5 Tips to Help Grow Your Mobile App

The eternal challenge for app marketers is growth. How do you acquire more users? How do you retain the ones you already have? Here are five tips to help you continue to grow your app.

  1. Take advantage of video previews. Video auto-plays in the major app stores, and people are relying on video previews more than ever to make a downloading decision. Producing a great intro takes more time than money and is a great way to catch a potential user’s eye as they’re scrolling through app store offerings.
  2. Localize your listings. Don’t underestimate your product’s ability to go international. Spanish and Chinese localization alone will bring you billions of potential new users, but it’s important to hire a local native to do the transcriptions—automated tools are just not there yet. There are multiple distinct dialects within China and even Spanish-speaking countries have significant, meaningful differences from one country to the next. (Case in point: See how many different way there are to say “grocery store.”)
  3. Align your product outreach to holidays. Personalization works, and messages targeted to important world events give you an easy way to create engaging, immediately relevant copy. Yes, you will have to update your copy more often, and that’s a good thing. For instance, if you have a gaming app, let your characters acknowledge the upcoming holiday. If you’re in the e-commerce business, place your holiday-themed products up front as loss leaders.
  4. Solicit reviews. If you’ve ever listened to a podcast you know how important reviews are to climbing the charts. Great reviews can increase your downloads more quickly than perhaps any other outreach investment. Warning – look past the temptation to purchase fake reviews. If you’re found out, you could be blacklisted.
  5. Create a referral program. One of the best ways to get a great online reputation is to start a referral program. We all know how this works—you ask users to recommend your product to a friend in exchange for something. These programs come in many different forms, but word of mouth is important, and helps build trust.