for the App Store App store
  optimization is crucial for the success of your
  app.

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Here are some tips to optimize your app name,
keywords, and description App Name You can
choose to name your app based on common search
terms or use a branded name that you can
copyright. A lot of app developers optimize their
app names by using a combination of branded and
common search terms to enhance discoverability.
For example If you create a photo editing app,
it might be a good idea to use the words photo
editor in the app name along with a branded
name. Keywords The most crucial aspect of
discoverability the keywords that will help
your app get discovered by users. Every app gets
100 characters in the keywords section.
Description The App Store displays only 2-3
lines of text. Users need to tap on more in
order to continue reading the description. Hence,
its important that your app clearly convey the
key message in the first 2-3 lines.
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• Not only does the description indicate the key
  message, it also reinstates the popularity of the
  app by pointing out that 2 million people use it.
• Create a preview trailer Generate early buzz
  and gauge response.
• Blog about the development process on your
  website If you dont have a website, create a
  free blog using WordPress or Tumblr. Allow
  interested users to sign up for newsletters here.
• Plan your beta test Plan your beta test well in
  advance so you can incorporate feedback.
• Create a promotional channel list Find the best
  channels for promoting your app.
• Shortlist forums Visit forums pertaining to
  your target audience and start interacting with
  users.
• Outreach plan Plan who you will reach out to
  and when.
• Create a press kit Include app icons in
  different sizes, screenshots, and other
  information about your app.

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4. Not Planning the App Release Date in Advance
While the eagerness to get your app out in the
market as soon as the last line of code is
written is understandable, planning a release
date in advance will help you ensure it gets
press coverage. Marketers often have to deal with
delays in the project deadline and end up having
to deal with an unplanned release date as soon as
the app is ready. Also, make sure you keep track
of key announcements in the tech world so that
your apps release date does not coincide with
them because it is unlikely your app will get
enough attention on those days. In addition,
building anticipation around your app and getting
it previewed by influencers can be crucial to get
the ball rolling.
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Post-launch Pitfalls
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5. Not Focusing on User Engagement and Retention
Even if you are one of those lucky marketers with
thousands of dollars to plan around, paid user
acquisition should not be your key marketing
strategy. While pumping in some money to get
initial downloads for your app is all right, in
the long run it pays to focus on user engagement
and retention. Otherwise, you will see people
dropping off soon enough. To use paid user
acquisition the right way, find out which paid
channels work best for you and use them in
combination with your other marketing strategies.
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6. Not Measuring Anything or Measuring Everything
DAU and MAU Your daily and monthly active
users. Retention Rate Measure 1-, 7-, and
30-day retention rates. This will help you
determine how well your app fits into your users
lives. ARPU Your average revenue per user. You
can calculate this as ARPU Total revenue
generated by the app /
Total active users of the app. LTV or Life Time
Value The value of your app user over their
lifetime in the app. You can calculate this as
LTV ARPU x (1/CHURN), where CHURN is the number
of users that left the app after a given amount
of time.
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7. Not Using Your Apps Update Description Space
for Marketing
Googles Our Mobile Planet research reports that,
on average, a smartphone user downloads 25 apps
on his phone, with the number being as high as 40
in some countries. I currently have 176 apps that
have updates! When a user notices updates being
available from so many apps, it goes without say
that they might not update all of them,
especially if the update description just reads
bug fixes. Treat the app update description
space as a marketing channel to convey in an
interesting manner what is new that your app has
to offer, as well as the issues that are fixed.
This can be a great strategy to get back users
who havent opened your app in a while. For
example, PC Gamer magazine does a great job of
this.
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8. Not Paying Attention to Customer Support
Your app could have thousands or even millions of
users. But in a competitive market, every user
must be treated with care. Word of mouth is a
powerful tool for any marketer and one that can
be harmful if you dont pay attention to your
users. While Apples App Store still does not
provide a way to respond to user reviews,
marketers can reply to customers directly on
Google Play. Even though this feature is now
available to all developers, not everyone is
using it to provide timely support to customers.
Heres an excellent example of a developer
responding to a customer query on the same day
while also providing their support email to solve
issues privately.
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9. Not Giving Users Their Space and Freedom from
Push Notifications
Push notification is a great channel for nudging
your users to launch your app again, take a
photo, or check in. But bug your users too much
and they wont think twice before uninstalling
your app, no matter how good it is. Plan your
push notifications carefully and let users turn
them off easily if they want. Also, make sure you
keep different time zones in mind while sending a
push notification.
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10. Not Personalizing Your App Review Pitch Email
Most marketers plan an email outreach as soon as
an app is out in the market. While it goes
without saying that you should include all of the
important information about your app, one crucial
aspect that marketers often falter in is
personalizing each email. Either dont have the
reviewers name and website mentioned in the
email, or if you want to add it, make sure you
double check it and dont copy-paste blindly.
Most reviewers will not give an email a second
look if it is addressed incorrectly. Make sure to
include the following Your apps name, price,
and its USP A Link to the App Store A link to the
trailer for reviewers who prefer visual pitch A
link to your apps press kit
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11. Not Providing Incentives to Share or Like
Remember Facebook in 2009? When all that your
feed contained were Farmville success stories?
The trend eventually died down. Users dont tweet
every high score or share their progress in the
app just for the heck of it. Simply adding a
Like, Tweet, or Share button in your app might
not be effective when youre looking to grow your
social media audience. Every share must be
earned. Provide users with incentives thatll
encourage them to share or perform an action.
Heres a great example of an app that opens up
locked features for users who Like their
Facebook page.
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For More Information, Visit http//www.theexperts
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eting.html