App Adoption Playbook
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App Adoption Playbook How to Plan, Execute, and Measure App Promotion Table Of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................3 1. Planning Your App Adoption Strategy.............................................................................5 2. Choosing The Right Channels For Your App ..............................................................6 2.1 Optimizing Product Listing for Maximum Conversions ......................................................9 2.2 Word-of-Mouth Virality ...............................................................................................................................15 2.3 Driving Adoption Using Social Media .............................................................................................16 2.4 Social Media Influencers ...........................................................................................................................20 2.4 The Mobile Web ...............................................................................................................................................21 2.5 Other Promotion Channels .....................................................................................................................22 3. Measuring App Adoption Success ....................................................................................23 3.1 Retention ..............................................................................................................................................................25 3.2 Push Notifications ..........................................................................................................................................28 3.3 Conversions ..........................................................................................................................................................30 Appendix .....................................................................................................................................................34 Introduction The art and science of app adoption can be a daunting task for any brand that is just starting out on their mobile transformation journey. This playbook offers a step by step approach to app adoption, including planning, executing, measuring, and optimizing app adoption roadmap. It provides specifics on the strategies, channels, tactics and metrics to make sure the user is armed with all the tools for success. It is important to understand that app adoption is a continuous journey and not a destination, requiring continuous effort continuous effort in optimizing the app itself and app adoption tactics. It is not simple but certainly necessary – and within reach of any brand with the motivation to make it happen. Plan Optimize Measure Release Test 1 Planning Your App Adoption Strategy PLANNING YOUR APP ADOPTION STRATEGY There are many aspects to consider and address when laying down your app adoption roadmap. A methodical and structured approach will help make sure that the plan is bulletproof. The System to Follow for can it be analyze marking optimize Successful App Adoption idea tested quickly? results ; Identify all potential app marketing channels do more ; Narrow down based on what is most likely to of it influence your target audience does it works on Estimate the likelihood the user will be ; no yes a small-scale? exposed to message when on mobile device ; Run small-scale tests for 3 channels no yes ; Create a feedback loop to determine future actions ; Adjust, optimize, refresh Source: Woodridge Growth, Inc. 5 App Adoption Playbook NewStore.com 2 Choosing The Right Channels For Your App CHOOSING THE RIGHT CHANNELS FOR YOUR APP There are several dozen app marketing channels that can be used to drive traffic. Successful app adoption requires that a brand implements a system for quickly identifying the best channels for acquiring users in the target market. What attributes should you use to evaluate a potential marketing channel? Cost Targeting Control Input Time Output Time Scale How much How deep does How much How much The time it will The potential money do you this channel control do you time is required take to know if reach of this need to spend let you go have on who to prepare you should do channel, and to validate the with audience downloads the experiments? more or do less. how long it channel? targeting? app as a result? can last. 7 App Adoption Playbook NewStore.com CHOOSING THE RIGHT CHANNELS FOR YOUR APP What are the most powerful channels Expert Advice for mobile app discovery? The key to driving downloads is to discover what channels The top ways smartphone users discover new apps to download are via work best based on the target audience and focus your App Store search, word-of-mouth, social media, websites and mobile ads. energy on mastering those channels For retail brands, Facebook and Instagram have a highly active mobile user-base allowing them to reach their target audience with precision. 25% 21% 21% Most Common App Discovery Channels Among Smartphone Users 20% Source: comScore MobiLens, U.S., Age 13+, 3 Month Average Ending June 2016 vs. June 2015 16% 16% 15% 14% 14% June 2015 June 2016 11% 11% 10% 9% 9% 9% 9% 8% 8% 8% 6% 5% 0% Searched App Store Featured/Top List in App Store Via Friend/Family Via Comment/Review/Social site Via News/Print/Review/TV Show Via a Website Via an Ad on Device Browser/App Via Ad on TV/Print/Billboard App Store Word-of-Mouth/Opinion Advertising/Marketing 8 App Adoption Playbook NewStore.com CHOOSING THE RIGHT CHANNELS FOR YOUR APP 2.1 Optimizing Product Listing for Maximum Conversions Optimized presence in the App Store and/or Google Play is the first step in launching a new app. App Store Optimization (ASO) focuses on increasing the app's visibility, discoverability, and conversion rate in the App Store and/or Google Play. A well-executed App Store Optimization is the foundation of an app adoption success: discovery channel for new apps across all age groups #1 (Source: ComScore, 2015) Expert Advice A simple way to think ASO is the SEO for apps. % of downloads come directly from App Store search 65 (Source: App store Website - Apple, 2016) App Store Optimization involves two buckets of activities: Asset Optimization Keyword Optimization 9 App Adoption Playbook NewStore.com CHOOSING THE RIGHT CHANNELS FOR YOUR APP Keyword Optimization The keywords you choose to include in the app name and meta tags have a direct impact on the organic presence of your app in the search results. Search “fashion shopping” on the App Store and the top 10 results will appear. You will notice that many of the results have ‘fashion’ in the app name. If they do not, then ‘fashion’ appears in the meta keywords. How do you select your keywords? Choosing the right keywords for an app depends on a number of considerations. First and foremost, what words do real people use to describe the value of your app and the functionality/content your app offers? Keyword Demand: Do people search Competitive Opportunity: Is there an Intent Alignment: Does the keyword for this keyword? opportunity rank for this keyword? align with the app functionality? Use tools like Sensor Tower and even Search for a keyword on the App Store In other words, if a user downloads Google Keyword Planner to gauge the and see how popular the #1 apps are. your app because they found it when demand. searching for a ‘shopping discount’ app, will they be delighted by the discounts in the app? 10 App Adoption Playbook NewStore.com CHOOSING THE RIGHT CHANNELS FOR YOUR APP How do you measure App Store Optimization success? When we log into iTunes Connect dashboard, we can see a range of metrics. The metrics related to our keyword strategy are impressions, product page views, and app units. App Store Impressions: This is a new metric available within iTunes Connect that shows us how many impressions come from App Store search results and on the Top Charts. Product Page Views: A product page view occurs when a user clicks through to the App Store product page view. Sales >> App Units: This measures the number of times the app is installed. When users see your app in When users click-through to Finally, when the app is the search results, it counts your product listing, it counts successfully installed, it as an impression as a Page view counts as an App Unit 11 App Adoption Playbook NewStore.com CHOOSING THE RIGHT CHANNELS FOR YOUR APP How do you know if your App Store Optimization keyword strategy is working? First, you should track your app’s organic rankings for the keywords you specified. You can do this using Sensor Tower, a vendor for app data and insights. Once you input your app, you enter the keywords you wish to track. If you notice an increase in organic presence for these terms, represented by the ranks going up, then this is a good sign. The key, though, is to see how ranking #1 (through #10) for a given term impacts overall impressions. How do you turn our impressions into page views? To increase the percentage of people who click-through to your product page listing, we can optimize the following elements: App Name: Are the keywords you use in Rating Stars: Does your app have an First Two Screens: Do they visually your name relevant to the search query? overall rating of three or fewer stars? communicate value that aligns with the search intent? How do you increase your click-to-install conversion rate? Shopping