10 ways to add Marketing into your Mobile App

Written by Sundaresan Sekar

Back in the non-digital era, the marketing teams would need to wait for the Android/iOS application development team to complete the products and hand it to over to start the marketing initiatives for a product launch.

Cut to 2018, times have changed! Marketing teams now get involved with the product team right at the start to increase the engagement, reach and usage of any product.

In the age of ‘Planet of the Apps ’, mobile apps face strong competition from similar ones as well as blatant rip-offs.

In order to stand out from the competition, marketing functionalities should be tied in with the product usage. Let’s break down the ways in which it can be accomplished.

1. Rewards

We are all collectors. We are so used to the reward points system. Thanks to the credit card industry that started offering miles and reward points for every purchase.

One of the best ways to make a user come back to smartphone app often is to have a ‘rewards’ or a ‘points’ module that gets incremented whenever the user performs a task inside the mobile app.

Though it’s not instant gratification, it’s something everyone loves to check now and then. Every positive action from the user will add points to his/her tally.

2. Push Notifications

If we were to convey this through Instagram dialect, this is BASIC.

This allows you to push offers to your users in one go. It makes them remember that your mobile app is on their smartphone.

Based on the type of mobile app, the type of notification may vary. It may be a notification about someone they follow or the latest brand partnership with a sweet deal or air dropping 100 reward points for the first 10000 users who visit the app from there.

Now to answer the impending question on how to make your users do that magic thing of “Turning Notifications On” - No one wants to be bothered now and then by dozens of mobile apps on their phone.

This is where the rewards module can help you. The first time they reach the rewards page has an offer to win 1000 points if they turn on the notifications for the app. You can paint a picture of the benefits of doing that. Reward them instantly with 1000 points and you have hit two birds with one stone. In most mobile apps, 1000 points translate to 1$ and it is a very low spend considering the opportunity at hand.

3. Leaderboard

“ We hate it when someone we know compares us to someone else “

But we compare ourselves with others all the time. A leaderboard function is ideal not just for gaming apps but for every app that has a rewards or a points corner.

Take any tournament in any sport, points table or tournament rank would be the most visited page. You can blur out the names of the other users but all that the user needs is his name and his rank and where he/she is currently.

One way to rank the users can be based on the reward points collected. It will definitely increase the time spent by the user on the app.

4. Activity / Community Updates

Let’s say you are on a product’s landing page. On the right-hand corner of the page, there is a live counter of the sales of the product and the scoreboard keeps ticking. People love seeing a ticking scoreboard.

(Probably the same reason there was a trend of agencies having a ‘coffees consumed’ counter running on their website running 24 x 7)

Have a page on your mobile app where there are positive updates about other users taking action or winning points or redeeming their points. This makes the user trust your mobile app and increases your credibility.

5. Make it easy for the users to share their achievements

Users love sharing their wins in their network. Make it easier for them to share. Some of the best websites in the market have followed this growth hack.

This is a must for any app that focuses on productivity, fitness, mindfulness etc. Did a user utilize your mobile app to meditate in peace for 10 straight days, notify him to share with a professionally designed post inside the app that conveys the message with a one-click share.

If you rely on users to screenshot their progress and share on their social channels, you definitely need expert assistance. (Talk to us, maybe)

For a gaming app, if your users lose by a whisker they will definitely want to share that with their friends.

While this is not a whisker in HQ Trivia standards, it was still a personal best.

Make it easier by providing a custom frame with their score and how close they were to victory. They will share it without a second thought.

6. Friendly Onboarding

Onboarding is a very important procedure for every mobile app. It has to be rich and simple at the same time. The onboarding journey should have a limited set of steps and users appreciate when they know the number of steps.

The key to decreasing the number of ‘skips’ is to keep the onboarding steps to the minimum and have a tracker on the screen to show the number of remaining steps.

The limited steps can also include joining your social community and turning on the notifications for the app.

Instead of force-feeding the features of the app to the first time user, it is a good practice to observe what the users do to understand the user flow inside your mobile app. Based on this, you can make incremental changes to the design.

7. Dashboards

If your mobile app involves productivity or activity tracking, dashboards are a gold mine of data for both the user as well as you.

Dashboards give a sense of power to the users and make them feel like they track their progress closely and make improvements to their personal life.

Here is a snapshot of the dashboards from one of our mobile app development project for Pyxsee

Perfect the features of the dashboards, invest in design and provide a memorable experience for the user that will make him want to come back again.

For e.g, If a user has reached 140% of his set daily goal, dashboards should not just show he has achieved the goal but it also has to visually show that he has exceeded his goal by 40%.

8. Humanize your Mobile App

People buy from people. People love working with mobile.

Every touchpoint with your end user is an opportunity to show your app’s personality. Are you happy about the progress of your user so far in the app? Convey that through a custom notification thanking them creatively.

While mobile apps often send notifications like “ We are missing you here “ and “ Here’s a small gift for you to come back “ to inactive users, gratitude is not conveyed to the active users.

When you have reached an important milestone in terms of downloads, share the news with your customers through email/text. This will make your brand stand out from the competition.

9. Right place at the right time

When’s the perfect time to ask a customer for referrals?

The time when the customer is happy with your services or when you helped them achieve a personal milestone.

Rather than randomly sending reviews or rating requests from time to time, try to send it to them just after the customers achieve a sizeable milestone in your mobile app.

They will be more than likely to provide a higher rating or upvote on Product Hunt when they are happy.

10. Inbuilt Customer Support

Customer support is often left outside the mobile app. Your users use your mobile app. Good for you. When something goes wrong, you cannot expect the users to reach out to you through a separate platform dedicated to customer support.

Make ways for users to reach you seamlessly from within the app. This will reduce the churn rate considerably and also allows you to collect data on the frequent issues faced by users.

When you resolve errors and bugs, reward users who reach out to your support team with points. You are setting new standards and you would have earned a brand advocate.

Summary

Gone are the days when the marketing and the product teams work as disjoint units. Every feature is an opportunity to market your product and every user can become a brand advocate when he/she is provided with a memorable app experience.

We love creating apps that are loved by mankind. Reach out to us with an app idea and let’s check all the boxes.

About TORUS TECH CO.

For any of your Digital Marketing, Cloud Services, Mobile & Web development requirements, please get in touch with us on [email protected] or contact us on US (+1 414-491-6804) India (+91 9600577018).