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Mobile app marketing can make or break your app's performance.
But, when done well, app marketing can drive downloads of your product. It can also nurture a community of loyal users who will promote your app organically.
What Is Mobile App Marketing?
Mobile app marketing is about connecting with the right users at the right time.
And, according to Business of Apps, users downloaded some 148.2 billion apps in 2023. The market is massive.
But, over half of small businesses and large companies—including your competition—have their own apps. That’s why it’s essential to make your app stand out.
Getting people interested in your app is tricky. A strong marketing strategy must consider who the target market is. It should also work out how to tell potential users about the app and how to help them find it.
But here's what makes app marketing unique: unlike traditional products, apps require ongoing engagement.
Users need to stay interested through every update, feature release, and iteration. This continuous cycle of engagement, known as the mobile engagement loop, is what transforms casual downloaders into power users
Mobile Engagement Loop
The Mobile Engagement Loop is a continuous cycle that drives app success, from first discovery through long-term loyalty.
Unlike traditional marketing funnels that end at purchase, the goal is to attract and keep consumers using mobile apps.
Here’s a quick walkthrough of the Mobile Engagement Loop’s four key stages and how they work together.
Awareness Stage
What separates viral app launches from those that fizzle out?
It starts in the awareness stage, where smart timing, thorough market research, and detailed user personas lay the groundwork for success
Value Proposition and Market Research
If you want to market your mobile app successfully, you’ll have to put in the market research. The process helps identify your perfect customer as well as their needs and motivators.
Here’s how:
1. Read and Consume Content
Ever notice how the best apps seem to read their users' minds?
That's no accident - it comes from deep immersion in your audience's world.
Read everything you can that is of interest to your audience. That means the blogs, forums, groups, and websites that are popular with potential app users. You can also look at the influencers that appeal to your would-be users.
Great places to find content:
- Quora for topical questions and answers
- Reddit for interest-based subreddits
- Industry or interest focused blogs, podcasts, or YouTube channels
- SEO research (look at Semrush Topic Research and Google’s People Also Ask section)
2. Make the Most of Market Research Tools
Use online market research tools to speed the process up. You can use tools like Google Trends to analyze search engine hits to see what your audience is looking for.
There are also a number of tools from Semrush that can help you do this:
- Mobile App Insights helps track your app’s performance and keep an eye on the competition. This app shows you the keywords that bring any given app organic downloads and provides an option to check out related keywords, too.
- AI Keyword Inspector for ASO also gives you keyword insights for the App Store and Google Play Store. This app generates a tailored list of high-traffic, relevant keywords for your app that you can use for your app listing and description.
- Semrush Trends is another powerful tool that helps you jump on digital trends in your industry, helping you get an overview of the market overview and discover competitive digital insights.
- The Audience Intelligence application can provide you with a full audience overview with multiple reports. One report will dive into a specific audience’s demographics, psychographics, online habits, media affinities, and more. Just enter any Twitter handle that has an audience you want to study, and the app will do the rest.
Recommended reading:
3. Get to Know Your Audience in Person
On the topic of online research, it’s a good idea to do your own primary research while you prepare for your launch. This is research carried out by your company or by an agency on its behalf.
You can do the following:
- Conduct one-on-one interviews. Use a tool like Otter.ai to transcribe your conversation.
- Attend online events or webinars your audiences may be interested in (and pay attention to the questions people ask).
- Explore review sites (like TrustPilot, for example). These can give you an idea of what people are looking for and value.
- Run surveys—tools like Typeform and Google Forms can help you.
- Form focus groups of up to 10 people to get feedback on your app, including what they like and don't like about it.
4. Competitor Analysis
Think you have a unique app? You might be surprised.
It’s important that your app stands out from the crowd—and you can only do this if you know exactly what the competition is offering.
There are two apps on Semrush that help with this: Mobile App Insights and AI Keyword Inspector for ASO.
Mobile App Insights
Mobile App Insights shows you your competitors' keyword rankings and Apple Search advertising keywords. You can get a sneak peek of their successful strategies and see how you can use their tactics to help you.
AI Keyword Inspector for ASO
Additionally, the AI Keyword Inspector for ASO automates the process of finding high-traffic, relevant keywords for your app.
This allows you to quickly generate a keyword plan to skyrocket your app's visibility and ranking in the app stores.
Remember, if it turns out there are similar offerings on the market, you need to make sure you can show how it is different. Researching competing apps can include analyzing your top competitors by building a feature matrix.
Include pricing, user experience, and ranking in the app store, among other things, to pinpoint what you can do better than them.
See below for an example:
| Mobile App Competitor Analysis Example | |
| Price | Free (in app purchases) |
| User experience | Difficult onboarding Easy to share with friends Regular in-app notifications and push notifications |
| Unique value propositions | The only app to offer instant translation |
| Rating | 3 stars, people find it hard to register Many reviews comment on a fun experience, but difficult to learn how to use it. |
Building User Personas
Imagine building a house without a blueprint - that's what marketing without user personas is like.
A user persona is a data-driven representation of your app’s perfect users.
Since your target audience will be diverse, you can build numerous user personas for your app.
These profiles can help you shape your product and later marketing strategies.
How to Build a User Persona
User personas can be built with the market research you carried out earlier—this includes your customer research, direct feedback, and industry insights, among other sources.
If you don’t want to start from scratch, you can take advantage of user persona templates.
Semrush has a free buyer persona template to help you get started.
Pre-Launch Marketing: Mobile App Promotion
Once your app is ready, you have a launch date, and you’ve done your market research, it’s time to build some excitement around the release.
Here’s a list of the things you can do to secure a successful app launch:
Build a Landing Page
All the best launches need a pre-launch landing page. Also known as a “coming soon” page, these websites build buzz around your app. It should detail your upcoming offering concisely.
You can also use the pre-launch page to build leads and prepare potential conversions.
Have a Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing helps by creating and promoting relevant content to build interest in your app.
This differs from traditional marketing in that it serves educational and community-creating purposes. The more useful the content, the more staying power your app will have.
Take Spotify’s “Wrapped,” for example. Every year, the Spotify app generates a personalized summary of every user’s top musical preferences in a shareable format.
When people then go to social media to share their stories, the app gets a ton of attention.
Before launch, think of ways to encourage sharing and user-generated content from your app.
This kind of user-generated content is just one approach. Your strategy might also include:
- Video content: Create app previews, tutorials, and feature highlights that are easy to share
- Email marketing: Keep your waitlist engaged with development updates and launch countdown content
- Blog posts: Share your app's journey and educate users about problems your app solves
- Social media: Build anticipation with behind-the-scenes content and user testimonials
Before launch, think of ways to encourage sharing and user-generated content from your app. What unique data or experiences could your users want to share with their friends?
Try Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has become one of the most powerful strategies for app promotion, with creators driving both downloads and long-term user engagement.
While the landscape is shifting, with many marketers increasing their focus on smaller creators, success can come from any tier - it's all about finding the right fit for your app.
Here's how different types of influencers can boost your app marketing strategy:
1. Nano-influencers
Nano-influencers have fewer than 1,000 followers. However, they have remarkable engagement with their audiences. They often have specialized niches, which make their posts very impactful. They are often among the cheapest influencers to work with.
2. Micro-influencers
Micro-influencers have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. They sit somewhere between nano-influencers and macro-influencers. Their followers view them as reliable peers rather than celebrities, leading to higher engagement rates and more meaningful app installs. They are far cheaper than macro influencers.
3. Mid-Tier influencer
Bridging the gap between micro and macro, mid-tier influencers generally land between 50,000 and 500,000 followers.
They tend to maintain more personal connections with their audience than macro-influencers while providing broader exposure than micro-influencers.
4. Macro-influencers
Macro-influencers have hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. Working with them is the most expensive option, but they offer direct contact with huge audiences.
Want to read more? Get a general overview of influencer marketing here or dive into strategies for YouTube influencer marketing.
Acquisition Stage
Getting your app noticed is one challenge - turning that attention into downloads is another. The acquisition stage is where your marketing efforts convert interest into action.
The two main areas here include post-launch advertising and SEO for apps, which is better known as App Store Optimization (ASO).
Post-Launch Advertising
Once your app has launched, strategic advertising can help ensure it's visible to your target audience.
There are a ton of options for where to run an ad campaign these days, from Google Ads, to Facebook ads, to Apple Search Ads.
Use your market research when deciding where to advertise. If you found that your target audience was most at home on Facebook, that’s where you should be paying for ads.
Likewise, if they hang out on Instagram or TikTok, you should be spending on ads there instead.
Recommended reading: Facebook Advertising: How to Run Campaigns on Facebook
ASO
App Store Optimization (ASO) is the app store equivalent of SEO and a crucial part of any mobile app marketing strategy.
As discussed, there are millions of apps. There could be scores of competitors. ASO can help your app perform better in terms of search returns and downloads.
Build your ASO strategy on keywords, voice search, and foreign languages (if applicable).
App Store Keyword Research
Just like Google searches, app store success starts with the right keywords.
Picking the right keywords for your app store description can push your app higher up the search returns list.
To identify the best keywords for your app, you can use tools like Mobile App Insights and AI Keyword Inspector for ASO.
As time goes on, you’ll have to update your app store copy to include new keywords to stay relevant.
Mobile App Insights gives you a handful of reports to see what keywords your competitors are using and what search terms bring them the most downloads.
AI Keyword Inspector for ASO can fast-track your keyword research by using AI to analyze your app and immediately generate a list of high-traffic and relevant keywords along with their metrics.
Boost For Voice Searching
"Hey Siri, find me an app."
We can now search for apps (and anything else) with voice commands. Voice searches tend to be more conversational than typed queries. Keep that in mind when optimizing your entry for voice searching.
Foreign Languages
Want to go global?
App store searches in other countries will do better in their own languages. Translate your app to make sure it does better internationally.
Public Relations
An app launch wouldn’t be complete without a press release. This is a notice to the media that explains what your app is, who it’s for, and how it can be accessed.
You can send a press release pitch directly to industry journalists and news wire services, being sure to include why your new app is worth writing about.
Product Hunt
Want to catch the attention of early adopters?
Product Hunt is a popular place to launch new apps, products, and updates. This tech website lets you submit a product to be featured and users upvote their favorites. It’s a great place to get your app in front of journalists, early adopters, and future users.
Paid Marketing and Teaser Campaigns
Don’t forget about paid search and social media campaigns, to target potential users by interest and keyword. Paid and teaser campaigns are a great way to pick up new users and generate buzz around your new app.
Retention Stage
So, you’ve managed to reel them in. Now, you have to keep your hard-won users. There are lots of ways to do this.
Notifications
In-app and push notifications can be powerful engagement tools for keeping users updated on new developments. This can include app updates, special content, or promotions.
For example, the popular game Clash of Clans sends notifications about competitions, changes to gameplay, and other news that they actually want to see.
The key?
Be strategic about frequency and value. Overwhelming your users with too many could see your app deleted quickly.
Communications
Communicating with existing users is another example of content marketing. Language-learning app Duolingo is great at this.
It frequently sends emails and other messages to get people back into learning if they have been gone for a few days. It also sends facts about language learning, with cool statistics and other information.
You can manage communications with newsletters, blog posts on social media, and other content. Here’s a quick run-down of options.
Rewards and Loyalty Programs
Easy to understand—people like prizes and your users are no different.
Gamification
Game-like challenges can keep people coming back for more.
Social Integration
Exercise apps do this a lot. They retain users by letting them compete with friends via the app at a distance.
Feedback and Support
Show you react quickly to issues reported by users.
Offline Functionality
Let users enjoy the app offline. Think Spotify offline playlists, or Google Docs. This allows the app to be used anywhere.
Positive Reviews Within The App
Powerful social proof can vindicate people’s decision to use your app. Flaunt that positive feedback.
Reengagement
Sometimes, relationships don’t work out. Over time, some users may decide to stop using your app. That doesn’t mean you can’t win them back, though. The reengagement stage of the mobile engagement loop is about winning back wayward members of your app’s flock.
Here are some of the things you can do to win back departed users:
- A/B Testing
A/B testing is when you present different versions of your app to two different test groups. Fiddle with things like the user experience, notifications, and other updates. Present changes to one group of former users while the other group stays with the original app. Then, you can see which gets better feedback for potential rollout across your app.
- Community Building
Use your target audience's preferred social media platform to build a strong community. Even when someone leaves, the chances are they will keep seeing app updates from the social media scene.
- Updates and Improvements
Release updates and improvements as often as possible. Base these on user feedback to re-engage people who didn't like an earlier version of your app.
- Time Limited Offers
Send offers to entice people back to your app. You can target these to email addresses and other contact details you have from people who no longer use your app.
These are some of the most effective tactics available to you. Have a play and see which combination works best to re-engage former users and get them back on your app.
Summary of a Mobile App Marketing Strategy
So there you have it, the ultimate guide to marketing your app.
Build Brand Awareness
It’s clear that laying the groundwork for your app’s launch is vital for success. Building a “coming soon” page and working with influencers can generate buzz for your offering before the big day.
Implement ASO and Advertising
After you’ve launched, it’s about maintaining momentum. Paid ads and serious effort on your ASO can make sure your app stays visible to potential users.
Apply Retention Tactics
Special mention should go to retention tactics. Keep them coming back for more with notifications, communications like content marketing and things like offers, rewards, and other incentives.
Reengage Your Users
When users leave, don’t give up on them! Use reengagement tactics to win them back. A/B testing can identify the most popular iteration of your app. Community building can make your app indispensable to a given target audience over time.
Remember to make the most of the tools that are available to you. Semrush’s Mobile App Insights and AI Keyword Inspector for ASO help you make the best decisions with your app store description.
Have fun playing with all these tactics and see what works best for you. Best of luck on your launch!