how to get 100000 downloads to my app How to bootstrap your app marketing: 100,000 downloads in 24 hours. Mobile app stores are so saturated that trying to get noticed, even for great apps, is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. How an indie dev or just a poor man budget should approach it? Let me share my story on how we are trying to hit 100,000 downloads in 24 hours with a start- up budget. Dogfight is a multiplayer World War I flight simulator for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Windows 8. I’m very attached to it, for one very simple reason: I programmed the whole thing all by myself. I began programming it on 2009 as a hobby and throughout the years it grew from a horrible airplane with a flat terrain into a community of millions of players that protect zeppelins, take over air fields and switch from airplanes to tanks and then go all Counter Strike style as walking soldiers. Dogfight is therefore my little baby. My Dogfight alter ego, Zuperman, has spent countless sleepless hours improving it, listening to existing players and contributing to its forum. (Example of 13 pages post with feedback: http://www.dogfightplay.com/index.php/forum/2-gossip/35918-what-you-want-me-to-do-for-the-next-dogfight. It has paid off. When you step into the game, you will notice that chivalry is the norm. The first problem when marketing anything, is that you need a good product. Without it, you simply need a miracle for your campaign to succeed. I think we are good to go in here. Dogfight is free, it is also pretty simple and that’s probably part of the charm. You don’t have fire-and-forget missiles nor power-shields, it is just you and your skills as a pilot. Your gun and your plane versus the whole world out there. The community has also evolved into a life of its own. Pilots set up schedules to meet in air, patrol to help new comers and work together as squadrons. It all translates into great game play and great app store reviews. Dogfight has a rating of 4 to 5 stars on average of the thousands of reviews on any of the stores where the game is available and the game keeps growing at a steady pace. First, as a free app, Dogfight requires millions of players who can either see the ads or make in-app purchases. The percentage of players who click on ads or buy is so small, that unless you have thousands of new players joining in daily, it is not economically viable or a sustainable business. Secondly, any app store is so saturated with hundredths of thousands of apps that the chance of finding yours among the others is very small. If you noticed above, I said the game is played by a few million players. Even then, which such vast amount of mobile users and apps, the chances you’ve heard of Dogfight before today are slim and the game is barely ranked 250 to 300 in the Games/Action and Games/Simulation section. It doesn’t take long to realize that you either have a marketing budget or you and your app are probably toasted in no time. To summarize a few years of personal marketing blunders and miscalculations, you need to find a medium that will create enough exposure at a cost that is less than the revenue provided. Or in other words: don’t spend more than you bring in. This basic concept has become increasingly difficult to achieve. With such high demand to get your app noticed, publishers, PR agencies and “mobile media optimizers” have flourished, but most follow the simple motto that they pay the user or an intermediary, money to download your app. But how much does it cost to get highly noticed? I’ve contacted many “optimizers” during the past year, the numbers varies from country, category and period of time such as national holidays or vacations. But a few “guaranteed” your position in the top 25 in games category with about 25,000 daily downloads and at a cost of about $150,000 for a 3 to 4 days campaign, and afterwards you have no guarantee your game will stay there. Let that sink in. Unless by some random capricious event such as Apple or Google deciding to promote your game as an editor’s pick, you are going to have to drop big bucks to be able to get a spot on the featured list. That list therefore, must and will be dominated by big players who can afford such an incredible amount of money. Indie devs chances? One in a million. (or when Apple or Google decide to hand pick you). Is there a way around? If you are an indie dev or, like me, live in a country where $150k represents your marketing budget for half a decade, you have to figure out a better way. My budget as a start-up is $10,000. There are a few things I can’t work around. There is no way around the store ranking system, which is based on number of positive reviews and daily downloads. I cannot work around the fact that I will need to achieve an incredible amount of downloads per day. I cannot work around the other fact that many people will be competing to achieve what I’m trying to achieve. But, I can try to achieve those downloads at a lower cost. How? – Have a great product: It is ridiculously obvious but if you don’t have a good product, your marketing campaign will come and go up in smoke. You don’t need thousands of downloads to find out whether your app is good. Is your app constantly used outside of your close circle of friends and do you get genuine good reviews? Then you have it. You should see the emails I receive every time I shut down Dogfight’s servers for maintenance. That inbox spike is like an adrenaline shot to have it all back up and running again. – Ask for help from the people that will benefit the most: In my case, it is Dogfight’s community. They will gain most from the game popularity with no cost on their part. They will be able to grow their squadrons, get better support, get the updates they’ve been waiting for months and at the same time know that they helped you succeed. Don’t underestimate people’s willingness to help others when in need. But don’t limit yourself to your direct customers. For instance, why don’t also approach manufacturers of diecast models, history book publishers, or WWI museums? Does your app utilizes a cloud service? Talk to them. Do you use a web hosting? Talk to them. Can you find more players in your industry or peripheral industries that would benefit from your success? They may be willing to help you out with marketing and/or economically. – Call to action, goals and reward: Once you’ve found your key players, make sure you are all in the same page. You have to define your goal, how you expect them to help you arrive there and reward the people that has helped you succeed. I’ve created a simple explanation page with all the details, what I expect, the progress and information on what every player who helps out in the campaign will be getting. The ranking at the page also adds a gamification factor since they can compare with other pilots at http://dogfightplay.com/rocks/?pilotid=1403713. – Viral is a great buzzword: Few buzzwords are as useful as the meaning of a viral campaign. You have to be able to reach the maximum amount of people at a minimum cost. There is nothing cheaper than no cost at all, which is what you get when others begin sharing around your content. This is easier said than done. You should look up all kind of information about how to create viral campaigns and success stories from experts in the subject. For instance check this out: http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-behind-many-viral-videos/ – Generate marketing material and press releases: Getting your app into one of the big media sites like TechCrunch or Bloomberg will bring tons of downloads. The main thing to remember here is that they get bombarded with crappy press releases trying to promote their product so you have to provide a compelling story and added value over whatever everybody else is sending them. Agencies that write up press releases are very affordable and could be great value. You will have to make sure your marketing material such as graphics and videos are the best they can be and go over the text to make sure it shares a compelling story. Nobody will share a PR that reads like an ad about your product. – Be smart with online ads: Online ads are expensive. Very expensive. Don’t wait for the last day to place all your ad budget into a campaign and hit run, you will be surprised how fast your money runs out with almost no impact. My suggestion is to place a small test amount during a few days so that you can analyze your target group. You will find out that certain keywords and images are more effective than others, that random and unexpected geographical locations or age groups are more willing to click your ads than others. After a few days it is no uncommon to lower your cost per install from $1 to $0.3. Multiply that and you just got 3 times more downloads on your campaign thanks to having a little preparation ahead of time. – Time it to perfection: One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen when marketing apps is the lack of coordination between different aspects of the campaign. If you are looking to be on the top of the app store, you need to get all media attention in 24-48 hours. You cannot get a PR out today, online ads 3 days later and a video the next week. If your downloads are spread out many days, your campaign will have little to no impact in your store ranking. Unfortunately, it is not a myth that you need a big budget to effectively promote your game. As in any competitive market, costs of promotions go up, differentiation decrease and margins collapse. The more money you have to place your product in front of your final customer, the better your chances for success. Most mobile advertisers are taking advantage of the situation and overcharging for their services. On the other hand, a hands- on approach to advertising through iAds, Facebook, Google and such, will significantly reduce the costs. Having a great product, planning your marketing campaign in advance and spending a little time to try to understand your market segment will go a long way towards reducing your marketing bill. But most importantly, do not forget that your most important marketing resource is your existing customer base. Cherish them because they hold the key to your success. Top 20 Tips to Get Your Mobile Apps The First 100,000 Downloads. A mobile application’s success can be easily measured by the number of downloads. But because of the fierce competition, it is hard for the app development company to gain new customers. As per the most recent statistics, the google app store has over 1.5 million apps. The apple store is not far behind, with 1.4 million apps. Unless you come up with a radically different idea, chances are that similar apps already exist in the store. This is why it has become important to not only create a promising app but also use effective marketing strategies to market your applications. This collective effort of getting your application to its customers is the process called app store optimization (ASO). The top 20 tips to increase downloads with app store optimization. The revenue from a single mobile app user is very less these days because of the oversaturation of the market. That is why it is essential to attract a lot of customers to download and use the app. This has become hard unless you follow efficient marketing tricks. Attention to detail is an important factor in selling and thus by careful planning, downloads and success of the app can be increased. Here are the Top 20 tips to get your mobile apps the first hundred thousand downloads. Choose the app title strategically. The app title must be chosen in a careful manner. It must be chosen in a way such that it pleases the customers and agrees with the app store target keywords. The keywords must seem to fit in the title quite naturally, or else people will think it is spam. Examples include music.aly an app used to make music videos for Facebook and Instagram, Genius scan which is a PDF scanner and Indeed job search. Relevance, simplicity and visual experience must be key in developing a mobile app. Research keywords thoroughly. An application’s success can be highly influenced by the keywords used to market it. One of the ways to get efficient keywords is market and competitor analysis. But there are other tools that are available to do it. AppCodes AppMind, SearchMan and SensorTower are some of the tools developers are known to use to research keywords. It is also important to remember that Monitoring your keywords after incorporating them into the app. Changing the keywords with market research can be sometimes necessary. Write a clear and concise description. This is not so important from an app store optimization perspective, but it is important for the end-user. The description must involve information about what the app does and its benefits. It must be clear and concise but very informative. A good app description can boost the number of downloads as it is the first things users look at when they visit the app in the store. Get more reviews for your app. Reviews are very important to the app development company and therefore measures should be taken to increase them. The app’s rating influences the position of the app in the app store. It is also important that the app must not trouble the user by asking them to review it. After the user has used the app for a considerable amount of time a gentle pop up can be used to ask a user to rate it. Paid reviews must not be used, as the app store can remove your app if it finds out. Try to minimize the negative reviews. Every user’s review must be taken seriously and the ones which leave negative reviews must be replied to. The problems the user faced must be noted and must be resolved in the bug fixes. New features asked by the users must be included in the upcoming versions of the app. This process must be repeated for every new version release of the app, as it helps to minimize negative reviews. Use localization to get more customers. There are non-English speakers in many parts of the world who want the app to have local languages. By using research, several local languages can be installed in the app. Multiple studies have shown that using localization helps improve user interaction and the number of downloads in the app. Use a catchy logo relevant to your app. Pictures are important in the mobile app’s design. The mobile application’s logo must be designed in such a way that it clearly communicates the purpose of the app to the user. It is an important “selling” point for the app. Try the freemium strategy. Making a paid application at the beginning is not a very good strategy for attracting high downloads. The freemium app store optimization strategy involves giving out the apps for free in the beginning. It is also a good way to get the analytics on an app. In-app purchases can then be used to make revenue through the app. However, the freemium strategy is not suitable for certain utility apps which have a specific purpose to their users and are better than their competitors. Play with the pricing. Pricing must be decided to keeping in mind the competitor’s prices. An app development company can keep the charges of the in-app purchases high in the beginning, this can be then reduced during promotion and other events. Create a compelling preview video. Both the google and apple app store offer the opportunity to upload a preview video for an application. This feature can be taken advantage of to attract more customers to the application. The video must showcase the features and purpose of the app in the timeframe given by the app store. Localize the google play store for the app video. On Google play, one video per the language selected can be uploaded. This introduces the localization feature for videos. People who don’t speak English can then understand the video in their own local language. Youtube’s transcript feature can make the play store use the transcript in the user’s selected language if the video is not uploaded in the local language. Use pinterest to promote the app. Pinterest can be used to create relevant boards around the app category. Creating 8-10 boards with at least 5 relevant pins per board will help promote the app. A board must include app reviews, demos and blog posts about your app. Relevant photos can be added to help in promotion. Create a youtube channel for your app. Creating a youtube channel and incorporating efficient titles in the videos can get extra downloads for the mobile app. If a creative or a funny video is added, it can become effective promotional content for your application. An app development company can easily gain a few hundred downloads from this strategy. Use the video on your app website. On the app’s landing page or its webpage, the link to the video must be added near the “download from app store” button. A custom thumbnail for the video can be added to make it look attractive to the users. Use video ads on facebook. Video ads on Facebook and similar websites can help a lot to attract downloads, as they contain a large number of potential users. Other websites specific to mobile apps exist where video ads can be promoted by the app development company. Tapjoy, Chartboost and Vungle are some of the websites that can be used to promote apps. Focus on a unique feature that sets your app apart. While marketing the app, it is important to focus on the feature that sets the application apart from other apps. This is because rarity is a thing that is sought after even in the store. Every marketing campaign can be centred around such features to increase the number of downloads of the mobile app. Send your video ad to bloggers with a marketing request. Bloggers can influence the market greatly. By paying them to write blogs about the mobile app, an app development company can increase its number of downloads. It is also important to send the video of the app to bloggers. This will help them understand things about the app that will help them write better blogs about them. Apply for awards. For boosting the number of downloads, applying for awards in the app’s category is a good strategy. A number of award competitions can be tried for. Sites that consistently host competitions are tabbyawards.com, mobilepremiumawards.com and startups.co.uk. Other sites that host awards can be found by just searching about them on google. If your app wins an award, press mentions will increase and boost the downloads. Run contests. An app can run interactive contests for its user base like “pin to win” or “tweet to win”. This can be then awarded promo codes that will unlock certain in-app purchases for free. The tweets and the pins can then act as a de facto promotion from the app’s original customers. Optimize your email. In today’s world, one must not miss any chances of publicizing one’s mobile application. This is why even the business email of the company must include marketing material. The email signature can include the link to both the preview video of the app and the download of the app. Conclusion. These days, the market has become too saturated and a new app will certainly have lots of competitors to it. That’s why It is no easy task to get the initial traction going even after the development of an amazing mobile application. Nextbrain technologies is one of the best mobile app development companies that also provides app store optimization services. They have their offices in Bangalore, India and serve many clients worldwide with iOS and Android app development and marketing requirements. How to Get Million Downloads On Your App. With the immense amount of competition on both the Google Play Store and Apple Store (over two million and counting), convincing the users to install a new app is very challenging. How many times have you heard people say that no matter how innovative your idea is, only those rule the stores and users’ devices that have already established themselves in the market? Having developed a series of apps that have hit the million downloads mark, our team of app developers that it is nothing but hearsay. With the right blend of development and marketing, you can boost mobile app downloads and can help it reach the million mark too. While you have the support of our app developers to help build a robust app, to bring you up to speed with the marketing front of getting million app downloads , we have curated a guide for your journey. We have divided this guide into two parts – Pre and Post Launch of your Mobile Application , both of which together will help you get answer to ‘ How to Get More App Downloads ’. Let us start with the pre launch part of mobile app promotion strategy first to to ensure that you are prepared to woo the Million of App Store users, even before it has found a place in their devices. Pre-launch success preparation of your mobile app. Ideally, the efforts you are putting in this stage should start at least 2 months before the actual launch in the stores. Start with the pre launch stage as soon as your app enters the last testing stage. How to ensure that You Get Maximum App Download From the Technical Front – Ensure that Your App Doesn’t Crash. Prepare your app in a way that it doesn’t crash even once after it is downloaded on users’ devices. You have to understand that the stores are full of extremely impatient users, who will abandon after even two repeated instances of crashes. Presence of an Intuitive UI. Run through your App’s UI as many times as possible. Look into how easy it is for your audiences’ demographics to move inside the app , if the UX elements are in line with what they are used to work around with. And, finally, it’s easy for them to move inside once they have done the app download deed. Get Your App Tested Enough. Test your app not just on different devices but also on different operating system versions and in under different network conditions. Don’t even think about rolling it out for downloads, before you have ensured that your app is tested and secured against every permutation and combination of users’ movement. How to ensure that You Get Maximum App Download From the Marketing Front. Set Up Pre-Launch Ad Campaign. Start with creating anticipation about your app on your website, the social media channels, platform where your people of your app community visits and uses most often. Through all your mediums, prepare your audience for the time to come and how it would change their life. Don’t show them anything other than your logo at this stage. Your time to showcase your app would come, but it’s not now. Prepare to Rule the App Store Listings. Your probability of getting maximum app downloads is directly proportional to your placement in your category list. The higher you are in the list, the greater are the chances of visibility and click through rates. Draft an ASO and PSO strategy. Start getting videos and screenshots made to showcase your creation in the stores, have a set of keywords ready with you, draft content to post in the app description section. Open your Doors for the Press. Just days, around two weeks before the actual launch of the app , send invites to the press and PR agencies to cover it and post its coming in their dailies. Infact, now would be time when you contact websites that curate lists like ‘App of the day’ and get your name on the lists. With just two or three weeks to the launch, announce your coming to the Android and Apple Store to the world. Invest in PPC. Just week before you become available to app downloads , invest in a PPC campaign. Run your ads on Google on every keyword and phrases that are related to your app category and similar to what your users are looking for. This was it on the Pre Launch part of Taking Your App towards Million downloads. To sum up, you have to create anticipation, promote your application everywhere your audience is and while you are doing this, focus on how the development process is coming up. Now that you know the pre launch part of ensuring the success of your mobile app before it is launched in the stores, let us look into the post launch parts of its success. This is exactly where all your efforts would pay off. Post-launch success preparation of your mobile app. The cumulative effort that you had put up until this part both in development and marketing, boils down to this stage, when it’s time to reap the benefits. But your dream to achieve million downloads still requires time and efforts to become real. Post Launch efforts to reach million app download s are in many ways much higher than your pre launch work as now it’s time to deliver the users what you had created an anticipation for. Here are the ways you can pave the last road to your million app download mark – Submit Your App To Sites Like ProductHunt. There are a number of websites like ProductHunt that allows app developers to post their live app and get helpful feedback, visibility, and more often than not investors for their apps. While investing in PR agencies and mobile based news websites will help you sail through the initial growing awareness phase, there are not viable for the long run. To keep getting downloads in the long run, you will have to make your application visible to people who would be genuinely interested in them. In-App Advertisements. The next step in the process of ensuring that you have left no door unopened is by investing in in-app advertising models. Get in talks with popular apps that have space to insert your ad in theirs. By placing your ad in the popular applications , you will be able to increase your visibility score to a great number. Plan Referrals. One of the major reasons behind Uber’s success is their referral program. They make it beneficial for users to share it with their friends and family, in the form of discounted rides. Depending on what your app is about, you can offer free lives, discount, free product, or even a gift voucher to the user and their family/ friend who uses their referral code. Inauguration Discount. If your app belongs to the paid category, you should offer yours for free in the first month or make the prime features available on an off or discount. While planning on the features that you would be offering for free, make sure you go with the ones that will become coveted after they are not free or on discount anymore. If you make those features free which already comes with no price tag in the same category apps, the users will abandon yours. Remain Visible. It is very easy for the users, both prospects and the ones who have your app installed with them, to forget about your existence amidst the billions o f other i n the stores. So, keep reminding them of the value that only you can get them. Continue making appearance in the places they frequent. These are the ways you can not just pave the road to a million downloads but also ensure the longevity of your mobile application in the overcrowded stores. Having developed a number of million hits products with the help of our app developers , we understand that while a major portion of your app’s success depends on how far you are able to promote it in the world, it all boils down to your idea and its value offering ability. If your application is able to offer some value to its users that they cannot get in the same form, ease or speed elsewhere, they will spread the news. Another thing that matters in defining your app success is how much attention you are paying to your customers’ needs. How responsive you are to their issues and what is your correction time. So, what really matters in the long run is how well your app is developed, the kind of value it is able to offer, and how responsive you are with your users’ needs. Get to 1+ Million Installs For Your App. When your app first launched, I taught you how to get your first 1,000 downloads for it. But now that your app has been out for a while, it’s time to aim much higher than that. We’re shooting for one million installs. With so many apps available in the app store, you’ve got lots of competition. Some of you may think that this number is unrealistic or unattainable. Where are you right now? You may not even have 100,000 downloads yet, nevermind one million. But I’m here to tell you that it’s possible. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this will be an easy task. But if you follow my advice, I’ll steer you in the right direction and you’ll be on your way toward one million. Prioritize performance. The people who already have your app installed on their devices are going to have a major impact on you getting more downloads. That’s because their experience is going to play a large role in how other people see your app. So you’ve got to make sure that your app is performing well at all times. Nobody’s app is perfect. The occasional bug, error, or crash can happen to anyone, including you. But when something like this happens it’s your job to identify those errors and fix them right away. Do whatever you can to make sure that this won’t happen again. You can implement continuous integration into your process to help limit mistakes, especially if you have multiple developers working on a project together. With continuous integration in place, you’ll go through a series of stages for quality control purposes. This process will help your app run smoothly. If your app doesn’t run efficiently, then people who already downloaded it aren’t going to keep using it. That means that they won’t recommend it to their friends and family either. In fact, they may do the exact opposite. 31% of users will tell others about their poor experience with a mobile app. You obviously don’t want this to happen on your quest toward a million downloads. You need people to be happy with your app and tell everyone they know how great it is. Take pride in your app. Don’t release updates that aren’t fully functional and don’t have the glitches worked out yet. Encourage high ratings and reviews on the app store. This piggybacks off of our last point. When an app performs well, users will be much more likely to give it a favorable ranking and maybe even review it on the app store. But there’s one obstacle you’ll need to overcome. Here’s the thing. People probably won’t go out of their way to leave a review unless your app really changed their lives. Let’s be honest here for a minute, it probably didn’t. Instead, people who had a poor experience are more likely to leave unfavorable ratings and reviews. So it’s your job to encourage the users who love your app and use it often to leave a review and rate it on the app store. This needs to be part of your mobile marketing strategy. One of the ways to do this is just by asking them nicely. Send a popup notification when they open the app to encourage them. Here’s an example from Emoji Blitz of what that popup can look like. You’ve got to be careful when you take this approach. Don’t send this popup every time someone opens your app or they’ll get annoyed. This will ruin their experience and have the opposite effect of what you’re trying to accomplish. You could even offer an incentive for users who rate your app or leave a review. For example, you could give them a discount off of their next purchase, or free coins if you’ve got a gaming app. Just make sure that you’re not soliciting good reviews. Don’t say, “Leave us a five-star review to get a discount.” Instead, just ask them to please review the app. Understand your platform. You need to become an expert on the platform that your app is available on. If your app is already on the market, then you previously decided to build for Apple or Android . For those of you who haven’t built your app yet, I admire you for reading this before your app is released. Thinking about one million downloads before you start development is great. Good for you! Deciding on your platform was one of the most important decisions that you’ve had to make during this process. Hopefully, you’ve already done some of the legwork back during your development stages to understand how the platform you chose works. You’ve got to know the app store optimization differences between the Apple Apple Store and Google Play Store. Familiarizing yourself with the app store optimization factors for each platform will help you get more downloads. For example, as you can see from the image above, social and links affect your ranking for the Google Play Store, but not the Apple App Store. So focusing on this from Apple’s platform would be a waste of time, while ignoring it from Google’s platform would hurt your rank. There are also differences in where you can put keywords in your store listing. If you want to attract new downloads based on your app description, you can only change the description with a new update for iOS devices. But with the Google Play Store, you can change your description at any time. You’ve also got to understand how Apple users behave differently from Android users . Do your research and you’ll learn that iOS users spend more money than Android users . You’ll also discover that iOS users make more money. Use this research to your advantage to make sure that you’re properly targeting users on whichever platform your app is available on. This will help you position your app correctly in the store and ultimately lead to more downloads. Leverage social media channels. Your current and prospective users are both active on social media platforms. I’ve already discussed how important it is to keep your current users in mind when it comes to getting new downloads. You need to be living on these platforms as well. This will help you get your current user base to use your app more frequently, especially if you’re running promotions or offering deals via social media. An active social media presence will also expose your app to a wider audience. Encourage user-generated content by engaging daily with your social media followers. These interactions can cause them to post, tweet, share, and favorite content that will be seen by their followers too. As a result, more people will hear about your app and brand, which will help you get more downloads from the new exposure. Social media is a great mobile marketing channel because it gives you the opportunity to respond to your followers in real time. You can also communicate with people who haven’t downloaded your app yet. They may have questions about your brand or app. Answering their questions in a timely and professional way will lead to new downloads. Try to get in contact with social influencers to help promote your app as well. Take a look at the top reasons people have for downloading a new mobile app. The app being recommended by another person ranked highest based on user responses. So getting a social influencer to recommend your app can lead to a ton of downloads. Combine your marketing efforts with other brands and social media pages as well to help create even more exposure and drive installs. Include a direct download link on your social media profiles so users can be directed straight to the app store instead of having to search for your app. Launch on another platform (if you haven’t already) Earlier I talked about understanding the platform that your app is currently on. But being available on just only platform isn’t enough to maximize downloads and get you toward one million. I know that building an app can be expensive, especially if you’re building a native one. But if you can afford it right now, you’ve got to launch on the other platform as soon as possible. You’re excluding a huge chunk of potential downloads if your app is only available on one store. Bringing your app to another platform could potentially get more than double your current downloads. Here’s why. Android devices control more than 70% of the market share across the globe. But as you can see, Apple devices dominate North America . So if your brand is based in the United States, you may have initially launched on the Apple App Store, which is fine. But if you want your app to be consumed by a global audience, it needs to be available in the Google Play Store as well. You can’t expect to hit one million downloads if your app is only offered to one-third of the population with mobile devices. For those of you that still haven’t built an app yet, you may want to consider building a hybrid app so that you can launch on both platforms simultaneously. This will keep costs low and you won’t have to go through the development process twice. You’ll also have a better chance of getting closer to a million downloads right off of the bat, instead of having to wait until your app is built for a second platform. Don’t forget about app accessibility. I want to continue talking about making your app available to the largest number of people possible. Even if you’re available on both platforms, you need to make sure that everybody with a mobile device has the ability to use your app. You’ve got to take into consideration all of the people who are living with disabilities. I’m talking about things that can impair their ability to use your app. People have hearing problems and vision issues. There are people who have problems with their hands, joints, and grip. Other people can suffer from seizures from certain types of flashing lights. Your app needs to be able to accommodate them by offering things like voice assist or captions . The data shows that adding captions to videos has increased engagement by more than 500% since 2012. Don’t neglect this part of the market. Make your mobile app accessible for people with disabilities and you’ll benefit from higher downloads. Blog about it. In addition to social media, you’ve got leverage other platforms as well to promote your app. Blogging has tons of benefits that will help you. Adding blogs to your website gives you fresh new content, which can improve your SEO ranking. As a result, you’ll see an increase in traffic to your website. When people are searching for various things on the Internet related to your app, your website can become a top search result if you’ve got lots of relevant blogs on the topic. Now these people will be more likely to download your app. Include download links to your app directly from your blog. According to Statista , more than half of the global web traffic comes from mobile devices. So there’s a pretty good chance that people will stumble upon your blogs from their mobile devices. That’s why a direct download link will help you increase download conversions. Other websites can also use your blog as a reference. You’ll get a backlink that will drive more traffic to your website as well, which leads to more downloads. Implement a referral program. We saw data earlier that said most people download an app because of a recommendation. So you’ve got to give your current users a reason to recommend your app to friends and family. Sure, you may get some people who recommend your app in passing because they had a good experience, but that’s not a sustainable way to reach a million downloads. Offer an incentive for each referral. Here’s a great example of an incentive offered by Lyft to get more downloads through a referral program. This makes it worth it for both the current user as well as the new one. Your current users get rewarded for their referral, and the new user has a reason to try out your app. Conclusion. One million downloads. Yes, you can do it. Getting a million downloads won’t be easy, but there are certain things that you can do to increase those the chances of reaching such a monumental number. It starts with how well your app performs. If your app runs smoothly, it will be easier for you to get users to give it high ratings and favorable reviews. You’ll also need to get familiar with the platforms that your app is available on so you can put an emphasis on app store optimization. Use social media to promote your app to a wider audience. Blog about your app and have download links on your website. Make sure your app is accessible and can be used by people who have disabilities. Implement a referral program as well. Take these steps that I’ve outlined above and you’ll be on your way toward one million. What strategies are you using to get more people to install your mobile app? How to Get The First 1000 REAL Apple App Store Downloads [FAST] After long months of testing, coding, trial, and error, it’s finally complete. Unfortunately, apps don’t always promote themselves. You’ll need to come up with a launch strategy. So if you just released your app and came to the realization that nobody is downloading it, don’t worry – all hope isn’t lost. Here are some of the most popular apps available on the market today. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you need to try and compete with Facebook or YouTube to have a successful promotion strategy. The graph can just give you an idea of which kinds of apps people like to download the most. It’s never a bad idea to model your approach after companies with proven success stories and track records. There is lots of misleading information out there on the Internet. I’ve seen so many “helpful guides” on this same topic that don’t provide any actual techniques. It’s just a bunch of generic suggestions. As an industry expert, I’ll show you proven methods and data to back it all up. If your new app is struggling, here are the best ways to get REAL downloads – fast. First, figure out exactly why you even want build an app. Let’s backtrack for a second here. Not everyone has already completed the app building process. Some of you are still coming up with ideas and designs. Why are you building an app? Here are some potential scenarios. Because it’s cool You need an app to make your business more efficient It’s a new way to monetize your business You’re trying to build the next unicorn (like Tinder, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) Except for the first bullet point, the rest of these scenarios are valid reasons. OK – so “being cool” may be your initial motivation for wanting to get involved in the mobile application industry, but it’s not enough to get started. If you need some inspiration to get the ball rolling, take a look at which kinds of apps people spend the most time using. This is useful information to those of you who want to build the next unicorn as well. The top categories that encompass the most time spent on mobile apps are: There may be a lot of big name competition in this space, but it could be a home run if you’re successful. If you already have an existing business, mobile applications can be a great way to improve your current concept. You can also incorporate a monetization strategy into your app. It’s a process that converts existing traffic to revenue. Websites do this by implementing advertising strategies such as: Pay per click (PPC) Cost per impression (CPI/CPM) Banner advertisements Affiliate programs Data monetization. You can apply some of these concepts to your app as well. But let’s take a look at some of the most successful driving forces for in-app revenue . Take this into consideration when you’re determining why you want to build an app. Regardless of your reason, you need to get this straightened out before you start worrying about downloads. Once that’s done, you can proceed with your launch strategy. Understanding the iPhone App Store algorithm. To get lots of downloads, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the Apple App Store algorithm. Here’s a comparison you can probably relate to. If you have a website, you’re always trying to optimize your page to get a high ranking on Google’s search engine. That’s pretty much the same concept here. We want to make sure your app is a top hit on iOS platforms. Similar to Google, Apple doesn’t release an exact blueprint that describes specifically what you need to do in order to get a high ranking. You’ve got to read between the lines to figure it out. It’s an imperfect formula, but the Apple developers share some pointers. Here’s what you need to know. It all starts with the name. Make sure the name of your app: Has less than 30 characters Is easy to spell Indicates what the app does Doesn’t have a similar name of an existing app. Focus on the features and functionality when you’re coming up with a subtitle and description. Your description shouldn’t say “The best app on the planet.” Instead, write about some of your top features and make sure users fully understand the purpose of its functions. The title and subtitle both describe what the app does. Make sure you assign an accurate primary category for your app. The category is the best way for users to find you based on what they’re looking for. Examples of categories include: Games News Music Social Networking Travel Photo & Video Health & Fitness Entertainment Medical Education. Here’s something else to consider, if you select a primary category that’s irrelevant to your app’s functions, Apple will reject you from the App Store. Let’s say you have an educational app. But you know (based on the statistics we saw earlier) that social networks are more popular. You might think you’re being slick if you choose to assign social networking as the primary category. Apple sees this as grounds for removal. Obviously, you can’t get downloads if your app isn’t available. Another way to get ranked high in the App Store is by promoting your in-app purchases . Here’s how TypeShift promotes those upgrade options. For $1.99 users can get started with 180 primo puzzles. Apple encourages developers to include in-app purchases in their design. If you’re not sure how to do this, take a look at this guide for setting up in-app purchases on BuildFire’s control panel. It’s really easy to do, so don’t exclude it from your app. Apple allows you to promote up to 20 total items on your in-app purchases page of the description. Ratings are important as well. First off, users may be discouraged from downloading your app if it’s got negative reviews. But furthermore, the Apple App Store algorithm factors these ratings and reviews into your search ranking. Your app must create a positive experience for the user. Once they have time to get used to your platform, send them a notification asking for a review. Take the user feedback into consideration whenever you’re updating your app. Understanding the basic concepts behind Apple’s algorithm will make it easier for users to find you in the App Store. Ultimately, this will help you get more downloads. Figure out exactly what it takes to get to 1000 downloads(or whatever target you are aiming for) So how many downloads do you want? Sure, 1,000 would be great. But 10,000 is better. You can use the concept of quant-based marketing to predict this execution. Here’s how it works. Don’t look at it as an uphill climb from zero. Instead, start with the number of downloads you’re aiming for and work in reverse. So the first step of this process involves coming up with your goal. Just makes sure it’s legitimate and realistic. Set a reasonable time frame. Think about your target market as well. What audience are you going to focus your launch strategy around? Based on this data, people between the ages of 18 and 24 are the only group that spends over 3 hours a day using mobile digital media. Users aged 25 to 34 have the second highest daily usage. With that in mind, it’s a smart idea to target these groups. What’s your customer acquisition strategy? Here are some suggestions you may want to consider. Search engine marketing (SEM) Search engine optimization (SEO) Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Public relations Content marketing Influencer marketing Direct sales Blogs. It’s totally acceptable to choose more than one of these options. In fact, I highly recommend that you use a combination of these methods. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversifying your launch strategy through different marketing channels will increase the chances of getting more downloads. That’s exactly what we want to accomplish. Continue reading, and I’ll give you some more details about the strategies that have high success rates. Get influencers and big blogs to mention your app (even with no money) If you’ve maxed out your budget during the development stages of this app, you might be worried about finding the funds for advertising. Fortunately, you can try and get big blogs and other influencers to pitch your app without giving them any money. But before you can do that, you need to look for the most relevant results. Use a website like Buzzmo . Their platform can help you search for the top blogs that are related to your app. Earlier we talked about the importance of finding the right primary category for your app on the Apple App Store. Search for that same category on Buzzmo and see what kind of results you get. For example, let’s say your app is in the health and fitness category. If you search for “health blogs” the results will look like this. This is a great place to start. You’ve got the top 2 most shared links in the last year about this topic. Play around with the filters to narrow the results. You can sort this data by the shared source (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) or by date. Now you’ve got to reach out to these sources directly . Don’t be intimidated. Sure, they’re going to be helping you out if they feature your app on their blog, but you’re doing them a favor as well. These sites are always looking to provide their readers with fresh information about the industry. That’s what keeps people coming back. So send an email. Email is the preferred method of communication for 81% of writers . Keep it short and be direct. Here’s some information you should include in the message: You’re full name The name of your company The name of your app (if it’s different than your company’s name) A link to your website Short description of the app’s functionality Why you’re better than competitors in this space The status of your app (have you launched yet?) Contact as many relative blogs and influencers as possible. You don’t have to offer any money or incentive other than the relevancy to the category they cover. Don’t be discouraged if not everyone jumps on board. But keep sending out these messages, and I’m sure you’ll get featured in several legitimate publications. It’s a great source for downloads. The blog readers will take the advice of the authors if they faithfully read and trust the websites. Run pay per install campaigns. If you’re willing to spend some money, you may want to consider a pay per install strategy. The publisher gets charged based on the number of downloads for the app. This strategy increases your exposure in the App Store, which can lead to more downloads. Here’s the average CPI based on your country. Let’s break this information down a little bit further. We’ll focus on the United States. For our purposes, we only want to look at the Apple App Store. This may not be the most cost-efficient way to get downloads, but it could be one of the most effective. So run the numbers and see if this customer acquisition cost can still be profitable for your app. If you combine this method with other strategies, like contacting influencers and big blogs, your marketing budget can still be reasonable. Here are some places to look at as a promotional channels for your pay per install strategy. Snapchat Ads Pinterest Promoted App Pins Tapjoy App Next Facebook App Install Ads Twitter Ads. Check out some of these platforms and see which ones you think would be the most beneficial for your company. Keep your target audience in mind when you’re choosing an advertisement platform. Use email marketing tactics. Not all mobile applications are for a completely new business. As we discussed earlier, you may be building an app to monetize your business or make it more efficient. Take advantage of your existing resources. You don’t have to start from scratch. If your business has a current customer base, contact these people. Send them an email about your new app and let them know how it will improve their customer experience. Here’s a great example of this approach from Walgreens . So come up with an effective email campaign and reach out to your current list of subscribers. Since these people are already familiar with you and your company, they will be more apt to download your mobile application. That’s especially true if you give them an incentive and it enhances the user experience. SMS marketing. Instead of just sending an email, try sending a text message to your customers as well. If you have their phone numbers in an existing database, you can send them information if they’re signed up to receive alerts. Include a promotion in the text message. “Receive 20% off your next purchase if you download our app.” Something to that effect should do the trick. Find an SMS marketing company like Slicktext to get started. Platforms like this make it super easy to contact your customers via mass messaging. It’s an effective way to get more downloads. Conclusion. Now that you’ve built your first mobile application, it’s time to start getting people to download it. Unfortunately, this won’t happen if you just sit back, launch the app, and do nothing. You’ll need to come up with an effective launch strategy. You should keep this strategy in mind from day one when you’re figuring out why you want to build an app in the first place. Whether you want to be the next big hit like Instagram, or you’re trying to monetize your current business, you’ve got to get downloads in order to be successful. Make sure you put lots of emphasis on the Apple App Store algorithm when you’re trying to get downloads. The graphic shows how many billions of downloads happen on Apple’s App Store each month. That number continues to grow, so there’s a huge opportunity for you here. The name of your app Subtitle Description Primary category Reviews In-app purchases. Use the quant-based marketing strategy to come up with a plan. Start with your goal. How many downloads are you trying to get? What’s the time frame you’re going to get these downloads in? Who is your target audience? Once you answer these questions, you can proceed with your marketing strategies. If you’re on a tight budget, reach out to big blogs and other influencers. Contact them directly and ask if they will feature your app in a blog. You can also run a pay per install campaign on various platforms. If you’re an existing business with a database of customer email addresses and phone numbers, take advantage of these resources. Use email marketing and SMS marketing techniques to promote your app and get more downloads. If you follow these tactics, you’ll be on your way to 1,000 or even 10,000 real downloads in no time at all. What kind of in-app purchases will you offer to increase your ranking based on the Apple App Store algorithm?