How to operate and promote APP? Familiarize yourself with these 4 points first!

The four most important points in APP operation are: attracting new users, retention, activation, and revenue. If you want to do a good job in APP operation and promotion , you must first be familiar with these four points.

With the continuous development of the APP industry, developing an APP is only the first step. After that, the APP needs to be operated and promoted . This process requires four steps: attracting new users, retaining users, promoting activation, and generating revenue.

An APP is like a "star" that is constantly packaged and invested in. It needs to constantly create "topics" to attract users and be supported by repeated optimization and upgrades and a series of promotional activities. Otherwise, an APP will soon be eliminated by the market.

Therefore, after the APP is developed, how to operate and promote it becomes particularly important.

1. First of all, you need to understand what needs to be done for APP operation and promotion?

1. Quoting from Baidu Encyclopedia: APP operation and promotion mainly include monitoring and analysis of APP traffic, target user behavior research, daily APP updates and content editing, online marketing planning and promotion, etc.
2. APP operation and promotion can be understood as: expanding the number of APP users - retaining users - conducting statistical analysis on APP traffic - increasing user activity - achieving revenue; in simple terms: attracting new users - retaining users - promoting activation - generating revenue .

2. Attract new customers

Attracting new users means attracting new users, and the most direct indicator is the number of new users. Users are the source of APP’s life and the co-creators of APP’s value. Only new users can bring new value to APP.

Common ways to attract new customers:

1. Promotion in major app stores: Listing an app in an app store is the first step in promotion and is also the main source of users for the app in the early stages. All major app stores have free first-launch resource slots.
2. Build an encyclopedia: Encyclopedia has high weight. When the APP is first released, there is no introduction about the APP on the Internet. Building an encyclopedia can allow users to quickly understand the APP.
3. New media operation: Attract users and guide them to download the APP through operation and promotion in new media. Commonly used new media platforms include: WeChat, Weibo, Toutiao, etc.
4. Ground promotion: Ground promotion in places with high traffic, such as distributing flyers, posting advertisements, etc.
5. Look for platform recommendations: When a new APP is released, you can strive for first-launch resources in various app stores, including exposure opportunities such as new product recommendations and Wandoujia’s design awards.
6. SEO/ASO: Through optimization, the APP can be ranked higher when users search for keywords.
7. Exchange and mutual promotion: You can find the built-in recommendation positions of other APP applications to exchange and mutual promotion.
8. Event marketing: Attract users by planning and operating promotional activities. This is a relatively simple and direct method. Through interesting event content and participation methods, users can learn about the APP and be encouraged to download and register the APP.

3. Retention

Retention actually reflects a conversion rate, that is, the process of converting unstable users in the early stage into stable users, active users, and loyal users. As the number of users continues to grow, the main task at this stage is to maintain users, reduce user churn, and improve user retention rate.

1. Retention rate

User retention rate refers to the situation in which new users open the APP at different times within a certain period of time. The user retention rate can show the attractiveness of the APP to users. It takes long-term persistence to calculate the retention rate. When promoting the APP, you need to pay special attention to data such as next-day retention, three-day retention, seven-day retention, 14-day retention, and 30-day retention. These data can reflect the user loss situation in different periods. By analyzing these data, we can quickly find the reasons for user loss.

Next-day retention : Because they are all new users, user loss will be more serious. This requires combining the APP's novice guidance design and the source channels of new users to analyze the reasons for user loss.

Weekly retention: After a week, users usually have experienced a complete APP operation process. If users can stay after a week, they are very likely to become loyal users of the APP. If user churn is serious, you can look for problems in the APP's own functions.

Monthly retention: This stage best reflects the retention of APP users. After a month, the users who remain at this time are generally loyal users and have a certain degree of dependence on the APP.

2. How to improve APP user retention

(1) Channel screening to improve channel conversion quality

User quality is an important part of improving user retention. The period when new users first start using the APP is a period of time when user churn is relatively serious; therefore, in terms of operation and promotion, user quality should be controlled and channels should be screened.

(2) Improve the brand awareness of the APP

Build a good brand, maintain a good brand image, and increase brand awareness; Why would others use the APP? In addition to various types of promotion, it is nothing more than recommendations from friends, high evaluations in the application market, etc.; the latter two are because the APP has a relatively high recognition, so it is very important to lay a good brand foundation.

(3) Provide guidance for new APP users

Provide good usage guidance for new users, especially for apps related to games, shopping, finance, and financial management. When new users first start using an app, they have basically no knowledge of specific operations within the app, so the app's new user guidance function is needed to help new users better experience the app.

(4) Optimize the performance of the app

Although the performance of mobile phones is constantly improving, APP still needs to optimize APP performance to avoid problems such as APP crashes, memory occupation, slow operation, etc. At present, the homogeneity of APP products on the market is quite serious, and users have relatively high alternative choices. Optimizing APP experience and product performance can better retain users to a certain extent.

4. Promote activity

Activation promotion refers to promoting the activity of APP users. The direct indicator is the number of active users, which are generally divided into daily active users, weekly active users, and monthly active users. After establishing a stable relationship with users, you need to increase user activity. Only active users can create value for the APP.

There must be a reason why APP users are less active. It could be that the APP experience is poor, or there could be problems with the APP, etc. In short, we need to find the reasons through scientific data analysis, solve hidden dangers in a timely manner, and improve user activity.

How to increase user activity?

Activities are a good way to increase user activity, whether online or offline; the content and form of activities should be as diverse as possible, and activities can be planned based on some important festivals or related hot spots. You can also increase user activity through daily activities, such as signing in, earning points after logging in, etc.

5. Revenue

After the APP has accumulated a group of loyal users and entered the normal operation track, user traffic and commercial value can be converted, and the APP can naturally start to generate revenue and monetize.

(1) When the number of APP users is large and the user activity is high, fees can be collected by introducing various advertisements;

(2) Provide value-added functional services. As long as the APP can create user stickiness, users will naturally develop consumption needs and purchase corresponding value-added products. For example, a membership or monthly card system can be set up in the APP. As long as users become dependent on the APP and want to obtain or enjoy more services, they will consciously convert into paying users.

(3) Conduct e-commerce conversion and realize monetization through the points store;

(4) User data is also valuable.

VI. Conclusion

The four stages of APP operation and promotion need data support as a reference. In some processes and decisions, data can even play a decisive role. The whole process of APP promotion requires at least one stable statistical tool:

For example, in the new user acquisition stage, you need to pay attention to promotion indicators such as user clicks, downloads, registrations, and number of users;

In the retention stage, you need to pay attention to the user's next-day retention, three-day retention, seven-day retention, thirty-day retention, retention rate and other conversion cycles;

In the activation stage, it is necessary to monitor user activity, the number of times the app is used, online time and other active data;

During the revenue-generating stage, it is necessary to collect statistics on user behavior data such as payment rates for value-added services.

At present, in terms of channel statistics, third parties such as openinstall can already realize data monitoring of the entire process of APP promotion. By analyzing the promotion data, we can adjust the APP operation and promotion plan to achieve targeted and refined operation and promotion, and ultimately achieve the goal of " attracting new users - retention - activation - revenue ".

Source: Big City Small Things