With over 2.2 million apps in Apple’s App Store and over 2.8 million Android apps to choose from, consumers enjoy a plethora of options. But this competitive app marketplace spells a challenge for developers and app owners who are left pondering ways to increase mobile app installs.
So how do you maximize your chances of success by boosting the number of active installs for your mobile app? Well, the most effective strategies are multi-pronged, attacking the problem from several different angles. This can include optimizing your app store presence, increasing the number of ratings and reviews of your app, and promoting your app through influencers or on social media.
Increase Mobile App Installs With App Store Optimization
App store optimization is a fundamental element of your app’s recipe for success. Even so, a surprising number of applications lack even the most basic app store optimization. Think of it like this: a majority of app installs occur when a person searches or browses an app store. If your app is not prominently visible in the results, then you might as well be invisible!
Therefore, it is critical that you evaluate and refine your app store presence. You need a branded, descriptive title, a concise and compelling description, and eye-catching visual elements. Something as simple as a bright, memorable app icon and a snappy, well-optimized app name can boost your install rate significantly.
Increase Mobile App Installs With Social Media Advertising and Influencer Promotions
Each niche has a number of key influencers, early adopters who lead the pack when it comes to discovering new apps, gadgets and technology. These influencers can range from magazines and publications to bloggers and columnists, social media personalities, websites and even entire companies.
Influencer promotions are especially important for cutting-edge apps and other innovative technology that has yet to be discovered by the mainstream. So if you’re looking to increase mobile app installs and have an interface that’s unique, you’ll want to identify the influencers who hold the most clout amongst your target audience.
Next, approach a few of these key people or companies to discuss a potential partnership or promotional arrangement. In the case of a company or brand, partnerships can be quite successful. You may find a device manufacturer is willing to recommend your app to its users if you, in turn, recommend their device to your app’s current user base. Influential social media figures can play a major role in your marketing strategy too, as key personalities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube can ramp up exposure significantly. This is especially true if you combine the more organic influencer promotion with traditional social media advertising efforts.
In other cases, a promotion with an individual who is influential within a particular niche might entail asking a prominent blogger to review your app. In fact, this type of review can tie in with another strategy to increase mobile app installs: ratings and reviews.
Increase Mobile App Installs With Ratings and Reviews
Ratings and reviews are critical to an app’s success, as they offer social proof that an application is useful or engaging. In fact, this psychological phenomenon has been found to be extremely powerful, with people being significantly more likely to form a positive view of an app (or anything else, for that matter) if they see that others share this positive view.
Of course, the same concept rings true for negative ratings and reviews, so it’s important that you promptly address any issues that are mentioned in negative reviews. User flow data can also be a valuable source of insight into possible pain points within your app. Together, reviews and user data empower you to refine your app’s interface for an enjoyable user experience.
People tend to be more trusting of reviews in an app store, since the developer does not have the ability to weed out the negative comments. Additionally, it’s widely believed that app store algorithms use an application’s rating as one of the key ranking factors when determining an app’s position in the store’s search query results.
Many developers will include an in-app prompt that periodically appears to encourage users to leave a review. This can be an effective strategy, although the timing of the prompt can greatly impact the overall nature of your app’s reviews. For instance, if your app has lots of features and functionalities, you’ll want to give the user lots of time to explore the interface. Otherwise, if you seek a review too soon, you could see more negative remarks because the user hasn’t mastered the app yet.
Increase Mobile App Installs With Geographic Market Targeting
Some app concepts naturally lend themselves to geo-targeting, which involves marketing your application to people in a specific location. For example, let’s say you have a fishing app that tells you which lakes, ponds, rivers and other bodies of water are seeing lots of fishing activity on a given day. This type of app would be well-suited to certain areas of the country, like Minnesota, so you may find greater success by marketing the app to people in this location and other fishing hotspots.
In fact, geotargeting is just one form of targeting to consider as you refine the marketing and promotional efforts for your mobile app. The best marketing strategies revolve around actual users and the features that make these users unique as a group, such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, education level and interests. Your marketing campaign should be engineered for a precise type of consumer, from the marketing method/venue to graphics and visual elements, voice and overall brand identity. For example, if you’re marketing to children, your campaign might include lots of bold, bright colors, whereas you may take a more elegant, minimalist approach if you’re seeking to appeal to wealthy folks in their 40s. The same goes for where and how you advertise. If you’re targeting pre-teens, then it probably doesn’t make sense to advertise your game in a bar and restaurant directory mobile app.
Once you’ve maximized your app install rate, it’s time to start increasing the number of long-term active users while minimizing uninstalls with a winning strategy—one that blends app store optimization with ratings and reviews, geotargeting and a well-crafted marketing campaign. For this reason, it’s critical that you track both install rates and uninstall rates.
Remember that app development is not a one-time event; rather, it’s a continual, ongoing process. As such, you need an experienced app developer who’s well-versed in the technology and the strategies that are critical to success in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace. That’s exactly where 7T can help, as we focus on some of the most innovative emerging technologies, including natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, augmented reality and virtual reality.
Based in Dallas, 7T also has offices in Austin and Houston. Our team is well-positioned to help you achieve your goals, whether you’re located in Texas or another area of the United States. Contact us today to discuss your app concept.
