Why Use Mobile Marketing to Build a User Base for Your App?

Why Use Mobile Marketing If You Want to Expand Your User Base? We’ve Got All the Reasons for You

If you’re about to launch an app, or have already launched, and all you hear is “crickets crickets”, you’re in the right place. In this post I’ll discuss how app founders can jumpstart their product and generate users FAST. Speed is a key word here, as apps that rely on interactions between users or user-generated content (UGC), don’t seem inviting to users when they download them only to discover that they lack substance or an active community.

Listed below are four strategies for building a user base for your app:

Step One: ASO

If you need users, you must do whatever it takes in order for users to be able to find you. That’s why, before doing anything else, app founders must turn to app store optimization (ASO). This is a strategy that can do wonders for any app, of any kind. ASO refers to the optimization the app’s app store page, which includes a title, logo, app store screenshots, description, as well as other elements. The purpose is to boost the app’s discoverability, organic downloads, and app store ranking.

There is one major benefit to ASO – it helps generate quality users, for a very low budget. However, there’s a catch. It is extremely difficult to find a partner that knows enough about ASO to actually achieve results. There are many ASO tools out there, but if you’re not extremely experienced and are relying on a single tool, chances are you’re getting it all wrong (read more here).

Burst Campaigns

A burst campaign is a process of approximately 48 hours during which extensive media buying takes place. The goal is to reach as many downloads as possible in order for the app to soar to the store’s top apps list. This kind of strategy is essential for apps that require a community of users to actually work, like most social apps. The benefit of burst campaigns is that the large amount of downloads leads to a prominent spot in the app store, which then leads to a boost in organic, quality downloads and brings down the effective CPI (cost per install) of the campaign.

This is why you should use mobile marketing for launch campaigns because new apps experience a “grace period” in which Google Play and the app store give them a little push and feature them in the top apps lists. Google and Apple do this because otherwise, the list would always stay the same, as the most popular apps in the world, well, always stay the same. Burst campaigns help leverage this period, ensuring the app has a high ranking for a longer period of time.

On the other hand, there are a few drawbacks to burst campaigns. Firstly, such campaigns require a large budget which not everyone has. Secondly, the quality standard of users generated during burst campaigns isn’t as high as that generate by slower, more calculated media buying.

Slow, Calculated Media Buying

The opposite of a burst campaign is a slower, more calculated media buying process which holds a number of benefits for apps that aren’t as social. Such apps aren’t pressured to generate a large amount of users in a short amount of time, or already have an active user base, which enables them to focus on attracting quality users. A slower media campaign allows marketers to focus on a specific vertical within their target audience and carefully select the most relevant potential users, gaining them a solid user base slowly but surely.

The drawback of new apps using this method is that after all, it does take time for apps to finally catch on and create that word-of-mouth effect appreneurs strive to achieve. Additionally, the strategy lacks the organic uplift burst campaigns have. The benefit, however, is in the quality of the users, and the fact that not many users delete the app once the campaign ends (AKA retention).

Create a Viral Loop

This strategy is a little more challenging and requires entrepreneurs to take a deep look inside their product before they launch it. The challenge is to implement viral traits in your app and to incentivize users to share it with their friends. Users usually opt towards sharing apps with their friends when their emotions are provoked, when they want to boast about winning, when they go through a positive experience, or when they’re simply feeling altruistic and want to be nice to their friends.

Creating a viral loop in your app requires the utmost creativity, it’s almost like a give and take relationship – for a user to feel excited about sharing your app you have to provide them a good reason for it. For example, e-commerce apps, can offer users to share the app with a friend and win them and their friend of choice a discount for their next purchase , resulting in a win-win situation.

Having come across hundreds of apps and walking many entrepreneurs through app launches, I know how stressful it is to get an app discovered and loved by users. Using the aforementioned methods, separately or combined (whichever one is the best fit for your app), will ease your way through the process, and help you generate users faster.

Gilad Bechar

Gilad Bechar is the Founder & CEO of Moburst. Gilad serves as a mentor to rising startups at Microsoft Accelerator, The Technion, Tel-Aviv University, Unit 8200 and for strategic Moburst clients, and is the Academic Director of the Mobile Marketing and New-Media course at Tel-Aviv University.