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A DEVELOPER’S GUIDE TO
APP MARKETING Learn some of the fundamental ways you can attract new users, generate downloads and grow your app.
Contents 1. Optimising your website.......................................................................... 3 2. App Store Optimisation........................................................................... 8 3. Media coverage........................................................................................ 14 4. Social media & advertising....................................................................... 17 5. Email marketing........................................................................................ 21 6. Bundles & promotions.............................................................................. 26
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The app marketing struggle We get it. Being a developer, especially if you’re an indie, can be a struggle. Between juggling the development, testing, payments and customers, there’s already a ton of stuff on your plate. Throw marketing into the mix and it’s a lot to handle! If you’re reading this eBook, it means you’re prepared to put in the effort to get your hard work recognised, grow your user base and build a successful app. So whether you’re building for desktop or mobile, actively promoting your app somehow or doing nothing at all, we’ve written up this eBook to outline the different techniques you can experiment with and ultimately adopt for your business. Just remember that not all of them will work for you; they’ll all require testing to see what works best for your app. Good luck, and if you find this eBook helpful we’d love to know about it! Just drop us a line on Twitter here.
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Optimising your website Your website is one of your best, controllable assets. Make the most of it.
An Effective Landing Page Outside of app stores, your landing page gives you the freedom to show off your app without restrictions. It’s a great opportunity to get creative and convince users why they should download/buy your app. Here are a few of the elements you need to think about when building yours. Make it look good! As with your icon and the screenshots used in app stores, your landing page is a representation of your app, so it needs to look good and set a positive first impression. The last thing you want is users visiting your website only to leave thinking that your app is old & dated, so spend some time building a good looking page. If you’re comfortable designing & building it yourself that’s awesome. If not, there are so many pre-made themes for sale that there’s really no excuse for having a badly-designed landing page.
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There’s also the option of sourcing a designer yourself from sites like Dribbble, or using powerful landing page builders like Unbounce where you can A/B test everything from your colour schemes and headlines to the button sizes. “Creating a standalone landing page for your app gives you complete control over the style, behaviour, formatting, and volume of information you can present to showcase the app — removing the limitations of app stores. This control also means you have the opportunity to optimize the experience through A/B testing — getting more people to click the buy button — again, something you can’t do in app stores.” — Oli Gardner, Co-Founder Unbounce
Main headline: a clear value proposition Your headline needs to very clearly communicate the core value of your app: what makes it special, and how is it going to improve the user’s life? As an example, the headline for iStat Menus 5 by Bjango is “An advanced Mac system monitor for your menu bar”. It’s short and concise, telling you exactly what the app does and even where you’ll find it. Define what users are meant to do Your landing page needs to be built with a clear objective in mind. Do you want users to download a trial version? Should they purchase from an app store, or directly via your own store? Decide on what your goal is, and tailor your landing page to drive users towards that with clear calls to action. Use A/B testing here to gauge what calls to action work best, the colours of the buttons you use, the text within them and more.
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Social proof: share what others have to say If you’ve received positive reviews, praise on social media and awards for your app, don’t be afraid to show them off on your page. Sure, you could just brag about all the cool things your app does, but showing off what your users have to say is a powerful way to build trust and credibility.
Search Engine Optimisation Out of all the marketing channels you’ll use to get exposure for your app, the one you have the most control over is your own website. That’s why it’s so important to spend time on Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO) — it’s a process that improves your search visibility and helps to increase visitors from search engines like Google. Optimising your website will involve a number of processes like ensuring you’re including the best keywords within your content and titles, writing user-friendly meta descriptions that’ll appear on search results, building links back to your website and more, so we recommend checking out Moz’s guide to SEO linked below! Helpful resource: Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO What makes SEO so valuable as a marketing tool is that it capitalises on user intent — after all, a well optimised page has a better chance of showing up on Google search at the time when users are looking for a solution to their problem.
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Put out useful content While your website serves as a central hub to promote your app, creating useful content via blogs, videos, screencasts and podcasts can be super effective ways of driving traffic back to your main site and expanding your reach.
Creating content allows you to be the solution to user problems.
Blogging and providing value Brett Terpstra, one of our customers at Paddle, does this really well. Alongside his main site for Marked 2, a Markdown previewer, Brett also publishes regular content on his blog about Markdown, app development and productivity. He even builds a bunch of useful tools that the power-user community and his potential users can benefit from. The tools & content don’t always tie into his app Marked directly, but they’re effective ways to drive people to his website, build his own authority in the Markdown & development space and ultimately grow awareness of his app too. If your app is a desktop system cleaner for instance, why not write up some tips on “How to maintain your Mac/PC”, or “How to proper uninstall apps from your Mac/PC”?
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Think about the questions users are likely to have in your app’s niche, or whether there’s any advice, hints & tips you could be offering. Then produce content that they’re likely to find useful.
Search Google for popular content suggestions
Video & screencast tutorials While written content is valuable for SEO, there are plenty of creative ways to produce content for your audience like short video/screencast tutorials for your app. If your app integrates well with another app or plugin, another option is to create a tutorial of how they work together. It’s a strategy that’s likely to work more effectively if the third party app is more popular (and can therefore attract more viewers and users), but still worth considering! Podcasts Another strong channel to consider is getting involved in podcasts. Brett Terpstra has two of his own in Overtired and Systematic (and he gets involved in others), while Marc Edwards of Bjango shares his expertise in design on a podcast called Iterate. Not only does podcasting grow your personal brand by demonstrating your expertise, but you’re getting in front of a whole new audience in the process.
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App Store Optimisation ASO helps to increase your app's discoverability within app stores.
When dealing with ASO — regardless of what app store you’re in — there are a few primary things you’ll want to pay attention to: keywords, your app name, ratings and number of downloads. You’ll also want to evaluate the visual appeal of your assets like the app icon and screenshots, and even localisation.
Keyword planning & research Finding the most relevant keywords for your app Considering that 63% of downloads come from general app store searches, it makes a lot of sense to spend time researching and planning the keywords you want to be found for. This process can be the difference between getting discovered and driving downloads, or essentially being a ghost on app stores. Rather than making blind judgements and trusting your gut alone, use keyword research tools that can help you to identify the most relevant keywords based on factors like potential traffic, ranking difficulty and even the keywords your competition is using. Keyword research tools: SensorTower, MobileDevHQ & KeywordTool 8
What is your competition doing? If you have direct competitors, knowing what keywords are working for them can be an efficient way to guide your own selections. Of course that doesn’t mean you copy their keywords blindly — you’ll still want to look at the level of potential traffic and ranking difficulties — but it’s certainly a good indicator of what works in your niche.
Effective title & description Once you’ve compiled your list of keywords, it’s time to think about how they’ll integrate into app’s title and app store description. App title: make it clear & succinct Along with your app’s icon, the first thing users will see is the app’s title, and thanks to limited character counts you really need to make every space count. You should make it obvious what your app does; for example, a task management app should include “to-do” in the title. You don’t want to be changing your title regularly, so try using a keyword that’s likely to drive the most traffic to your app’s page in the long-term. Description: your chance to sell the app From your app pitch and its features to quotes about your app from customers & influencers, there’s a bunch of ways you can effectively use your app description. The first thing you’ll want to include here is your app’s kick-ass pitch. Elaborate on your app store title to make it crystal clear what your app does and what value it provides, and try to use your primary keyword here again. Avoid any fluff and be as direct as possible. 9 9
Next, let’s look at social proof. Social proof is a great way to build trust in your app and encourage downloads, so if you’ve had a really impressive review or received a special award/accolade, don’t be afraid to show it off! Pull quotes from journalists/influencers, app store reviews, and details of your awards and include the best ones in the app description.
Wunderlist includes a short quote from The Verge & other notable publications
Logically you’ll also want to include some more information about your app’s core benefits: what are the main features and how will the user get value from downloading your app? As tempting as it is to include a list of awesome features, try to maintain a focus on user benefits instead. Also aim to include your primary keywords where possible, (albeit without stuffing keywords to the point where it becomes illegible).
Localisation Is it worth localising? If you’ve already got in-app analytics set up — something Paddle offers for desktop & mobile apps — you’re in a much better position to know what countries your users are from. Let’s say a significant proportion of your users 10 10
are based in foreign countries where English isn’t the primary language. In that scenario, you can use your app analytics data to make an educated decision about whether it’s worth localising or not. Keyword research. Again Yes, this again! The first thing you’ll want to do before getting your content translated is seek help from someone (or a company) that can help you pick the right keyword alternatives for each language. Then, you’ll want to get that content — namely the title, descriptions, screenshots and even video — manually translated with those keywords in mind. It’ll make sure your content reads well for any native readers. The translation process: don’t auto-translate! It can be tempting to just throw your app store title & description into Google Translate, and we don’t blame you. It’s easy, plus it saves time and money, right? Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Auto-translations can go horribly wrong and your chosen keywords are unlikely to translate accurately into another language, so spending time getting your content properly translated can be a worthwhile investment.
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Ratings, visuals & downloads Ask for ratings & reviews at the right time Asking for reviews & ratings in-app is perfectly natural. After all, better ratings lead to better rankings in the app stores and it looks more reassuring to new users, but timing it right is incredibly important. For example asking for a review on first app launch is a bad user experience. Instead, allow your customers to experience your app, benefit from its features, and provide a generally fantastic experience. At that point, you can ask for the all important review. It avoids any interruptions to their workflow, and is far more likely to drive a review than a random request. Visually appealing icon & screenshots App icons are important for branding. After all, it’s your app’s identity. Your app icon won’t directly affect your app store rankings, but it can have a knock-on effect on your app store performance. Think about it this way: if your app doesn’t catch the attention of users browsing app stores you’ll struggle to get noticed, and when you consider that app stores are so overcrowded now, your icon is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd. Also, your app icon is the first thing users will see when browsing app stores alongside it’s name and price, and once they download the app, they’ll be looking at that icon on their device every day. For those reasons alone, it’s totally worth investing in making it look good. Don’t have the budget to spend on a high quality designer? There are plenty of websites & forums where you can find talented designers willing to get their
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names out there and build a portfolio, and you can always reach out to fellow developers who’ve had their icons designed for recommendations too. As for your screenshots: ensure that they clearly convey the app’s core benefits and features. Like your app icon they need to be visually appealing but equally as informative. Try asking friends and family (who know nothing about the app) whether they clearly understand what it does and the value it provides — just from screenshots. If your visuals aren’t clear and easy to interpret, you might be losing out on potential users. Helpful resource: AppScreens.io
“Optimizing your App Store screens is essential. The downloads of our own apps improved nearly 30%, by adding and localizing headlines to our screens.” — Alexander Marktl, Founder AppScreens.io & iTranslate
Number of downloads Alongside ratings & reviews, app downloads are a factor in ASO. To help increase your number of downloads, consider launching with a nice discount for early adopters and letting the press know about your launch & discount 2-3 weeks in advance. That’ll give the journalists time to check out the app for themselves, prepare their content, and it gives you time to send out any followups too! Freemium apps are also inherently more likely to attract downloads since there’s no up-front cost for the user, so that’s another option. This isn’t to say you can’t monetise because you can always offer in-app purchases, but it’s far more likely to drive up downloads than a paid app.
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Media coverage Leveraging blogs & websites to reach larger audiences.
Getting covered on blogs & websites Mainstream vs. niche audiences Chasing after coverage from larger websites is fine — content from sites like TechCrunch are a powerful way to drive up interest in your app — but don’t neglect the smaller blogs that cover your niche in the process! There are so many blogs & websites out there with engaged communities that it’s a wasted opportunity if you don’t reach out to them. Helpful resource: How to pitch your app and get it reviewed As an example: does your app serve the business/productivity community? Rather than focusing solely on app review websites on your platform, get in touch with niche business bloggers and YouTubers who have a focus on business, startups, productivity and entrepreneurship. Have you built a health & fitness app? Reach out to lifestyle and health bloggers and YouTubers.
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App reviews Whether you’re working on a totally new app or a major update to an existing one, consider giving selected journalists and bloggers early & exclusive access to your app. Think of it as a “journalist preview”. Why? Firstly, bloggers & journalists love exclusives, and giving them early access gives them a chance to actually use your app and prepare their content in time for the launch date. Secondly, it gets them involved in the process; you can ask for their feedback on the app and actually make tweaks before the final release. There are obviously no guarantees, but if they feel involved and like your app, they’re more likely to produce content about it! Where’s your competition? Tools like OpenSiteExplorer and Majestic make it nice and simple to track down where your competitors have been mentioned & linked to. Those are usually your easy wins for getting coverage — the “low hanging fruit” if you will — because if that website has covered a similar app in the past, there’s a much better chance of getting yours covered too. What you need to think about is, why should those websites cover you: what makes your app (or your story) so special and unique? Once you’ve nailed that down to a convincing pitch, make a list of all the websites you want to get covered on and start reaching out to those writers! Partner up for giveaways Used in moderation, giveaways are a great way to get your app in front of a whole new audience, usually for free. (Be careful though: too many giveaways can negatively affect the perceived value of your app.)
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Where a full review of your app can be more time consuming for the blog/ influencer to write up, giveaways are generally easier to set up and promote. They’re great ways for those blogs & influencers to drive traffic back to their website; you generate awareness of your app from an audience you wouldn’t otherwise reach; and both of you are able to collect an email list from entries in the process too! It’s a win-win all round.
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Social media & advertising Get the most out of free & paid platforms.
Leveraging social media Paying attention on social media Between the millions of tweets, questions on sites like Reddit & Quora and videos on YouTube, people are having conversations about the problems your app solves every single day. That’s a huge opportunity for you to engage with these people and let them know about your app! It might be time-consuming to find conversations oneby-one, but it’s a free and direct approach to connecting with new potential users. They have a problem and you have the solution, so let them know about it! Tip: tools like Mention can notify you when someone mentions a particular keyword/app. Also check out Twitter’s Advanced Search tool. Social media isn’t just about promotion though. It’s also great for brand management since you can stay on top of negative mentions and unhappy
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customers, allowing you to deal with them before things escalate and ruin your brand. Showcase your users “Over” is an iOS app that allows you to easily add text & artwork to your photos, and they’re an app using social media really well. As an image-focused app, they use Instagram to reshare images users have created with Over. All users have to do is apply the hashtag #madewithover to their posts, and Over showcases the best ones on their own Instagram page. It shows off what the app can do, creates a steady stream of content for the brand to publish, and allows the app to organically reach a wider audience through the hashtag. This isn’t limited to image apps either. Even for ‘less sexy’ apps, you can still create interesting case studies about the unique ways people are using your app, then post it on your website and use social media to share it! Encourage sharing in-app “PhoneExpander” by Nice Mohawk executes in-app sharing really well. When you download the PhoneExpander trial and go to buy the full version, a small popup offers you a $5 discount for sending out a Tweet or Facebook share. It’s a brilliant incentive for getting users over the line and getting yourself some social exposure in the process! Another common technique used in apps is to incentivise social sharing when users achieve something, like successfully completing their to-do list, or saving a certain amount of space from their device. Whatever you do, make sure you’re asking for shares at the right time, avoiding any interruptions to the user’s workflow. 18 18
PhoneExpander incentivises sharing with a $5 discount
Paid advertising Digital ads Considering all the data Google, Twitter and Facebook have, it’s now easier than ever to create super targeted ads. However with so many options to choose from, you’ll need to experiment to really figure out what platform is right for your app. Using the earlier example of iOS app, Over, it would make sense for them to advertise on image-based platforms like Instagram (or Pinterest) since that’s where they’re really active, rather than using Google ads for instance. On the other hand, a text editor for Mac would be better off using Google ads instead, targeting keywords like “text editor for Mac”. It all depends on where you’re more likely to catch your target audience! Sponsorships Unlike display ads which have become widely ignored by website visitors, sponsorships usually involve a more prominent approach where content
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producers explicitly mention & promote apps using dedicated articles, display ad positions and social media exposure. The caveat with sponsorships is that they involve a larger up-front cost, and as with any advertising there’s no guarantee it’ll work. For that reason spend some time researching which blogs/websites are most relevant to your app and most likely to provide the best return on investment before diving in. Tip: sponsoring larger, mainstream audiences may be tempting, but are there smaller, targeted audiences who may be interested in your app?
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Email marketing Email is one of the most direct & personal marketing channels.
Building an email list Despite the power of social media, the unfortunate part is that you have to play by their rules. If Facebook decides to change their algorithm tomorrow, a proportion of your fans might not see your posts unless you pay for it. If Twitter shuts down one day (unlikely any time soon), you could lose all of the followers you earned. It’s a scary thought! An email list on the other hand is 100% yours. It’s a direct, personal and effective marketing channel you can use for things like cross-promoting your other apps, sending out news and launching your new apps. The best part is you far more control over it than other platforms like social media. Of course, the challenge is in actually building an email list of your own, so here are a few things you can try to grow yours.
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“Time and time again I’ve seen email work better than anything else. For example sending out an update to our Realmac email list can literally boost our app up the the App Store charts. Not only that it generate 1,000's of extra dollars in revenue.Twitter and Facebook combined isn't even close to the return we see with email.” — Dan Counsell, Founder Realmac Software
Pre-launch campaigns During your pre-launch phase, consider setting up a landing page with sneak previews of what’s coming in your new version (or new app) to get people excited, and be sure to include a sign-up form. That way you can encourage visitors to sign up to your exclusive email list, with behind-the-scenes information, more information on launch dates and even early adopter discounts! Another strategy that has been hugely successful for certain apps, namely Mailbox, a cross-platform mail app, is the invite-only system. Users only needed to drop in their email address to ‘reserve’ their spot in the app.
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The benefits? Mailbox gained user data, the invite system worked as a PR tool to get people talking about the app, and importantly, this strategy got Mailbox thousands of downloads without even being live! Now before you go ahead and set up an invite-only system for your next app, take this technique with a pinch of salt. Mailbox was successful with their campaign because of a solid combination of a well-designed app, an effective invite system and probably most importantly: it solved a huge, mainstream problem that most people would care about. Unlike other apps solving niche problems, this was mainstream enough for the press to cover it — that’s a big factor. Going the extra mile for your users Keyboard Maestro is a Mac app that let’s you get more out of your keyboard, with various shortcuts and other neat time-saving tricks. Because it’s such a powerful tool and there’s so much you can do with it, the app asks for your email address during the initial setup process, and in exchange the developer sends automated hints & tips straight to your mailbox over the next few days. This sort of automated emailing process is also known as a “drip campaign”, but what’s important here is that the developer is going above and beyond the initial sale; his goal is to help users get real value out of the app and feel that it was worth the $30+ investment. Think about how you can do the same for your users. It’s a great way to build your email list with little work (since the emails can be automated), helps customers draw value from your app and as a result, they’re more likely to recommend it.
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Provide incentives While Keyboard Maestro provides useful hints & tips, RealMac Software’s to-do app, Clear, offers free unlockable content instead. (And let’s be honest, everybody loves free stuff!) During the setup process the app incentivises users to join RealMac’s newsletter in exchange for a free unlockable theme for the app. So have a think: is there anything interesting or cool you can offer users in exchange for their email address?
RealMac Software offers a free theme in exchange for your email
Giveaways As touched on earlier in this eBook, giveaways can be really powerful ways to grow an email list, since you’re leveraging their existing audience. Research some of the influencers and niche websites in your space — particularly those with audiences that would actually care about your app and 24 24
the problems it solves — and ask them whether they’d be interested in running a giveaway of your app. Sharing useful content Blogging about the things your audience cares about can be powerful for SEO and building a reputation in your app’s niche, but it’s also a powerful way to attract email signups. Once you’re putting out regular, useful content you can create signup forms on your site, encouraging visitors to sign up to your mailing list.
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Bundles & promotions Reach larger audiences, drive up revenue and gain customer data.
Bundles usually involve ‘bundling’ together a number of apps & games and selling them for a discounted price. They’re not a sustainable, long-term strategy by any means, but used in moderation, bundles can be a great way to drive up revenue, grow your email list and gain exposure. Exposure to a larger audience From a branding standpoint, getting involved in bundles allow you to reach much larger audiences than you’d be able to reach on your own. So even if you include one of your smaller apps in the bundle, you can then use the email data to cross-promote your flagship app. Revenue spikes One of the more obvious benefits of getting involved in bundles is the revenue spike they bring. Thanks to the exposure to a larger audience and (typically) low price points, bundles tend to generate much higher sales volumes than individual sales of the apps, meaning more revenue for you.
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More customer data for new versions Bundles are quite popular when preparing a major version upgrade, because apart from the extra sales, you’re able to generate a bunch of new customer data. You can then use that data for marketing the new version and crossselling your other apps.
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Final thoughts Here are a few key takeaways from this guide to app marketing: • Build amazing apps. It goes unsaid, but your priority needs to be on building amazing apps. You’ll still need to spend time on marketing, but if you’ve built a solid product and your initial users love it, there’s a much better chance of it doing well. • Invest in relationships. Often overlooked, but investing time in building valuable relationships with bloggers & journalists, influencers in your niche and even your users can help you to build a truly successful app (and business). • Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. From basic ASO tweaks to producing valuable content for your target audience, there are plenty of simple ways to get your app noticed. It doesn’t have to be difficult. • Leverage the assets you have access to. Too often developers are looking for silver bullets (like getting covered on TechCrunch etc.), ignoring their own assets. Your website, blog, app store page and social media accounts all give you the opportunity to reach your audience — make the most of them! If this eBook has been helpful, let us know on Twitter by sharing this eBook using the button below.
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Everything you need to sell & manage your apps Paddle’s range of developer tools make it incredibly simple to sell and manage your apps from a single dashboard. With Paddle’s checkout you can give customers a beautiful & seamless payment experience where they never have to leave your website. And with inapp analytics for desktop & mobile, you can gain valuable insights that drive your development and marketing decisions.
If you’d like more information, please email
[email protected] or you can find us on Twitter with username @PaddleBiz.
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