by Seyhmus Olker

You are an app owner. You built a flawless app. A great mobile designer helped you with the UX. It is now an extraordinary app. What’s next? Being such an amazing app it will definitely rock the world. Well, things don’t usually work that way. You missed one more step. You didn’t figure out the way you will present it to your audience. How they will find it? “I have a billion-dollar app, it will promote itself”, you will say, but how do you plan to convince users to pay that money? The answer is “Mobile Marketing” and we will discuss further the reasons why it is mandatory to understand the opportunities you have for making your app visible in front of your customers. We will focus our demonstration on mobile apps but the following statements are available for all types of products because we reached an era where everything is related to the mobile ecosystem.

Before we start, let’s answer the two most important questions:

What is mobile app marketing?

Mobile app marketing is a marketing strategy that involves interacting with your users through their entire lifecycle, starting when they first hear about your app in order to promote your mobile app and increase its downloads and other important mobile apps KPI’s.

What’s the difference between mobile app marketing and mobile marketing?

Mobile app marketing focuses on app promotion, whereas mobile marketing is a broader term that can mean any marketing activity occurring on a mobile device.

Reasons Why Mobile Marketing Is So Important

Do you really need mobile marketing for reaching success? Let’s see.

Study The Statistics

We will start with the numbers. Mobile Marketing Statistics Compilation published by Smart Insights a few months ago is the best way to understand how customers’ behavior influences the trajectory of every business (big or small). Did you know that more than 90% of the time on mobile is spent in apps?

At the same time it is equally important to analyze the best moment when your customers are available and what devices they are using like it is shown in this chart. This way you will discover how to approach them.

Therefore, taking into account all the variables that play a huge role in the way users interact with your app is proof that you can’t throw your app blindly on the app store and hope for the best. A well-thought mobile application marketing strategy shows its importance here.

We’re talking about 90% of the time spent on mobile devices, the competition is huge! You have to consider a lot of things when developing your mobile app marketing strategy, look at mobile app marketing insights, your competition’s marketing campaigns. You have to decide upon important mobile app marketing KPIs and mobile app marketing budgets, how are you going to market and monetize your mobile app.

There Are Millions Just Like You

You are not alone in this mobile world. Can you see behind the report published by Statista and to observe all the app owners? Just like you, many of them consider that they have the best app on this planet and they invested all their resources in those creations. In fact, some of them did create awarded apps and we share their strategies in our series of Mobile Apps Success Stories which in a certain way is a confirmation of what we are saying today. You probably noticed or you are about to realize that it is impossible to rank higher in app stores without a well-structured plan created while you follow the latest trends in mobile marketing.

The Future Is Now

With the evolution of technology we see bots that sound like humans everywhere. Virtual reality and augmented reality have passed the barriers of games and they are used for almost any purpose. It is a matter of time until they will rule the marketing environment transforming advertising into a fun process. Do you remember that a couple of weeks ago we mentioned the experiments run by Google for its VR Ads? It is a huge thing that will revolutionize the way users receive ads.

Mobile Marketing Is For All Businesses

Take for example location-based ads, the most efficient method for personalizing your strategy when you want to reach the right users, in the best place for sending them your message. Do you have a food app for inviting people to your restaurant? Then you will know who is hungry. Or, maybe you just built a retail app perfect for shopaholics? When they are near your store, why don’t you send them an in-app message showing an offer for their favorite products? Great mobile app marketing strategies do not always include big marketing budgets or a few month-long planning, but they all include putting the customer in the center. For example, Starbucks’ location-based push notification is simple, yet very effective.

Regardless of the features integrated into the app, you must make people understand that you can help them and that you are there whenever they need your services. There are various techniques that make mobile marketing vital for any brand. Additionally, you can use them to promote your awesome game that has the power to entertain users for hours. We say it again; even with the most amazing app you come to a crucial point when you need to present it to your users.

Bonding With Customers

Mobiles, by their nature, allow you to create a long term relationship between you and your customers. And in mobile app marketing, you impose the rules. You select the best strategy, you decide what technique works better for your app category, and in what way you will approach your users. It is a flexible ecosystem that allows you to connect with your users in a way never seen before. Going back to your mobile app, you probably started to create it as a method for solving a problem and now if you promote it you will manage to bring your solution in front of those specific persons who really need it. It is about knowing your target audience and serving them what they want in the best possible way.

Everybody Else Is Doing It

Yes, this is the worst motivational saying in all the other cases, but in this situation you need to be (at least) one step ahead of your competition. If they use all the strategies available for promoting their apps, and you do nothing for this purpose, your creation will remain way behind. Always remember the chart from Statista you saw before and imagine your users browsing through millions of apps in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store without any hints about your great app. It would be awful to see how they use other apps when you invested so much effort in building yours. At the same time you are probably asking yourself why they don’t use your app. We can tell you why, because they can’t find it. That’s where mobile app marketing comes in. By developing a killer marketing campaign, you make sure customers find you, bond with you, and stay with you.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Let’s put it this way: Every product needs help to get in front of its customers, no matter how good it is. And with the evolution of app stores, apps need mobile marketing more than ever to reach their audience. Is that simple and hopefully now you are aware of its importance and you are prepared for this fight with the most powerful weapons.

This article was taken from www.appsamurai.com.