Everything You Need To Know About A Mobile Marketing Agency

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• Getting The Most Out Of Mobile App Analytics

  October 14, 2019
  One of the most powerful tools available to anyone in the world of mobile apps is mobile app analytics. You can get real-time stats on almost any metric you can think of, and use them to optimize and improve, as your app conquers the charts - and the world! There's also a danger lurking here, however. With so much information available, it can be difficult to know where to start, or how to sort useful information from the rest. In this post we'll take you through the basics and more advanced elements of mobile app analytics, we'll approach the app analytics challenge from different perspectives, and we'll give you actionable tools and insights to ensure that you leverage your mobile app analytics to their full potential. What Is Mobile App Analytics In simple terms, mobile app analytics is all the information available to you about how people interact with your app, and how your app performs. Mobile application analytics is critical to crafting incredible mobile experiences for your users, and ensuring that as many users as possible are exposed to your app's awesomeness. They allow you to optimize your app experience, ensure potential users are not being disappointed along the way, and that current users are kept engaged. Just like any website has analytics available (through, for example, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager), every app also has tremendous amounts of data available that can be chopped, sliced and diced to give you an informed view of how your app is doing. For example, one of the metrics that can be measured is app crashes. If you suddenly see through crash reports that crashes have dramatically increased, you can know immediately that something is wrong, and fix it immediately. Need help with promoting your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! In the world of mobile, everything is related, and each element is a critical part of the greater whole. To take the previous app crashes example, this type of problem can impact your app's ASO (App Store Optimization), as both the Apple and Google app stores take post-install metrics into account. Appsflyer app analytics So without good mobile app analytics, you might see downloads dropping without having a clue what's causing the decline. With good analytics in place, you'll immediately see that your App Store Optimization is being impacted, and identify increased crashes as the root cause. There are three primary uses for mobile analytics: Engagement metricsPerformance metricsRevenue metrics Engagement metrics Engagement metrics show how users interact with your mobile app, and generally look at how often or a length of time that users take (or don't take) action with regards to your app. Engagement metrics are important because they essentially show how much users like your app. If there's high engagement, you're doing something right (although there's always space to optimize!). Low engagement shows that elements of your app need improvement. The engagement has a high correlation with revenue – but more importantly perhaps, it can show where potential revenue lies. For example, if you have users highly engaged with your app but low revenues, it probably means you should open new revenue streams, like ads or in-app purchases. Engagement metrics also show the "stickiness" of your app, which is indicative of long-term success. Highly engaged users will keep coming back for more and will likely lead to further high-quality users. Some key engagement metrics (and ways to improve them) are: Active users: generally measured in terms of daily active users (DAU) or monthly active users (MAU),  this metric shows how often users actively used (usually meaning that users opened) your app – on a daily or monthly basis. The key value of this metric is that it is much more valuable than vanity metrics such as app installs. You can have 25m mobile app installs, but only 2 active users, as all the others just stopped using your app. On the other hand, some apps have an extremely high active user count, on both a daily and monthly basis, and these tend to be the most successful (no surprises there!). Improving this metric: the simple answer here is just to make sure that you've built a great app. Then again, we're sure you have, so the next things to look at will be: Ensuring the app works smoothly with no crashesIncorporating sticky elements within the app to keep users coming back (for example a daily prize that needs to be claimed)Gently reminding users to engage through relevant push notification Retention rate: this metric demonstrates how many users come back to your app and how often. After using the app for the first time, some users will never use it again, while others will keep coming back. Need help with promoting your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Generally, over time, users will drop off, and this is indicated with the retention rate metric. A high retention rate shows that you are adding value to users and that they reciprocally value your app. Similar to retention is churn, which shows the rate at which users abandon the app. Improving this metric: here again, a good quality app experience is key to high retention and low churn rate. Performance metrics Application performance metrics are all about a great experience for your user, from which all other areas of app success flow. An app that performs – both in terms of technical performance as well as meeting user expectations from a function perspective – is an app that is well on its way to tremendous success. Load speed: there are few things more frustrating than an app that's really slow to load, or that doesn't load at all. Load speed and page loads are critical to user experience and is something that app developers need to be highly aware of. Improving this metric: designing for specific platforms often leads to improved performance, instead of a "one size fits all" app design that while shorter to develop can cost on the performance side. For a more detailed look at ways to improve app speeds, see this piece from DZone. Crashes: as mentioned previously, crashes can really take a toll on your app's success. They will negatively impact user experience, retention and churn, and even app store rankings. Improving this metric: staying on top of your crash reports is really important. Nip the problem in the bud as soon as you find an element that is crashing regularly. Revenue metrics It's money time! Revenue metrics can give detailed insights into where to focus your attention and app marketing efforts, and continually optimize to keep your revenue flow pumping strongly. Some key revenue and revenue-related statistics to stay on top of are: Lifetime value and cost of user acquisition: lifetime value, or LTV, show how much a user is worth, on average, over the course of their lifetime with your app. Customer acquisition cost, or CAC/CPI (cost per install), shows how much it cost, on average, to acquire a particular user. The greater the gap between your LTV and your CAC, the wider your profit spread. Improving these metrics: as with mobile app analytics in general, the more specific you can be, the better. Therefore, break your user base down into cohorts, and look at the above metrics based on everything from geo to acquisition channel, user behavior and different types of target user. No doubt you will unearth some gems, such as a particular geo that has an exceptionally high LTV with a low CAC. You'll then be able to optimize in these areas without having to reinvent the wheel. Average revenue per user: if your user base is increasing and your revenue is increasing, everything is great, right? Well, not so fast. This is where average revenue per user comes in. This metric (revenue over number of users) is an excellent sensitivity metric in that it can indicate early if there's some kind of issue. In the above example, it's possible that even though revenue and users are up, average revenue per user is down. This means that you are not generating the revenues you can be from your increasing user base. Need help with promoting your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Improving this metric: ensure that you are keeping your revenue streams updated in terms of your growing user base. Relying on the same revenue streams might not be cutting it with new users or even old ones. Keep diversifying your revenue streams to ensure that average revenue per user keeps climbing and that adding more users is, in fact, worth it from a business perspective. Apple Analytics and Google Analytics Now that we've looked at general mobile app analytics, we turn our attention to app store analytics available from the app store giants, namely iOS and Android, or Apple and Google respectively. Both of these platforms provide detailed app analytics that can be used to optimize your app performance. Apple app analytics Apple analytics, through App Store Connect, shows all the major app metrics for your iOS app analytics, such as downloads and retention. They also show: Impressions: how many times your app was viewed in the Featured, Categories, Top Charts, & Search areas of the App StoreSessions: when the app has been used for at least 2 secondsSources: including App Referrer, App Store Browse, App Store Search and Web Referrer Google app analytics Google Analytics for mobile apps also provides rich data for analysis. The main features of Google analytics mobile app tracking include: Analysis of operating systems and device modelsNumber of users and sessionsSession durationUser activitiesIn-app payments and revenue metricsAbility to create customized analytics reportsHeat maps showing user navigation pathsIntegration with Google Play for conversion trackingFiltersAbility to define goals Google analytics app tracking helps you understand your Android app analytics and refine and optimize across all your metrics to ensure the success of your Google-listed apps. Web app analytics Similar to the above analytics options, there is also web app analytics. A web app works through a smartphone browser, as opposed to a mobile app that's installed directly on the device itself. Also related is a single-page app or SPA. An SPA is a type of web app that dynamically rewrites the current page, rather than loading entire new pages from a server. Web app analytics tools track pages and virtual pageviews and give powerful insights into key metrics. Google Analytics single-page app and web app functionality has been enhanced recently by Google's App + Web functionality. As Russell Ketchum, Group Product Manager, Google Analytics writes: "Currently, many businesses measure app engagement with Google Analytics for Firebase and website engagement with Google Analytics. While each of these products separately offers powerful insights, getting a more unified picture of engagement across your app and website can be a manual and painstaking process. To make this simpler, we’re announcing a new way to measure apps and websites together for the first time in Google Analytics." Mobile Analytics Tools There are some excellent mobile app analytics tools out there to assist you in achieving app success. Included among these are free app analytics tools and open source tools that can ensure you're up and running immediately. Some of the best tools out there for app analytics include: App Annie: the gold standard of app analytics, including competitor research. There are some free tools available here, but the core product has some not insignificant costs attached Mixpanel: gives excellent insights into user behavior and how users are interacting with your app. The starter pack is free and the next package up starts at $779/year. Pendo: a product-focused analytics tool with great engagement and visibility features Amplitude: a well-known product analytics tool used by some big-name companies Need help with promoting your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Mobile App Analytics: Metrics To Drive App Success Mobile app analytics is the beating pulse of your app offering. Keeping these metrics healthy is a full-time job, that requires an interdisciplinary approach to achieve maximum success. Understanding and optimizing app analytics requires input from design teams, technical teams, marketing teams and experts in ASO and user acquisition. At Moburst, making the most of your metrics to drive the success of your app is what we do. We've received multiple awards for our work, and count as clients some of the biggest names in the app world. What's more, we'd love to work our magic for you, too. So get in touch and let's set up a conversation around your mobile app analytics, and getting more out of them to set you up and achieve your full potential.
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• How to promote an app? Guide for Startups and Corporations.🙭

  September 28, 2019
  With over 5 million apps on the app stores, learning how to promote an app and doing app marketing are a must for any newly added app. Users churn through apps really fast and increasing app store ranking is a process that takes time, without a dedicated marketing campaign, the chances of growing your userbase is close to none. In this article, we'll guide you through everything you need to know if you want to promote an app. From pre-launch tasks, to complete checklists, free marketing ideas, and FAQs. You'll also learn what not to do. Not all marketing is great. Do your pre-launch tasks first Before pressing the big red launch button, you need to work on the following: Market researchDefine brand and messageApp marketing budgetDevise an app marketing strategyCreate your landing page and graphics Without these, you'll be wasting money on ads that are not targeted. Your purpose is to bring as many people in the app as possible, without wasting money or having a high churn rate. Paying for $1.000 for 100 installs with a 50% uninstall rate is something that may happen if you don't think things through in advance. Do market research before you promote the app. Before promoting an app, you need to understand 2 sets of information: Who is your user?What keywords are you targeting? For the first question, your company needs to decide on a user persona. Think about the types of users that will use your app on a day to day basis. There are a set of traits or characteristics that will be relevant to a plethora of people. You can set multiple user personas as long as you are able to create a custom marketing message for each of them. Your message to a gen X should be totally different than the message to a millenial for example. In terms of keywords, it's a little more simple than a user persona. You can do an app store keyword research and decide on what keyword sets you'll optimize your app for. App Store Keyword research can be done through the following methods: Use ASO tools to find out what keywords bring the most searchesAnalyze your competitors for keyword ideas and marketing strategiesAnalyze reviews to better understand how users are describing an appBrainstorm keyword ideas based on your app's features. Choosing the best keywords is one of the most important tasks! Ranking on a query that only has 50 searches a month will result in extreme budget losses. Define your brand and message One of the most important aspects of marketing is communication with the customer. The tone, message, and ideas communicated are part of your brand and will influence the user's decision to install an app or not, based on how they interact with the brand. For example, Social media apps communicate in a personal and cheerful way with users. In their marketing copy, it's all about the user. He is the center of the experience and everything the app does is to enrich the user's experience and allow him to share it with others. Another example we can offer is Calm, a guided meditation app that Moburst optimized for the app store. Calm App Store Screenshots Calm's purpose is to help people relax. Everything revolving around their brand identity and marketing communication is tranquil. A handwritten logoImages of nature Icons that "breath" in order to help a user control their own breathingRelaxing blue tones meant to relax the user With their entire social media presence, they do everything they can to help the user relax. Calm App Social Media For example, the majority of their social media posts have 1 specific goal: Give your user a reminder to: breathbe present relaxslow down By taking care of their user's well being, they keep them close, increase brand awareness and build upon the relationship between the brand and the user. Tweak your app promotion budgets It doesn't matter if you're starting at $10.000 a month or $1.000.000 a month, a clear budget is needed to make sure that you are not wasting money. Even a 2% decreases in costs can be beneficial. Out of 1 million, that's $20.000. It's better for that money to stay in your company's pocket. Split your budgets into multiple niches. A percentage for ASO services, another for PPC and so on. A quick tip that we recommend is defining your profit margins and the maximum CPI that you can afford. App marketing budget By doing this, you enable your mobile marketing agency to have a nearly unlimited marketing budget. The app promotion budget should not be set in stone forever. Your agency should be allowed to raise the budgets as much as possible as long as you're still making a good profit. To explain this in detail: CPI= Cost per install You have a budget of $10.000 per month for media buyingThe Maximum CPI that allows you to make a profit is $10.The company manages to deliver a CPI of $6.Being that your CPI is still under the maximum limit, you should allow the agency to push your budget many times over $10.000 per month and only stop if they get close to the $10 limit. By going with this approach, you are creating a scalable system that will skyrocket your earnings. Define your overall app marketing strategy You've already defined who should use your app and decided on how big your budget is. Now, it's time to decide how you'll push your app towards your potential users. It can be anything from social media, paid media or app store optimization. We strongly recommend doing a marketing mix! Your marketing channels should not compete with each other. Instead, they should work together towards the same goal: more app downloads and a high ROI. Your app marketing strategy is only complete if you: Measure everything Create a strategy that can be scaledThe channels work together Continuously tweak and improve Without measuring everything, you will have no data to base your decisions on. You can't go with your gut when pushing a $10k budget on an ad. Data needs to approve of your idea. There are tons of app analytics tools that you can use. Facebook pixels can be integrated and even Google Analytics. If it's not scalable, chances are you are doing it wrong. Your goal is to get millions of downloads. Because of this, your ads need to reach tens of millions of people. Without a scalable strategy, you won't be able to do that. Make sure you are creating ad strategies that can be easily replicated and changed in order to boost your app installs. A user can search on google for "how to lose weight" and reach your guide. He reads it and leaves. He is still not lost! You can use Facebook Remarketing to get him back. Guide him to a landing page and convince him to download the free version of the app. After that, you can start integrating push notifications and emails as well into your "sports app". Use his data and remind him that he forgot to go to the gym or that he managed to achieve his goal in order to boost his motivation. After he uses the app enough, you can start using all your channels to push for the conversion, turning the user into a paying customer. This process is not set in stone. People are different. Because of this, you need to continuously work on your processes and strategy. Create your landing pages and needed graphics Even if you're selling or promoting an app, you'll still need a website. You can showcase a better presentation on a web page than you'll be able on the app store page. And, because you've installed your pixel and analytics tools on both the website and on the app, you'll still be able to see the source of the install, no matter where you drive the user first. Some businesses actually start the marketing years before the app launch, thinking in the long term. If your app is in the wellness industry, you can create a wellness blog and start doing both SEO and email marketing in advance. By doing SEO, you're increasing your organic traffic in time. When the app launches, you'll already have a website that gets new traffic daily. You just need to integrate pop-ups and banners and you'll get free organic installs in no time. As for the email marketing part. By creating a newsletter database, you're building yourself a useful app launch tool. A list with over 10.000 users can be used for: Email Newsletters announcing the app launch + special promosLookalike audiences for better targeted Fb Ads. How to market your app after launch? So, you've created an app and pushed the big button to launch it on the app store? Good for you. Now, it's time to market it and make sure that people know about it. You can market an app by combining multiple mobile marketing strategies: ASO (app store optimization) PPC (pay per click ads - Fb ads and Google Ads)Social Media PlatformsA couple of extra smaller mediums Optimize your app for the app store App store optimization (ASO) is the process of improving the information present on the app store and tweaking the marketing campaigns in order to push an app higher in the search results. The main goal of ASO is to provide organic downloads, without the need of paying per install or click. App Stores also take into consideration the number of downloads you have, the number of app reviews and the quality of them. It's a complex algorithm that can make or break your organic efforts. Don't forget to talk with your app developers to continue updating your app with new features (app freshness and updates are ranking factors) and with your Marketing company to tweak your app description. As we mentioned earlier in the article, app store optimization is done around certain main keywords that people will search on the app store. We have a complete guide on what app store optimization is. Feel free to check it out in order to learn more about this topic. Also, we can help you out with it, ASO being the main breadwinner at Moburst. Work on your PPC campaign For the first few months, the main source of app installs is your PPC marketing strategy. There are multiple tools for PPC campaigns: Facebook AdsGoogle AdsYoutube VideosAd networks inside apps There is no "best network". It all depends on the type of app you're promoting and on the customer persona. Find out where your users are spending more time and target them there. PRO tip: Remarketing is on the of the best types of PPC marketing. Targeting people that visited your site already will greatly increase the Conversion rate and ROI. Also, don't forget about optimizing your campaign and A/B testing. Create multiple ad sets on all platforms with small changes between them. An Ad set can use black and white images, while another can use brightly colored ones. Leave them to run for a week and eliminate the bad one. Rinse and repeat until you find the best ad format and channel for your app. Promote app on social media First of all, understand that social media isn't just Facebook. Social media contains all of the platforms where the user generates content, share it and discuss topics. Other websites that can be considered Social Media: RedditPinterestInstagramLinkedInYoutubeDeviantArtSnapchatTikTok And many, many, many more. Doing social media right is one of the hardest and costly tasks a company will have. You need deeply know your users and create content that they will resonate with and that they are willing to share. Also, what works on Facebook will not work on Snapchat or TikTok. And what works on TikTok will for sure not work on LinkedIn or Reddit. Because of this, your company will need to either decide on a few main social media channels or create personalized content for each platform. Encourage users to participate in your social media campaign. If you're working on promoting fitness apps, your best bet is to encourage users to share their before and after stories. If you have an awesome recipe app, ask users to photograph their foods and share them via a special # you created for your brand. This is the cheapest and most effective marketing you can do on social media. If you are a global company, it will pay off to go a little smaller on social media. Hire small social media companies in each country and localize your app's social media campaign. Netflix does this really well. If you have a social media campaign in a certain country, they can link your content and app to the main events, customs and social norms specific to that country, resulting in increased conversions and better brand awareness. New Girlfriend: What's your Netflix password? You knowing your ex still uses your Netflix.Translated from Netflix Facebook Page in Romania. Mobile marketing channels that you shouldn't forget about Of course, there are tens of other channels that you can use in order to promote your app. You can hire PR firms to push you or one of your company members in front of media companies. TV interviews, podcasts and newspaper articles will still get your app well known. StumbleUpon is also a great tool to promote your app, as they have a paid package. Yet, I only recommend this platform for apps that have a really wide user persona. Video Games work great here. Many businesses also transform their users into microniche influencers. Give out a commission for every sale and people will flock to help you out while cashing in something for themselves as well. Revolut Affiliate page Revolut, one of the largest banking apps in Europe is giving away commissions to anyone bringing in users inside their app via custom code. Talking about influencers, you can also go a little bigger. Find athletes, stars or scientists that are well known and ask them to promote your app. Image association is one of the simplest forms of marketing. How to Market Your App to Mobile Users’ Attention Span The mobile world moves fast. It seems like every time we blink a new app is either born or gone. App marketing pros know how tough it is to get users to install a product and actually use it, and even after achieving this goal – it still has to compete with at least one more screen. Mobile presents unique and difficult challenges that require unique and different solutions, as well as a solid mobile strategy so here are a few tips to help you get started: Get to the Point Every mobile expert knows that users are firm believers in TL; DD – Too Long; Didn’t Download. Don’t waste their time with unnecessary explanations and lengthy stories. Whether it’s your app page description, notifications you send out, or the onboarding tutorial – your message must be straightforward, on point, and clear as day. Make sure to include a strong call to action to let users know exactly what you need them to do, and be your own worst editor with every word you choose to include. Luckily for you, the character limit on most content forms will keep you in check, but just because you can write relatively long text, it doesn’t mean you should. Keep it short and sweet. Take Action One of app marketing’s strong suits is its ability to present users with an actionable message. After realizing you have only a few seconds to get things moving, taking advantage of the medium’s technical abilities is the only smart way to go. Present users with actionable ads that allow them to click and immediately put the app to use (by booking a cab, for instance), and use interactive push notifications to not only show users a call to action but to have them execute it right then and there. For mobile experts, this is one of those magical cases where on the one hand you have very little time to impress users, but on the other hand, you have the best tools to do the work for you. Keep it Simple When it comes to your mobile strategy, less is most definitely more. I know your mind must be bursting with ideas for features and content you’d like to share with users, but narrowing it down will serve them better in many cases. An overwhelming interface creates a bad UX that will scare users away, so opt for a clean and intuitive flow instead. It’s important to adopt this logic when crafting your app’s onboarding process and fight the urge to exhaust users by showing them every corner of our app. Practice a little restraint and your users will without a doubt keep coming back for more. Be Different Is your app a “Tinder for whatever” or the next “Airbnb of something?” Great. I’m sure users will  be completely captivated by how innovative and groundbreaking it is. Remember: when it comes to app marketing, you’re dealing with an audience that has seen and done it all, so the best thing you can do is give them something truly interesting. The same goes for the content of your mobile ads and how you choose to interact with users – sending original notifications can work wonders for your retention rate. Instead of riding the latest trends, try to come up with a creative message of your own. Remember, life is too short to be ordinary. Go Deep Deep linking is the perfect solution for mobile ADHD. It allows you to get users’ attention by indexing your app more effectively and sending users exactly where they need to go within the app. If you haven’t embraced this technology as part of your mobile strategy up until now, reality is about to make that decision for you. Soon users tapping an ad will expect to be immediately directed to the relevant screen as opposed to the apps main page. Providing the user with a counter-intuitive result will make them jump ship. With a little technical help from mobile experts, deep links are a tool you can use to turn a short term experience into a productive one. Mobile technology might be at least partially responsible for society’s lack of focus, but it can also save the day. Implementing new tools and techniques can help you set yourself apart and reach users’ hearts and minds for more than a few seconds. Follow the list above and you just might be among the lucky few to capture the mythical creature known as “users’ attention.” How to Promote an App by Building Relationships With millions of apps out there and users being extra picky about the ones they don’t immediately delete from their smartphones, the biggest app marketing challenge is more than attracting users, it’s succeeding in influencing them. During our app consulting sessions, one thing our mobile marketing agency concentrates on is forming relationships with users. In a way, this type of relationship resembles how real-life relationships unfold and develop. You’d be surprised at just how much can be learned from genuine, authentic real-life relationships, and how it can be applied to boosting your app marketing efforts. Get a Phone Number Getting a phone number from your crush is the first step, much like the sign-up stage in an app. The most common mistake app marketers make is using the sign-up stage (normally a four-screen slideshow with pagination dots and a sign-up button) to give users a tutorial. Users that are not immediately introduced with the positive value of an app, lose patience and often decide to delete it. If you have the slightest bit of “game,” you know that there’s no way your crush will give you their number if you talk too much about yourself and beat around the bush. But you might get their digits if you get to the point, put your best foot forward, and prove that you can be a fun dinner companion. A great mobile marketing agency knows how to apply this strategy to app development by making the sign-up stage about why the user could benefit from moving forward and registering. The First Date After the user has registered, the next app marketing move is to present a great tutorial. Marketers typically create a gamified tutorial with skipping options, which users are used to just, well, skipping. These normally point out every single feature of the app, making it only natural for users to lose their patience in the process. So just so we’re clear, the first date ISN’T the time to discuss every single aspect of your life including your political stance and dysfunctional relationship with your extended family. Your date will simply lose patience and won’t feel the chemistry. A good first date conversation should be kept flowy and discuss light matters while staying away from controversial or overly intimate topics. An app consulting tip: when it comes to tutorials – create one that walks users through major experiences their app has to offer while refraining from irrelevant information. A tutorial also has to “force” the user to perform the action presented on the screen by not including a skipping option, so that the user actually gets to live through the experience. The First Kiss How annoying is it when permission requests (access to location or phonebook) pop up before you’ve even registered or gone through the tutorial? Marketers often ask for permissions before the user has had a chance to positively experience the app and without explaining why they need these permissions. If you try to go for the first kiss before your date has had a chance to figure out if he or she even likes you, you might just get slapped and pushed away. The same logic applies to marketers, who should let the user experiment with the app before permission requests start popping up, and when these do come up, it has to be strategic. For example, if the user wants to see a list of nearby restaurants, this would be the right time to ask for access to their location. This would make sense to the user and let them know that it’s not only beneficial to the marketers, but would also provide them with added value. The next step is the initial setup, where users are normally asked about their hobbies, interests, and other personal details in order for the app to offer them a personalized experience. Unfortunately, many users find this intrusive and as a result end up ditching the app. A frequent mistake made by marketers is introducing this stage before the sign-up or tutorial – basically jumping the gun and scaring users away. If we go back to our relationship example – forming a genuine relationship will NEVER happen by getting in bed before the first date or even the first kiss. Be tactful and slowly form a relationship with their users by asking them personal questions only AFTER they’ve registered to the app and learned how to use it. Meet the Folks If all of the relationship stages leading up to this point felt natural and positive, our couple should be ready to introduce one another to their families. This is a major step and only happens if the couple sees a future for their relationship and are proud to show off their significant others to their loved ones. Our mobile marketing agency often provides app consulting to marketers who underestimate the power of user onboarding and later interactions, such as push notifications and permission requests, in building a loyal and genuine relationship with users. So marketers, when you ask users to rate you or share your app to their social media profiles, make sure you do so once your app has become an integral part of your user’s mobile experience. No user would recommend a lousy app to their social media following. Technology is often criticized for lacking emotion and being inhumane, but it’s pretty incredible how generating a loyal user-base resembles forming real-life relationships. If you master the above steps with guidance from a mobile marketing agency, you could make any user fall for your app. Best ways to market an app for free Sometimes, the budget is short or close to 0. Because of this, we've also created a list of methods you can use to promote your app for free. (or almost free) How to promote an app for free? Do guest posting You can publish articles on different blogs for free, as long as you're writing something useful. Just contact bloggers and website owners in your niche, tell them about your app and ask if you can write something for them. Publish your app on other app stores Google Play and Apple's App Store aren't the only app stores you can use. Feel Free to publish your app on Get Jar, SlideMe, Opera Mobile Store, App Brain, and the Amazon Appstore. Get your app noticed You can always pitch your app to app reviewers, app associations or critiques. The worst that can happen is you get ignored. The best scenario is you get a prize and some awesome PR alongside it. Join Facebook groups in your niche Start interacting with the users and push your app as a solution for their problems. Do a press release for your app The press is always on the lookout for the next big thing. Create a press kit with relevant information and images that they can use. Make sure to add info about the business as well, not only about the app. Use your social network You have friends and friends have friends, don't they? Also, posting on your own social accounts is free. If you are already well known in your niche, you're sure to grab a few hundred installs by doing this. Use QR codes. You can promote an app for free by adding QR codes on your business cards or even on your shirt. People scan them and download the app instantly. Become an expert Speak at conferences and events. Tell people about your experiences and promote the app in the process. If you're an expert in a certain niche, you may also get paid for speaking. Win-Win. Help people on the forums There are tons of people that have problems. If your app is the solution, feel free to tell them how the app can help them and leave a link. Go old school You can always print out flyers for localized apps and share them across the city to promote an app offline. Do a cross-promotion with someone else. There are tons of ad platforms that allow you to promote another app in exchange for credits instead of ad revenue. You can then use those credits to promote your app for free in other apps. How not to market your app! Of course, there are also methods you shouldn't use to promote an app. Some people say that there is no negative marketing, only marketing. Yet, we do recommend staying on the good side of the customer. Make sure that in your marketing efforts you don't do the following: Share false informationSpam Groups, Forums and emails Promote your app without giving any value to the users App promotion FAQs Do we really need a Landing Page for an App Download Campaign? You can promote an app without a landing page. Yet, we strongly recommend having one as it will increase your conversion rate. What are the best blogs/sites for promoting an app? We recommend websites like Product Hunt, Beta List, the Startup Pitch, Hacker news, App Gratis, and the Reddit Startup Section. What are the best ways to promote an app in the local area? You can do targeted ads in a geographic area, use street banners, share flyers and business cards. How much does it cost to promote an app? App promotion can go from 0 to a few hundred thousand dollars per month. As a rule of thumb, a cost per install in the US is around $2. Conclusions There are many ways to target an audience and get more potential customers. We hope that we've managed to provide at least one relevant insight for you and your business. Have you managed to do any interesting marketing campaigns for your app?
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• How To Launch An App – From Idea to Publishing

  September 27, 2019
  The app economy is booming. Apps have become an integral part of billions of people’s lives, whether it be Uber or Whatsapp, games or fitness platforms. Apps generate $101 billion dollars in revenue annually, and this has been growing at over 20%. Your app deserves to be up there with the best of them. The challenge is launching an app within a really crowded space. There are around 5 million apps in the app stores, and you have to figure out how to get discovered by your target users and create the success you want so badly. The most important place to start is with your app launch. A successful app launch can catapult you into the rare air of app winners, a world where success breeds success and you keep marching upwards. A flop of an app launch makes it very difficult to recover afterward. In this post, we’ll take a look at how to launch an app successfully, and how to ensure that your app is set up for success. Why launch an app An app is a phenomenal opportunity to connect to a target audience. Through an app, you can add value, offer functionality, improve people’s lives, and have the opportunity to access significant revenue streams. Do you need help in launching an app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! The reasons for launching an app will vary. Some of these can include: Revenue generationPublic serviceBrand awareness Revenue generation: Leading apps have made millions of dollars for their creators. In fact, some like Snapchat, have gone on to become successful public companies. Revenues do not have to be generated only from a paid purchase in the app stores. There are in-app purchases, advertising opportunities, and many other ways to make money from an app. Of course for an app to be successful from a financial perspective, it also has to add value. We’ll talk more about this in a bit. Public service: There are plenty of apps out there whose primary purpose is to provide a service. These can include emergency warning apps, transport apps or government-related apps, for example. Brand awareness: As a brand, most of your fans are using apps through their mobile devices. Apps are therefore a great way to connect and spread your message -- not to mention inform users about sales, specials, and other important pieces of communication. Many brands will encourage users to download their app for this reason. We also chose the “Why launch an app” headline for a reason, as opposed to “Why create an app”. Creating an app can almost be the easy part. Unfortunately, just a good idea around creating an app isn’t enough, even if it’s completely revolutionary. To actually be used and make an impact, an app has to be launched. There needs to be a buzz around it, there needs to be a launch plan in place, and there needs to be a well thought out strategy around ensuring the app’s success. What makes a successful app There’s obviously no point in launching an app that’s doomed to fail. Nothing can lead you quicker to financial ruin than putting good advertising dollars behind a poor product. Before we even start talking about an app launch, it’s important to make sure that your app itself is ready to shine. Does it need to be perfect? Absolutely not. In fact, if you waited for that to happen, you might never launch at all. Even Facebook is still perfecting its product. But it has to be good enough. We’ve identified 4 areas that your app should hit in order to give it the best chance of success. The more of these your app includes, the better its chances of climbing the charts are. Your app should: Add valueBe stickyBe shareableBe easy to use and understand Add value: There are some apps out there that add literally zero value. You might have come across them, like the fingerprint reader apps on phones that don’t include fingerprint functionality. Or some “future prediction” apps that are complete nonsense.There was even the famous case of the “Yo” app that just allowed you to send a “Yo” to other users (and that somehow raised millions of dollars). What we’ve seen as the number one common denominator across successful apps, is that there is an element of adding value. It could be in the form of a fitness app adding health value, a game adding entertainment value, or any other form of adding something to the user’s life. Does your app add value to your target users? Ensure you’re clear on your value add before moving forward. Stickiness: Most successful apps aren’t built for one-time usage. They keep users coming back for more, by design. There are many different ways you can make your app sticky, from gamification to new features. Speak to mobile marketing experts to ensure you’re maximizing the stickiness effect within your mobile app. Shareable: Another common trait across successful apps is that they are shareable. That is either the app itself, or the messaging around the app, can easily be shared socially. This can be in the form of inviting friends to the app or even just posting results to social media. Easy to use and understand: We’ve seen so many apps that were really incredible, with deep aspects to them that had been thoughtfully designed. Unfortunately, some of these apps would have complicated onboarding processes or would be difficult to intuitively understand for new users. This resulted in users downloading the app but then discarding it soon afterward. It was not until we solved issues around usability that the apps were truly appreciated and successful. UI/UX touches are sometimes brushed aside by app developers, but they are critical when it comes to building successful apps. Before you launch Before you launch your app, you need to have the correct launch strategy in place. Just like you wouldn’t plan a road trip without a map, so too, you can’t expect success for your mobile app without a solid plan in place. Generally speaking, a launch plan consists of the following steps: ResearchTarget audienceValidationMarketing strategySpecific Pre-launch activitiesLaunchPost launch Research: Research starts with focusing on your unique selling points and differentiating factors. What makes you unique? What are you offering that others aren’t? Where does your advantage lie? We’ll see later how important this step is when it comes to your app launch. Research also includes competitor analysis. Who are your main competitors? Where do their strengths and weaknesses lie? It’s useful to plot out all your competitors on a grid and to chart where your offering is on this grid too. This makes it easy to really zoom in on what makes you better and what messages to emphasize. Target audience: Next, you’ll look at identifying your target audience. What type of audience is going to be interested in your app? Once you have narrowed down your target audience, your next task will be to figure out your messaging and platforms to best appeal to your audience. Not only does your message to your specific audience need to resonate, but the way it is delivered needs to be relevant and consistent. For example, apps aimed at older users might decide that Facebook is the best place to give over their message, while apps targeting younger users might choose Snapchat. Validation: At this point, it’s important to perform market validation, that is to ensure that your app is a good fit for your market and that the demand for such an app exists. It’s not a binary yes/no, but rather an opportunity to make final tweaks to ensure you have the highest chances of success upon launching. Marketing strategy and marketing plan: This is where it really starts getting exciting. How do you let the world know about your awesome new app (or awesome upgraded app, for that matter)? The most common channels are social media (most commonly Instagram and Facebook, but also channels like Pinterest), email marketing (an email address is gold), Google ads, in-app ads, and display ads. Your marketing messages have to be consistent, on-brand and engaging. They have to stand out, be noticed, and still give across your main message to your target audience. PR is a great way to give your launch a boost. The more articles and appearances you can garner for your app, the better. This adds to the social buzz and has a powerful multiplier effect. Do you need help in launching an app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! The best launch campaigns are rolled out much like a story unfolding. First, there is making a splash and building suspense. Build buzz now, and you will rap the rewards later. Then, there is more about the app and its benefits. Finally, there are ads with compelling calls to action. You can even look at doing pre orders for your app. There are other channels that have become popular from an app marketing perspective, that aren’t necessarily exclusively online. For example, TV, radio, and billboards have been successful when it comes to promoting an app launch. Finally, don’t forget about Influencer Marketing. Influencers have the ability to magnify your message. While some brands tend to go “all in” for a big name (one mention from a star like Kim Kardashian can cost millions of dollars), others prefer using a network of micro influencers. Pre-launch checklist Just like a flight about to take off, as the pilot of your product launch, there is a pre-launch checklist that is helpful to go over: Is your app is ready for the traffic?Is support on call?Are media messages and channels ready?Is ASO on point? Is your app is ready for the traffic? When planning for a successful launch, the last thing you need is unforeseen glitches and crashes as a large number of people download your app for the first time. It’s really important to stress test your app before launch and to try and foresee the difficulties that might be faced as your user base quickly grows. It's definitely worth getting as many beta testers on board as you can to beta test as much as possible. Is support on call? Having said this, things will go wrong, unfortunately, it’s the nature of the game. The other challenge is that it’s impossible to predict every single thing that might not work as expected. Therefore it’s critical that the support team are on hand during the launch (especially if this takes place over a weekend) to handle anything unexpected that comes up. Are media messages and channels ready? Be prepared for an influx of inquiries, support questions, and media requests. Ensure you have all your ducks in a row when it comes to media kits, pre-prepared support answers, and that someone is handling your social media. This also ensures that bad ratings are minimized at the critical launch point. Ensure your landing page works and is compelling. Is ASO on point? ASO, or App Store Optimization, is probably the most important part of any app launch. You can spend millions in incredible media campaigns, and have the best app in the world -- but if you app store presence is a turn-off, all of your efforts will be for nothing. The thing is, is that every app download has to go through the app stores (Android apps on Google Play and an iOS app on the Apple App Store). That means that this part of your funnel is common to all your users. Your app store listing is also the last place users jump off from before getting into your app itself. ASO can be a tremendous multiplier or a disappointing dampener. Among other things, good ASO will make sure the user is excited about downloading your app, has insight into what your app does and how it works, feels comfortable installing thanks to high ratings, and will not skip your app to download one of your competitor’s offerings. There are many aspects to a successful ASO strategy. However, as ASO experts, we’ve identified 3 key areas: CreativesTechnologyConsistency Creatives: Your creative strategy is what is going to grab the user’s attention and keep them on your app store page. As we’ve mentioned previously, there are so many apps out there, and so much competition, that you need to do something extraordinary to appeal to potential users. Take screenshots for example. D o you want to present separate screenshots showing just in-app imagery, or do you want your screenshots to pop, flow from one to another and tell a story? You’ll want to decide whether to use video and if so what you want to highlight in the short time you have to grab the user’s attention. Do you need help in launching an app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Technology: Figuring out your best performing keywords and other important data is really tough to do by guessing or trying to research yourself. The good news is that technology can be harnessed to give you incredible insights which could be worth many hours of manual testing and frustration. At Moburst, we offer clients two critical tech tools, a Research Aggregator and a Proprietary Engine. The Research Aggregator compiles data from leading ASO tools to give optimized insights. It also monitors Google Play and Apple App Store algorithms daily, for any change in trends. The Proprietary Engine monitors millions of keywords and phrases for the most up to date information on top search terms and trends. It automatically calculates your chances of getting indexed for suggested terms. Consistency: Consistency is important throughout the flow or user journey that your target audience is likely to go through. The same creative language should be used throughout your social media ads, app store experience and even into your app itself. As soon as this consistency is broken, a disconnect is created for users and it’s at this point that users are likely to leave and conversion rates can drop. Always approach your app launch as if you were a user and ensure the experience is consistent throughout. Finally, Apple gives the following valuable advice on your App Store presence: App Store Product Page: Your app’s name, icon, previews, screenshots, description, and keywords on the App Store play a critical role in whether users discover and download your app. Help users find and engage with your app through thoughtfully crafted metadata. App Previews: Engage users with short videos of your app in action. Create compelling app previews that spark interest and drive downloads of your app using footage captured on devices. Promoted In-App Purchases: With iOS 11 or later, users can browse in-app purchases directly on the App Store and start a purchase even before downloading your app. Categories: Make sure the categories you assign to your app reflect its purpose. Learn more about special cases, like apps for kids, and understand the descriptions of each category. Launching your app When it comes to actual app launch, it’s part art and part science. When it comes to the science side of things, there are proven methods out there that can significantly increase your chances of success when you're ready to launch. Having launched successful apps for everyone from small exciting startups to the biggest brands in the world, we’ve distilled some of our learnings here. Again, some of these might not work for everyone, and every app has something unique about it that can be used to turbocharge their launch if identified and used correctly. Burst: This is a strategy we use often where we create a well-crafted marketing burst around app launch. This results in a high number of initial downloads and launched an app into the Top 10 lists for their category on the app store. Once listed here, this results in even more downloads, as the app is discoverable by a wider range of users. This constant upward cycle keeps repeating itself, and the app is driven powerfully up the charts. Do you need help in launching an app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! A word of warning, however. This has to be done carefully, and by professionals with tons of experience. All too often we’ve seen inexperienced “app marketing companies” or small agencies promise the world to customers, attempt a burst strategy, and spend the client’s entire budget in a few days without any significant results to show for it. Certainly you need app experts that have high level media buying clout on their team. Keep the momentum going: Launching an app is an opportunity. In fact, it’s a once-in-an-app-lifetime opportunity. Sure, you can always re-launch your app or launch new features, but your launching an app is the time to shine and put yourself on the map. Once you submit your app and you’ve launched, keep that momentum going. Keep users engaged, for example by having an effective push notification strategy in place. Keep the accelerator down on marketing and PR efforts, and push users to share and create a viral effect. Current events: We’ve seen some great pre-launch marketing and launch marketing around current events. Tagging on to a trending hashtag, for example, can suddenly put you in the big leagues when it comes to discoverability. One word of caution: choose only events and hashtags that are not controversial in any way. Too many apps have been panned when they try and take advantage of a natural disaster or some other negative occurrence to try and score cheap points. Aim to get featured: Getting featured by the app stores themselves is a huge boost for any app. There is no guaranteed way to get featured by the app stores, but there is some good advice (that we recommend following anyway) that can increase your chances: Have something uniqueBeautiful design helps a lotMake Apple/Google look goodIncorporate new features offered by the app storesBe topical (e.g. Back To School, Halloween, etc.) Apple notes the following regarding getting featured in the App Store: App Store editors write stories that showcase apps in interesting and informative ways. Our editors base their decisions on a variety of factors, all of which amount to a great product that customers will love. There is no paid placement or checklist of requirements for apps we write about or feature. Stories. App Store editors talk about apps that have a unique story, for example, a behind-the-scenes look at how a developer launched an app that disrupted an industry or how an app helped a customer solve a unique problem. Apps and Games. When considering apps to feature, our editors look for high-quality apps across all categories, with a particular focus on new apps and apps with significant updates. Factors that our editors consider include: UI design: the usability, appeal, and overall quality of the appUser experience: the efficiency and functionality of the appInnovation: apps that solve a unique problem for customersLocalizations: high-quality and relevantAccessibility: well-integrated featuresApp Store product page: compelling screenshots, app previews, and descriptionsUniqueness For games, editors also consider: Gameplay and level of engagementGraphics and performanceAudioNarrative and story depthAbility to replayGameplay controls What to avoid when launching an app As much as it’s important to understand what is best practice when launching an app, it’s just as important to know what to avoid when presenting your app to the world for the first time. Some of these are corollaries of positive actions but bear repeating nonetheless: Don’t aim too broadlyRemove all barriers to successChoose your launch date wisely Don’t aim too broadly: Trying to be everything to everyone often ends up meaning you’re nothing to anyone. While it’s fine for the Facebooks of the world to launch for literally anyone, as your app gains traction you should be very selective about who you’re aiming it at, and how you market your app towards them. Stay as focused and specific as you can: one target audience, with one main message, that’s reflected throughout your marketing and ASO efforts. Remove all barriers to success: Make sure that there is nothing obvious getting in the way of your launch being a success for a potential customer. Part of this includes doing A/B testing on elements such as login screens to ensure the smoothest and most intuitive first-time experience for new users. Similarly, it’s worth putting a lot of thought and research into whether charging for your app upfront is worth it, or if it's best to forgo this in exchange for more downloads and monetize in other ways. Choose your launch date wisely: Choosing your launch date randomly can cause your whole launch strategy to fall flat. For example, launching an app on a day (or even week) of a big news event, such as elections, may not be a great idea. A football-related app launched the week after the end of the season is not going to get as much traction as one launched when everyone is still football obsessed. When planning your launch, have your calendar out and pick a date deliberately. After Launch You might think that how to launch an app concludes when you...launch your app. While totally logical, unfortunately, this is where the hard work (or labor of love) begins! Once your app is launched the secret to success is optimization. Do you need help in launching an app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Apple itself has some great advice for launching an app and launch marketing, especially once your app is already live: “Post-Launch: keep your app relevant, innovative, and discoverable to attract new users and retain existing users...measuring your app's performance, optimizing your marketing campaigns, and continuing to grow your business.” They recommend 4 ways of improving: Analytics: Measure your app's performance and get unique insight with data you won’t find anywhere else using App Analytics, Sales and Trends, and Payments and Financial Reports. There is so much incredible data available with a launched app, that you can relatively easily track the right app metrics and make small changes that provide incredible results. This is where A/B testing comes in. You should constantly look to test various aspects of your app experience, from marketing through the app store and into your app itself. Ratings and Reviews: You can ask for ratings and respond to reviews to improve your app’s discoverability, encourage downloads, and build rapport with users. This is a critical part of launch marketing. If you do ask for reviews ensure that this is done seamlessly, and after a generally positive user interaction (for example, passing a level). App Updates: Stay competitive by engaging existing users and attracting new ones with regular app updates. Updates should be obvious to users, especially those that might not use your app on a regular basis. This can be promoted with an updated app icon and push notification, for example. Live Events: Plan, present, and promote live events in your game to help grow your business. While not relevant to all apps, there is generally a way apps can find to include some kind of live event. Many soccer apps, for example, has special “World Championship” levels added over the FIFA World Cup to stay current, even if a “live event” wouldn’t have necessarily worked for these types of app. Discoverability After launching an app, you want to ensure that you remain easily discoverable to potential users. Besides external marketing efforts such as paid media, there are some great ways to be discovered: Search: With Search on the App Store, customers can find your app easily from within the store. As Apple describes it, “Searches use app and in-app purchase metadata from your product page to deliver the most relevant results. We’re constantly evolving how search works to serve the best results to customers’ queries. When customers search for an app, the App Store returns a list of apps that are ranked based on a number of factors, including text relevance (matches for the app’s title, keywords, and primary category) and customer behavior (downloads and the number and quality of ratings and reviews). In addition to getting results for their specific search query, customers are shown suggested search terms to help them find what they’re looking for.” There are a few key points that deserve unpacking. Metadata is critical.The search algorithm is constantly changing, so it’s really important to have a mobile partner on board that is on top of these changes and trends.Keywords are still vitally importantCustomer behavior, including post-install behavior, counts. This further incentivizes you to keep users engaged and happy post-install Launch Yourself To App Success Just creating an app, listing it on the app stores and hoping it will do well, is no longer an option. Only a well researched and planned app launch will give your app the greatest chance of succeeding and achieving all the business goals that you have set. Launching an app smartly seems like a lot of work. It doesn’t have to be though. Partnering with awarded app launch experts like Moburst means that you have an experienced partner in your corner who has launched some of the world’s most successful apps to the top of the charts. To find out more, get in touch with us.
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• App Development – How to build an app?

  September 26, 2019
  So, you are interested in app development and want to learn how to create a mobile app? Mobile is the go-to platform for consumers right now, with over 60% of all internet traffic coming from a mobile device. The growth and market penetration of mobile devices are so big that even Google changed entirely because of it. Since July 2019, google only checks the mobile version of websites when deciding what to show users. The change is called mobile-first indexing. With this increased growth and with over 1.5 billion smartphones sold every year, the app industry is one of the hottest niches to enter. This is the reason we decided to write this piece of amazing content (wink wink) and teach you everything you need to know about how to build an app, launch it and profit. What is App Development? App development is the process of creating software that runs installed on operating systems installed on mobile devices. Compared to standard software run on computers, mobile apps are usually developed with special features in mind. App developers can use a mobile phone's data and characteristics to create new app functionalities. A mobile game may use an iPhone's accelerometer, a remote control app may use infrared and a running app may use the GPS and the pedometer. Right now, app development is one of the most interesting niches for corporations in order to come closer to their customers or improve their workflows. App development is also one of the most well-paid careers right now. App development How much does an app cost? Well, this is a tricky part. A mobile app can cost $0 or $500.000, depending on who is building the app or what features it has. Most people that are searching for how to build an app have a great idea, yet, not much of a budget. The only solutions they have are: Building an app by themselvesGet an investmentUse app builders to reduce the cost Do you need help in marketing your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Yet, if you're an established company looking to broaden your reach towards customers and have the budget to make a calculated investment, you need to know how much should you pay. First thing first, you need to decide on who you'll work with. Depending on the geographical positioning, you will pay anywhere from $10/hour to $200/hour. What are the average hourly prices for app development? The following are average hourly rates based on location. North America - $150Western Europe- $70 South America - $40Eastern Europe - $35India - $25Indonesia - $ 18 If you're looking at the above list and want to rush for Indonesia or India, make sure to take everything into consideration. There are some amazing Indian or Indonesian companies that can create outstanding results and some American or European companies can create not so great apps. Yet, you face the following risk when deciding to pay low prices: Hard to communicate Cultural differencesDifferent time zonesPossible IP theft A small and simple app may start from $10.000 while an enterprise app combined with a database and a web app may easily go over $500.000. Just for reference, a payment system may take anywhere from 50 to 100 hours, while a login integration through social media + email will take around 50 hours. You will also need to pay for anywhere from 50 to 200 hours of app design, UX design and wireframing. Mobile games are the most expensive apps on the market. I still remember when I worked at a small mobile gaming studio. The costs were extreme. You needed to pay for software, devs, game designers, graphic designers, audio and video files. Many times, if you didn't have an immense budget to create the mobile game, aggressively promote it and keep it alive for a couple of months, you shouldn't have started. Even a simple hill climb racing game like one of the games we designed (a simple mock-up game that was meant to be the first project and bond the team) had a cost of around $50.000. Types of apps Depending on the platform and necessities, there are tons of types of apps. You can go for a full mobile application, native apps or even hybrids. Not to mention that you need to make sure it runs of multiple operating systems. Native apps: iOS on Objective-C or SwiftAndroid on JavaWindows Phone on Net Web AppsHybrid mobile applications created on: Xamarin, React Native, Ionic, Angular MobileSencha Touch Native apps are apps that have been created directly for a specific OS. because of this, they run faster on their respective OS and phone. Web apps are not really apps, but more like responsive websites that work great on mobile phones. They are fast and look great, yet, again the only thing you'll install on the phone is an icon that will open the website without a browser bar. The problem with Web Apps is that they won't work without an internet connection. Hybrid mobile applications are created on platforms that work great on all standard mobile operating systems. Meaning that you can create an app in Xamarin and React Native and it will work on iOS & Android phones. Decide on your app idea It's best to decide on one main idea that branches into multiple features. Most of the time, you will be pressured by tight deadlines and small budgets to launch the app with only a couple of main features and add more features in time. Meaning that your app needs to be relevant with only a couple of main features. Deciding on one main idea and benefit will also allow you to better research the market and convince investors, as they are not interested in pushing their money into an app that is too broad and hard to market or maintain. Think about app monetization Will you sell the app, get money through ads or add subscription or premium features? If you're not thinking about revenue models or how the app will benefit your company, your app is doomed to fail. Many businesses are entirely revolving around the app they have created. See Toggl for example, a time tracking software that has both a web version and a hybrid application. It does one thing great, it tracks time and allows you to attribute that time to various tasks or project. Do you need help in marketing your app? Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! They get their revenue by selling extra features that are useful to businesses. A mobile game could be entirely free and earn revenue through ads only. In the case of a mobile game, if monetization hasn't been integrated and creates as part of the main experience, it will fail. You don't want to make people feel ripped off or to think that you are making the game hard just to take their money for powerups. There are also apps that are the main tool of business. For example, food delivery apps. They are making money by selling food. You can easily sell food without an app, yet, the app will allow for a simpler process. Do some market research If you want to make an app, you need to know who will use it. And sometimes, more importantly, if there are people that will use it. There is no point in creating an app that no one will use. The best ways to research the market and validate your idea are: Qualitative researchQuantitative researchKeyword researchCompetitor research Do interviews and ask people that could be your main users what they need. Learn about their necessities and tweak your app idea around them. The more you solve their problem, the higher the chance they will buy. You can also create surveys and find out relevant statistics for your business. How many people need a service your app will provide?How much are they willing to spend?They'd like a freemium or a paid app?Subscription or onetime high payment? Use that info and improve your strategy. In terms of keyword research, you can use ASO tools and find out what people are searching on the app store. By doing that, you'll be determining the download potential of your app and with standard conversion rates, make an estimate of future revenue. As for Competitor Research, find out what works well for them and more importantly, what doesn't! Read their reviews, play with their app, test things out. You are sure to find out relevant info. How to create a mobile app feature list It all depends on what is most important. Don't think that everything is important. You don't need video calls instantly in your app and there is no need to allow users to use the GPS in order to check what their cat does on a dating app. Every feature you add may increase your costs with as low as $10.000. Because of this, we recommend that you start creating a system where you split the features into: Mandatory for launchMust have in the futureNice to have By doing this, you'll find that out that your app only needs a couple of features to launch and you can build from there as you have new revenue sources from clients and new potential investments after you launch your app. Pro tip: Learn a little about app internationalization, a process in which no content is hardcoded in the app, allowing for easy app localization in the future. By doing this, you'll be able to easily translate the app and push it into foreign markets. Validate the idea through an MVP An MPV (minimum viable product) is sometimes really easy and fast to create. Also, many investors won't even talk with you if you don't have one. To be more precise, a minimum viable product can be a beta version of your app that has been used and approved by consumers. One example that we can give is Vetted.ro, a small Romanian startup that wants to be the first online vendor in Romania to sell verified second-hand electronics, mostly smartphones. They needed investments in order to start working on the main product and they would have only received it if the idea was viable. They created a WordPress Ecommerce in less than 1 day and started selling products that they found online. After 1 month the product was validated and they got 120.000 euros in investments for the first round, with 500.000 euros projected Design an app wireframe A wireframe is the main sketch, blueprint or schematic of an app that serves as a visual guide for both app developers and designers. It first appeared in web design and later got introduced in app development. Do you need help in marketing your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! The app wireframe is in no way a design file. It doesn't show what colors you will use or how big the buttons will be. Instead, it will show what type of content will exist on each panel of an app and what happens when a user interacts with an element. Source: Envato Example: Press Sign in -> Popup with Google login appears -> Login confirmer -> redirect to Profile -> click on add photo -> opens media files. Usually, this starts out sketched on paper and is later digitalized for easier editing and correlations between the panels. Envato has some amazing wireframe templates that you can use. You just need a premium template and you can start downloading whatever you want. List of free wireframe tools: Pencil ProjectMockPlusiDocWireframe CCGoogle Drawings List of Paid wireframe tools: Adobe XDFluid UIBalsamiq MockupsHot Glo Learn the basics about mobile app user experience "All design decisions should be based on the needs and wants of the users. "Don Norman User Experience (UX) is the basis of human interaction with your app. All of their perceptions and emotions while using your product. While you cannot really understand everything a user will feel when using your product, you can always make decisions on what the masses need. If the app isn't simple enough, people will leave. If the app is slow, people will leave.If people can't use it while it's dark outside because the letters cannot be read while the screen lights are low, people will leave.If it's hard to navigate between the panels or the commands are not intuitive, people will leave. It's just that easy. Yet, exactly that complicated. There are tons of studies that you can read and use for research. You can also imitate how other apps feel in order to provide a suitable product for your users. Just remember. Make things as easy to use for your users as possible. This is why so many people flock to iOS software in the first place. It's easy to use and it works. Create an app graphic mockup and design After you've decided on how the app will behave, it's time to work on the design. This is the step that usually takes a big chunk of your budget. As you'll have many hours of research, execution, feedback and many exchanges between you (the client) and the graphics team. Yet, your visual input is crucial when presenting the app to the users. Source: Envato The graphics are so important that they will directly affect: User retention rateThe number of app downloadsApp rankingMarketing ROI For retention rate, it's pretty obvious. If people don't like your app, they will uninstall it. By making sure that your app is as visually appealing as possible, you are reducing the chances of losing users and wasting marketing budgets. Graphics will also affect your app downloads, as app store screenshots are one of the main decision factors behind a user's intent to download and install your app. Also, based on how many people download your app (or not), app stores will rank you. If people are deterred by your graphics, you'll have a hard time getting people to install, resulting in increased CPI (cost per install) and a plummeting ROI. How to develop an app? After deciding what your app will do, validating the idea and making sure you got your design in place, it's time to start coding and developing your app. The developing process is usually the longest one. So you need to be patient and make sure that you are working close to your dev team in order to create something that will bring value to your users. When developing a new app, you have 2 simple directions, that will eventually branch out: Hire a mobile app development companyDo it yourself (DIY) Do you need help in marketing your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Let's talk a little more about both. Hire mobile app development companies? First thing first, you need to have the money to hire. There are multiple payments options that you can use: Project-based feeHourly feeOne of the above + Equity In terms of project-based fees for an app, it's extremely simple. You point out the feature list, clearly define what your app can and cannot do and receive a price. Once the contract is signed, what is on the contract is what you'll receive, no more, no less. Project-base works great when you're looking to build something simple. Maybe an app for an event or something simple that you'll be using inhouse. Hourly fees are a little more dynamic. You still negotiate how much the entire project will cost. Yet, your mobile app development company will split the costs into hours and tell you what you're paying for. This is really useful when your business is evolving. If you have a list of features that you cannot afford right now, yet, there are high chances an investment will come in somewhere around the development process, it's best to go with an hourly rate. As you'll be easily able to make a switch and add the new features into the mix. The last option is a combination between one of the first options and equity. There aren't many companies that will accept equity. Yet, if you do strike a deal in equity it will significantly reduce your startup costs in the first year or two. Should I go for inhouse or externalized? If you have the budget, you can choose to either hire a company or employ a team. Yet, employing a team is usually a viable option only if your planning to use the app as the main pillar of your business. For companies like Tinder or Calm, it makes sense to have the developers inhouse. The entire company revolves around the app. Inhouse devs are cheaper and are more reliable. Learn how to build a mobile app by yourself? If you're a beginner and have the best app idea, but no skill on how to build an app, you may beed to start learning. Mobile app development isn't easy and, most of the times, if your idea is really high tech, you may not be able to learn to do everything by yourself. Yet, if you're able to do at least the MVP or beta version by yourself, you're skyrocketing your chances of getting an investment. Learn to code When deciding how or what to learn, there are endless possibilities. Most app developers are self-taught anyway. You can start with video tutorials then advance on react native courses or building Xcode or Swift apps. Video Tutorials In the age of the internet and video content, you may be surprised how many video tutorials you can find. App development video tutorials on Google While we don't officialy endorse any particular video tutorials for app building or coding, a quick Google search can be your best friend. We've found over 236.000.000 results on Google. Start by watching a couple and see if you can understand the concepts. Then, start building. You can use free code editors that can be downloaded. Most of them are open source. React native courses React Native is a mobile development framework created by no other than Facebook. It works on both Android and iOS as well as for creating websites. Do you need help in marketing your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! It's an amazing tool that can help you create your much-desired app. Yet, React is really advanced and most of the times you may need to follow a course in order to understand it. Xcode or Swift apps Swift is a programming language developed by Apple for its own iOS platform. It is written in Xcode, a tool that can understand both Swift and Objective C Just take into consideration that by building apps in Xcode, you'll only be launching your app on the iOS store App creators and app builders For really simple apps, you can always use app creators and app builders. App builders work by using predefined lines of codes, features and databases that were built in such a way that they can easily work together through a drag and drop system. A list of app builders is: Appy PieShoutem Swiftic GoodBarber BuildFire Mobincube AppInstitute Build Fire App Maker Build Fire is an amazing App Maker tool. As clearly presented in the image above, you can add functionalities to your app with a click of a button. Including stuff like Shopify or app analytics. Test your app Before launching anything, make sure that you test your app to the fullest. Test it on multiple devices and on multiple resolutions. If it's an app that works on both iOS and Android, test it on multiple OS versions as well. Of course, you may not own 20 phones in your office. The solution to this is installing an emulator on your laptop or pc and test your app on multiple digitally emulated phones. Not testing your mobile app will make you lose users because of errors and revenue. Launch an app on the App Store You've created an amazing app from an even more amazing idea. You've tested the app and eliminated most of the bugs. Now, it's time to launch the app. Yet, let's make sure you've also taken into consideration your marketing and content. It's no use in launching an app that no one knows about. Create all the needed images, content and app screenshots The app store needs more than an app. It needs a name, a logo, pictures, and content that showcases the app and its features. See the Calm app bellow. (one of our clients) Calm integrated a series of app screenshots inside their content in order to showcase how the app looks and functions. By doing this, they are increasing their chances of convincing users to download and use the app, resulting in a higher increased conversion rate. App Store Optimization for meditation app Calm We have an entire article about how to optimize your app store screenshots. Feel free to check it out, a couple of thousands of words of awesome. Remember to optimize your app App store optimization is the process of improving your app's content, images, and marketing campaigns in order to increase your ranking on relevant keywords in the app store search and increase the number of organic downloads. App store optimization services are the main bread maker at Moburst and we pride ourselves as being one of the top ASO agencies in the world. Do you need help in marketing your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us! Before creating your content, decide on what type of app store keywords you'll be approaching. This is the most crucial aspect of the app launch. Getting indexed on a keyword with only 50 searches per month will leave your stuck in-app store limbo. After deciding on what keywords you'll tackle, you need to integrate it inside your: TitleUrlDeveloper nameShort DescriptionDescription Of course, there are tons of factors that affect your ranking, besides the content. Number of downloadsApp store reviewsPage CTRApp Churn Rate Pro tip: The number of installs you get in the first 48 hours is crucial to your app store ranking. Build your app landing page If you're going to present your app on Social media or through ads, you need a landing page. The landing page will showcase a presentational video, the benefits of your app and guide the users to the relevant app store. They also serve as information beacons that can guide users to FAQ pages, pricing pages or any other relevant information regarding your app. You don't need anything to complicated here. Compared to the creation of your app, a landing page is a walk in the park. You can create it entirely from code or use Wordpress and a Template builder in order to create the landing page. Pro tip: Make sure to detect the os of your users and only show the relevant app store for them to download from. Prepare your marketing campaign Make sure you got everything ready for your marketing campaign. The creative is done, the ads have been properly integrated and that your landing page is fast and working properly. Some things that you can check before launching are: All budgets have been properly integrated (you don't want to overspend) Ads are divided by OS. All of the links are working properly. (you don't want to send people to an empty page or broken link) You have set multiple ad variants for A/B testing.Someone is ready to start answering reviews and messages. Another great thing to take into consideration if you have the budget is a burst campaign. A burst campaign is a process of aggressive media buying meant to rapidly increase your downloads and push your ranking in the app store. Publish your app If you've followed every step in this app development guide and added all the info and content inside the app store, you are ready to publish. Just one button and you are live. Take note of user feedback and improve your app Your app store review section is a gold mine for your company. Users will state what they loved about your app and most importantly, what they hated. You can't make everyone happy, yet, you can increase the percentage of happy users by constantly tweaking and updating your app. Pro tip: If you decided to integrate a feature after reading about it in reviews, make a list of the users that requested it. After the update, answer those reviews and tell the user that because of him, the app got a new feature and thank him for his input. App development FAQ How much does it cost to build an app? Apps usually go from $50.000 and up depending on the features. Simpler app or the ones created through app builder can be less expensive, between $10.000 and $50.000. What is the best app development software? Some of the best app builders are: Appy PieShoutem Swiftic GoodBarber BuildFire Mobincube AppInstitute How long does it take to build an app? App development can take anywhere from 1 month for really simple apps, to 5 months for business oriented apps and 1 year for corporate and complicated apps. How do free apps make money? Free apps are monetized through in-app ads, premium paid features or in-app purchases. What are the average hourly prices for app development? North America - $150Western Europe- $70 South America - $40Eastern Europe - $35India - $25Indonesia - $ 18 Conclusion Creating an app is not rocket science. Yes, the process requires skill and competence. Yet, today, even small businesses can create an app for their business in order to tap in the mobile niches. Moburst doesn't do app development, yet, through our process of app store optimization, we tackle apps on a day to day basis. Through the years we learned what's important in building and launching an app and what can cripple your app's success. Do you need help in marketing your app?Our ASO experts and Marketing specialists are here to help you achieve success. Contact us!
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