ASO Optimization丨Traffic Thinking Never Dies (Exploring the Road to App Promotion)

 This article is mainly written for CEOs or company executives to expand new ideas for App promotion. If you are an operations staff, you can forward this article to your boss to help ease your KPI pressure!

App entrepreneurship has entered the second half. The incremental market has become a stock market, and the cost of acquiring traffic is increasing day by day, causing many people to exclaim that traffic thinking is dead. There is no doubt that if growth is to be achieved, other methods must be turned to. However, no matter which method is used, the essence is to win more new users and user usage time, which all falls into the category of traffic. From this perspective, traffic-oriented thinking is always correct, but the method of execution must change with the situation!

Therefore, I think the correct statement should be: the rough thinking of grabbing traffic will die, and it will be replaced by the refined thinking of traffic operation .

Maybe many people will sneer at you, but even a fool can see that what you said is in vain! However, knowing is knowing, and doing is doing. Why did Wang Yangming combine the two to create the School of Mind, a unique school of thought that became a mentor praised by all generations? This shows that it was not easy!

Inconsistencies between cognition and behavior are everywhere. For example, when WeChat's " mini program " came out some time ago, the industry was excited about it, and there was even an argument that "Apps must die." This is undoubtedly a reflection of the mentality of grabbing traffic. As the largest portal for iOS traffic, App Store, how many people really dig for the treasures within it? Reality shows that we must not only change our thinking, but also integrate knowledge and action to implement it.

One of the reasons why I firmly oppose the argument that "Mini Programs will subvert Apps" is because it is a regression in thinking, blindly chasing new things without finely operating existing traffic. As for whether WeChat can become the new traffic that everyone expects, I am skeptical. This article will not elaborate on it for the time being, but will focus on the topic of refined operation of the App Store.

When it comes to the App Store, many people will naturally think of ASO and equate ASO with point walls or keyword manipulation. Today, let’s open our minds a little and look at it from a different perspective!

Simply put, traffic is user attention. In an incremental market, everyone may benefit equally and move forward at the same pace, but in a stock market, it is a zero-sum game . Users have limited attention, and the success of one product may mean the failure of more products. In this sense, the scope of competitive products is constantly expanding, even WeChat and popular live broadcasts . The perception that only similar products are considered competing products will gradually be overturned.

This is vividly reflected in the App Store. The positions on the charts and in the featured recommendations are limited. There are only a few hundred positions that can attract the user's attention, and your competitors are definitely not just those of the same kind.

The situation is indeed very serious. For small and medium-sized apps, it is neither practical nor worthwhile to grab a position on the list. This is why everyone attaches so much importance to ASO, because it seems to be the only visible way to obtain traffic. Is this really the case? Is reality so helpless?

There is a very cool concept popular now called dimensionality reduction attack. When an attack is launched from three-dimensional space, the two-dimensional plane has no ability to fight back! So in App promotion, is there such a three-dimensional space where we can see other opportunities besides ASO?

To explain this problem clearly, let us return to the essence of traffic: user attention! Here, I must quote a sentence from Steve Jobs, which left a deep impression on me:

Jobs firmly believed that only when hardware and software are fully connected can users be given the ultimate experience, and only a closed system can achieve this. Even when Microsoft was at its peak, he never wavered from this belief.

Why Apple can subvert so much "common sense"? I think it is precisely the result of the unity of knowledge and action. To put it bluntly: Because Apple puts user experience above commercial interests, it has become the most profitable technology company today and has successfully won the attention and respect of users!

This is an important tip: pay attention to the user experience and it will pay off big time! Maybe many people think that this concept is too abstract, but in fact, one of the greatest charms of the iOS ecosystem is that it provides the most open opportunities in the most closed ecosystem!

Developers do not need to worry about the underlying hardware. As long as they use the official API, they can easily achieve a great user experience. These APIs are the product of Apple's deep integration with user experience and hardware technology.

Apple obviously hopes that developers can fully tap the potential of the platform. I wonder if you have noticed an interesting phenomenon: on the one hand, Apple is the most confidential technology company, and there is very little information released from the official; on the other hand, among the annual developer conferences of various giants, Apple's is the longest, with 4 or 5 consecutive days and hundreds of press conferences, releasing a lot of information.

Unfortunately, many people only pay attention to the Keynote. Having watched more than 60 sessions this year, I can say responsibly that the information revealed in the sessions is much more important for App entrepreneurs!

For example, the new ATS regulations (App transmission security) that I wrote some time ago will be officially implemented in January 2017. Apps that do not meet the requirements will not be put on the shelves. This information was revealed at WWDC, but most people know nothing about it! It can be seen that there is a huge communication gap between Apple and domestic developers. Although all information is public, it is difficult to convey to the developers. The reasons behind this are worth pondering!

However, this situation also creates opportunities. When most people are still stuck in the quagmire of extensive promotion, it is easier for pioneers to climb onto the shoulders of the Apple giant and complete a dimensionality reduction attack on competing products. Apple has prepared many bonuses for those who adapt to the situation:

1. Featured product recommendations. The App Store has set up many mechanisms to protect small and medium-sized developers and encourage innovation. Featured product recommendations is one of them.

2. The App Store is still the platform that is easiest to reach global users in history, without a doubt. Apple has made the most adequate preparations for internationalization in terms of multiple languages, cultural differences, and APIs. Yuntu Micromotion claims to have acquired hundreds of millions of users with zero budget, which is simply tapping into the platform's potential in this area. Please refer to my previous article "Revealing the 6 Secret Tricks of ASO Masters to Reach the Top of the Picture APP".

3. New opportunities such as iMessage Apps. According to foreign media analysis, the download volume of the first batch of apps supporting iMessage has soared. The most exaggerated one is JibJab, whose download volume soared by more than 1,500% in the first week of iOS10 release.

In fact, Sha Ming realized in June that iMessage was the most important feature of Apple in iOS10, and wrote a special article to analyze it. Please refer to "Taking you through WWDC from the top ten zodiac characteristics of Apple". Understanding Apple's intentions will only help with promotion. By the way, Apple attaches great importance to the new development language Swift. Replacing Objc is a foregone conclusion. It's time to seriously consider migrating to Swift. Maybe Apple will launch a special recommendation for Swift development in the future. Pioneers will always get the first bite.

Therefore, finely operating the App Store and tapping the potential of the platform is the magic door to the three-dimensional space and the answer to the question in the title of this article.

Many people exclaimed that the era of App entrepreneurship is over. I think the correct statement should be: the era of rough App entrepreneurship is over, and the era of refinement is coming!

I browsed many apps from a promotion perspective and found that most of them did not make full use of the tools provided by Apple. This may be related to the domestic environment and the barrier of English, but I think the most fundamental reason is the lack of awareness. Therefore, if you want to break through, you must first change your mindset!

Many people should have heard of the concept of "growth hacking". Many companies in Silicon Valley have a department responsible for growth, which connects multiple links such as products, development, and operations, connects the front and back ends, and drives growth with technology and data. However, domestic companies lack such functional departments, especially small and medium-sized apps. There is almost no communication between the development and promotion departments, and there is no common growth goal. Development teams are busy rushing to complete basic product functions; promotion teams are trapped by KPIs and only know how to buy volume, with a mindset of grabbing traffic; product developers do not understand the various underlying rules in the App Store and the tools that are conducive to promotion, and cannot effectively connect the front and back ends.

Therefore, the various departments are out of touch. The promotion department complains that the product is not up to standard and difficult to promote, and the development department complains that too many demands affect the development progress. The product is caught in the middle, resulting in a complete split between development and promotion! But from the CEO's perspective, he must understand that it is meaningless to develop a product if it cannot be launched. However, the actual difficulty is that there is a lack of talent who can connect the front and back ends. In the example just now, marketing can only put forward some general demands, and the product team has no ability to judge the rationality of these demands. Development can easily reject the demands on the grounds that they will affect the progress, causing the entire road to be blocked!

What is lacking here is a “growth” department that is familiar with the various App Store rules and Apple development trends, and also understands the relevant APIs and development! You should know that Apple provides thousands of APIs, so it is very important to select the ones that are most beneficial to promotion while having the least impact on the development side.

When I was watching WWDC, I often heard Apple engineers say when explaining the API: This is very easy to implement! In order to test how easy it is, I made an App myself and implemented the 3D Touch function. Practice has proved that it is really not that complicated and the impact on the development progress is minimal.

First of all, a shortcut menu will pop up by lightly pressing the icon. Clicking it will allow you to jump directly to the App page. My favorite one is “Return to the last viewed content”, which greatly simplifies the operation and improves the user experience. The animation is as follows

Just add a few entries in info.plist and the shortcut menu will appear. Then determine in the code which page to jump to when clicking each option (Xcode8, Swift3), it really couldn’t be simpler.

Secondly, Peek & Pop is implemented, which is the pressure of the content (in my app, it refers to the picture). The animation is as follows

The code is also very simplified. No matter how much content there is, it can be done with just a dozen lines of code. It is super simple.

Finally, a Quick Action menu is implemented, which allows users to directly reply to content in the Peep interface. The animation is as follows:

Implementation code (only defines the menu, no subsequent behavior)

It can be inferred that 3D Touch, as a standard and exclusive feature of future iPhones, will be favored by Apple for a long time. Since it is so simple to implement, why not add it? In the App Store's featured recommendations, there is always a special topic reserved for 3D Touch. The signal is obvious enough, but there are still many apps that do not support it. Now even Apple is anxious and has added a shortcut option to each app by default in the latest iOS version. It's really worrying!

People in the industry like to call Apple "Apple Dad", but sometimes I feel that Apple is as delicate as a lady from a noble family. She never expresses her thoughts directly, but hopes to be understood by others. Even if she is misunderstood, she will only throw out some small hints in a hurry. If you really don't understand her feelings, she will walk away, secretly sad! However, if you can become her confidant who understands her, she will reciprocate and even help you to upgrade and stand out!

In fact, 3D Touch is just a typical example. From the perspective of promotion or user experience, Apple provides many useful APIs, but they are not high-priority requirements in development. This requires the company's senior management to have this awareness and competent talents to connect promotion and development. OOPSING Consulting is willing to take the lead in this regard and provide advice to help small and medium-sized apps break through in the App Store!

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media information flow

The author of this article @Sha Ming World View Compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion), please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!