All the free promotion methods and techniques for the Android App Market are here!

The matter began with a platform turnover statistics at the end of a certain month, and we discovered a sad fact: the platform's turnover this month not only did not increase steadily, but instead decreased by 10%. The product manager looked silent, while the operations manager shed tears.

However, judging from the results of data analysis, the user retention rate and payment conversion rate have not changed much compared to last month . So what went wrong?

Later, I looked carefully and found that the number of new users this month was only a little more than 1/2 of that of last month. In the case of a decline in new additions in existing channels, we can only see if we can do something in the application market that we didn’t maintain much before to gain traffic and users.

Because it involves channel ASO, I searched most of the articles and answers on woshipm and Zhihu, but these materials have two fatal shortcomings:

(1) Information is not updated in a timely manner

For example, many articles are still from one or even two years ago. When put into actual operation, we find that many things no longer conform to the current reality.

For example, most mainstream app markets have basically given up on feature recommendations. Those that haven’t given up are basically manually selected by editors (such as App Store and Xiaomi), and developers cannot actively apply for them.

(2) There are only theories and methods, but no specific data feedback

For example, first releases and welfare zones are the basic standard features of the free channels of the app market, but there are dozens of app markets, large and small, and it is not mentioned which app markets should be focused on maintaining and which app markets have high download volumes and better results through free promotion methods.

Since I am also a novice in channel promotion, this article may not be suitable for experienced people who have high traffic volume or products that mainly target IOS users.

1. What information do I need to prepare to launch an application on the market?

The necessary materials that need to be prepared for the application market are summarized as follows:

1. Business license of the company and ID card of the legal person ( operator )

The company's business license and the front and back ID photos of the legal person (operator) are almost necessary. Some application markets may also require company account opening license, tax registration certificate, organization code photo or the legal person (operator) holding ID card and other information.

2. Software Copyright

This is the key point! First of all, it allows you to add the "official" label to your products in major application markets (Baidu, 360, PP, and App Store all have this mechanism), making them appear more authoritative. The most important thing is that some application markets like Huawei, VIVO and OPPO cannot release applications without software copyright!

(PS: I saw in the news that Huawei, VIVO and OPPO were the top three in terms of mobile phone shipments. During the more than one month of waiting for the soft approval, I felt that I missed out on hundreds of millions.)

So, if you are not reluctant, apply in advance!

3. Other Information

For example, screenshots of the official website’s ICP registration ; trademark and copyright (mainly to prevent counterfeit applications, which can be complained and taken offline); signed empty packages (you can contact the developer to claim the application).

PS: Some markets are more friendly to corporate developers. For example, the welfare zone of the 360 ​​App Market is only open to corporate developers. In addition, individual developers of 360 cannot apply for social applications and there is a risk of their applications being removed from the shelves.

2. What are the free promotion methods in the current application market?

Before taking over the channel, I was completely confused as I had no experience. I could only search for a lot of information and articles about Android ASO (our products are mainly Android) on websites such as Renrenshishipinmeng.com and Qinggua Media, and then slowly organize them through mind maps, and finally do it based on the specific situation of the application market. After 5 months of practice, the key application channels and free promotion methods are sorted out as follows.

Starter /Joint starter

Key channels: Baidu, 360, App Store, PP (hereinafter referred to as: Alibaba Apps), Xiaomi, Huawei, etc.

Let’s talk about Baidu first. Baidu’s initial launch is quite strict and has many rules, including SDK access to the developer center, application downloads exceeding 200,000 in the Baidu market, and application for official genuine products. Later, I found it too complicated, including some conditions that could not be met, so I simply chose to give up.

The 360 ​​App Store is, on the contrary, somewhat relaxed; basically all applications are approved and given a recommended position; but on the other hand, it feels like a "national first release." The first-release zone updates 20 to 30 application promotion spots every day to share the traffic, but the actual download volume is not significant.

App Store had a first release, but now it has become the first release upgraded to version 2.0, called [Excellent New Application], which also has many restrictions and requirements.

Suitable for brand new applications (within 6 months of launch) and completely new versions of mature applications.

Depending on the app rating, S/A-level apps can apply for 24/48 hours, while B/C-level apps can only apply for 24 hours.

Xiaomi requires you to download the official form and apply by email.

Data feedback: We applied for the first launch of PP and 360, and later statistics showed that the results of the two were similar. Judging from the data, there is not much difference between the effects of joint launch and first launch. Personally, I recommend that multiple app markets jointly launch.

Welfare Zone

Key channels: Alibaba Apps, 360, App Store, Baidu, Xiaomi, etc.

It is relatively easy to apply for the Ali App Welfare Zone, but it is best to apply in advance because sometimes the schedule may be full and the launch time may be postponed for a week or even longer; if you have Weibo and official accounts to help promote it, it will be a plus.

As for the 360 ​​App Market, the welfare zone is only open to applications from corporate developers. The benefit application period is 14-60 days, and there are no requirements for download volume.

The duration of App Store activities is not limited and they can also be long-term activities.

To apply for Baidu's welfare zone, you also need to have more than 200,000 downloads in this market. We did not meet the requirement, so we did not apply.

It is worth mentioning that Xiaomi’s welfare area is called Xiaomi Card Wallet , but it is not promoted in Xiaomi’s App Store . Instead, it is promoted in the system’s built-in [Xiaomi Wallet] - [Coupons]. We applied for it but it was not approved.

Data feedback: We have created welfare areas for 360 and Alibaba. Judging from the results, Alibaba is better than 360.

Excellent Application Application

Optional channels: 360 App Store, Baidu, App Store, Huawei, Alibaba, etc.

(1) 360 Dandelion Award

3. Through self-recommendation of new products, high-quality products are planned to be selected into the Dandelion Plan. The official said that it is an exclusive promotion resource with an advertising value of no less than 500,000. The application rules are that the software application must have been launched within 6 months.

(2) Baidu Golden Bear Paw

Baidu Golden Bear Paw was founded in July 2015. It is also a support program for entrepreneurs. Officially, it provides 600,000 traffic resources.

(3) Huawei Enlightenment Program and See you on Monday

Huawei has two activities to recommend excellent applications.

The first is the Enlightenment Program. The application must have been registered with Huawei App Alliance within 3 months, and the submitted application must not have participated in any special events in Huawei App Market within 3 months (except for fresh product albums and editor recommendations);

Second, see the special topic on Monday.

We select high-quality apps every week, with no particular restrictions on themes. Give the recommendation for display in the four-leaf clover position on the homepage (the recommended position is arranged every Monday and displayed for about 2 days). Normally, 4 candidates are shortlisted. The list of candidates selected in the previous round will be announced at the same time as the next round of registration.

(4) App Store: Excellent new applications

Excellent applications that apply for first release can be recommended as the first release [High-quality New Products]. Requirements: Weekly downloads must reach 7,000, otherwise it will not pass the initial review.

Since the company had been online for more than 6 months when I took over, I don’t have much experience to share.

(5) Xiaomi: Golden Rice Award

The apps selected for the Golden Rice Awards are the best apps and games in the past two weeks. Like special topics, they are recommended by the editors and are not open to external applications.

(6) OPPO: The most beautiful application

Zhimei App is a free channel recently launched by OPPO. Applications are open every Monday at 8:00 am, with a limit of 30 applications per week. The application label must be Class A.

(7) Alibaba Applications: Qingteng Project

After acquiring PP and Wandoujia and integrating the original UC and Shenma Search, the new Alibaba application launched the Qingteng Plan, which claims to share 1 billion traffic. Only for enterprise developers, submit applications before the 15th of each month. Specific requirements are as follows:

Featured

Let me talk about the special recommendations first.

• Meizu: The staff of the official forum said that the topic self-recommendation has been temporarily cancelled, but did not specify when the reply will be available;
• Alibaba: There is a special self-recommendation forum, but the most recent application was at the end of September last year. I don’t know whether Alibaba’s application distribution platform will strengthen this area after integrating PP, Wandoujia , etc.

In addition, Sogou, Jifeng, Lenovo, etc. have special recommendations every week. Since our products are not downloaded much every day in these application markets, we did not consider applying.

In addition, for apps like App Store and Xiaomi Store, topics are all hand-selected by editors, and developers don't even have the opportunity to apply. If your product doesn't have many highlights, don't expect too much from this.

Other methods

We cannot afford to spend more than 10 yuan per user, but we have tried paying to increase the number of downloads and comments on the Android market (several channels with good conversion effects), but judging from the actual download situation, the results were minimal; of course, it may take a long time to be effective. In addition, we also mobilized our own anchors to give the app positive reviews, but judging from the subsequent downloads, the effect was not obvious.

3. Experience and insights on application market promotion

Don't maintain all channels, just focus on maintaining the channels with volume

When I was looking for information before, I saw a high-voted answer on Zhihu. The answerer's approach was to cover all large, medium and small application market channels . Of course, the feedback from his background data and pictures was also good, achieving more than 2,000 new users per day.

But my personal suggestion is to cover a batch of screening first and maintain the mainstream and volume channels. First, consider the time and effort invested, and the proportionality of the rewards; on the other hand, in practice, I found that some small application markets will automatically capture the installation packages of the mainstream markets. If the big markets are updated one second ago, they will capture the packages and automatically update in the next second. There is actually not much difference between maintenance and no maintenance.

Take our product for example. Initially, we had only 4-5 channels that were not maintained much. After I took over, I selected about 20 relatively well-known channels in the early stage. Then, through continuous feedback (mainly to see whether there was volume), we slowly screened out 7 or 8 channels for key maintenance. For example, when a version was updated, we would release it for the first time or jointly for the first time. We had benefits for new users, and we applied for the [Benefit Zone] in several major markets to increase volume.

I personally think the key channels that must be covered (five giants): 360, Xiaomi, App Store, Baidu, and Alibaba.

A large application market must be maintained more

The product manager came to me that day and said that the sales volume of several major application markets has decreased recently. I felt a little aggrieved. When the channel was handed over to me, it had not been maintained for more than half a year (only the installation package and version notes were updated when there was a version update), and no paid promotion was done, so the number of downloads has been declining.

My opinion is : if you have money, you can use paid channels; if you don’t have money, you can use free channels such as first releases, activities, welfare zones, and any application markets with volume, and try all of them; also, try the ways of playing in each application market (such as Baidu App Show and search term optimization, Tencent’s excellent new applications, PP Jifenbao plan, etc.). Doing these actions can add points to your product. (Like 360, Alibaba, Baidu, etc., there are also developer ratings, and these factors are probably taken into consideration)

From my personal experience, after doing these maintenance actions, the download volume will increase slightly compared to before, at least for a week.

Activity promotion is very important

Here we would like to give an example of our Alibaba application.

On the first day of the event, our product was ranked 6th. 2 days before the end of the event, we got a very good promotion position (ranked 2nd on Sunday and 1st on Monday), which brought us considerable downloads. The number of downloads in one day alone was 10 times the effect of the previous debut in another app market.

Later I thought that it was probably because I was quite active in the group, including posting @PP助手official on Weibo on the day before the event, which gave me extra points, so the promotional position I was given was not bad.

If the product is good enough, it will be more effective to promote it

In the process of application market promotion, if your product is well made, you can save a lot of effort in application promotion .

For example, ZERO had an article titled "4 months, 5,000 yuan spent, 830,000 registered users" that went viral online. The head of ZERO's operations said:

Because I have been on the most beautiful apps and the minority, the app market has been really smooth sailing.

Then you can continue to use the "Recommended by AppStore" to ask for recommended positions in major Android markets . At the same time, if you do a little promotion yourself, the various application recommendation platforms will not be reluctant to recommend you again.

However, the premise of all this free traffic is: your product (application) is good enough, otherwise why would others promote it for you for free and give you a recommendation position? Take AppStore recommendation for example, there are only 10 places available every year, while the total number of applications in the App store has already exceeded 1 million+.

Take our product for example. We applied for an excellent application in a second-rate application market, but it was rejected on the grounds that "the product has few highlights". I was very upset at the time. Now that I think about it, my situation is probably the current situation of 90% of product promotions on the market.

The free traffic in the app market is getting less and less, so consider other promotion methods

To sum up, we must first admit that there are still some free channels in the current application market, such as first releases, benefits, and recommendations for good applications. But these free channels are being tightened (such as special recommendations), and the effects are not as good as before.

This may be because the demographic dividend of the mobile market no longer exists. For example, if we are working on social products, according to a research report from iResearch, the growth rate of the global social network user base in 2016 was less than 10%. In addition, the users' enthusiasm for downloading is decreasing, so the application market is obviously no longer as hot as it was in previous years.

In my opinion, after Alibaba acquired PP and Wandoujia, integrated the original Taobao Mobile Assistant, Shenma Search , and UC, and unified them into the Alibaba App Market, the mainstream application market has basically been determined. The new Alibaba App Market, App Store, 360, etc. have entered the first tier of application store distribution.

As the large market is basically determined, application market platforms have begun to consider profitability more, and more resources are inclined to paid promotion rather than free recommendation resources. The days when a launch could bring in hundreds of thousands of users may no longer exist.

Given the overall situation of the application market, it is necessary to strengthen the polishing of one's own products to obtain better retention. In addition, more consideration and practice is needed in terms of submitting articles to entrepreneurial media to promote one's own products, providing sharing links or invitation reward mechanisms within products to attract old customers to new ones, distributing content through self-media such as public accounts and Toutiao to obtain effective conversions , and exchanging traffic between BD partners .

Finally, I’ve attached a list of free promotion methods and commonly used tools for mainstream channels that I have summarized.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

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