Marketing an app means growing and fostering an amazing business. In an industry that is still so young, it also means that we will make mistakes along the way to success. Two of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a mobile marketer are:
Acquiring app installs is an important first step in building a mobile business, but it only a start. Growing a successful mobile business requires generating high quality users who not only install your app, but use it regularly. For most mobile marketers of non-gaming apps, user retention is a real challenge, with only 7% of people who open an app once still using it seven days later, according to the latest data from Swrve.
Valentine’s Day is over, but the love in the air just beginning to show. Though you might associate February as the peak month for romance, the Liftoff Mobile Dating Apps Report proves that just isn’t so.
According to the report, which analyzed user acquisition and app engagement data from some of a the leading online dating services from January 2015 – January 2016, February is actually the third worst month of the year to acquire new daters.
As marketers, we have a ton of targeting options at our fingertips when running mobile user acquisition campaigns. At face value, the option to target down to the most minute details seems ideal, but more often than not, getting too niche will limit the performance of your campaign.
When someone installs and opens your app, it’s the beginning of a dialogue. They’re telling you that they’re interested in your product, or that your app might provide the solution to a problem they’re facing. But users don’t always convert right away, because most of the time they still have questions. Can I trust this app? Will it really do what it claims to do? Is it worth paying a monthly subscription fee for what I get in return?
The following is a guest post written by Christine Beuhler, Content Marketing Manager at Mobile Action.
Today we’re going to talk about how to gather competitive app store intelligence and insights from the app stores to stay a step ahead of your competitors. The app stores offer a treasure trove of competitive intelligence, from App Store keyword search rankings to ratings and reviews. When analyzed properly, you can easily identify what your mobile competitors are up to and develop marketing strategies to compete more effectively.
Q3 sustained a marketing-friendly trend in mobile user acquisition. Based on our latest research, the cost to acquire a new registered user in a mobile app reached a low of $8.72, the lowest it’s been in 2015. But don’t wait too long to act on the trend of lower CPAs, these costs are expected to rise headed into the holiday season as marketers bid up advertising costs vying for a larger share of the Q4 seasonal app rush.
We’re all familiar with the idea of paying a recurring monthly fee for some kind of service in our lives. The concept has been around as long as most of us can remember. Each month we happily pay for things like cable, an Internet connection, and electricity. All of these make sense because we enjoy the benefits of each service – entertainment, access to the web, lights, air conditioning, etc. – and at some point get so used to them that we can’t live without them.
Retention marketing is all about signals. When someone downloads your app, they are giving you their first and most important signal: that they intend to use your app. The basic assumption we make about people who download the SeatGeek app is that they are ultimately interested in purchasing tickets to live events. Therefore, any actions we take that move them towards a purchase benefits both SeatGeek and our users. The most important thing to remember about retention marketing is that it provides value to your users; they will be more engaged and interested, and that will make them more valuable to you.
Let’s take a look at how SeatGeek successfully employs retention marketing by looking at the key components: The Media and Audience Segmentation.
Last week we hosted the very first Mobile Heroes event at MoPub headquarters in San Francisco. It was great to see so many marketers of non-gaming apps having meaningful discussions about the challenges they face on a daily basis and getting valuable advice from other marketers who have found themselves in the same position. We’re hopeful this is the start of a community that will continue to grow and thrive.