How to promote an app without any budget?
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This article is compiled from Zhihu: Zhihu user: Yidi A few days ago, I heard many people comment on our products: It is normal for a big company to stop investing in promotion fees for such an unprofitable product after a long time. But we are not unemployed, we are still working hard on our products, and we still need to promote them. what to do? The poor have their own ways. Who says there is no way to make a living without money? 1. Find channels: Although we don’t have money, we are shameless. There are not many free promotion channels on the Internet now, but there are some. Striving to be the first to launch products in the domestic Android third-party market is an ultimate promotion channel. You can check it on the official website. But no matter what, the first release is the most valuable channel for promoting free apps. There will be supporting activities, banner positions, and promotional resources... Even if you can't get the first release event, you can still strive for individual awards. In addition, it is free to find some technology media recommendations (iFanr, 36kr), or submit articles to channels such as the most beautiful applications and niche applications. 2. Operate SNS: Although we don’t have money, we have manpower such as Weibo, Douban, and WeChat. These channels are free. It depends on how you do it. This is too much to go into, but social media is free. When you have no money, precision marketing becomes particularly important. Weibo marketing does not necessarily require hiring a joke maker to write jokes, and it is quite expensive. Even if you find a Douban group where your target users gather, it is worth spending a whole day posting messages to each of them rather than finding a marketing account to post advertisements. It’s not like I haven’t sent private messages on Weibo to attract users one by one when I was extremely poor. 3. Exchange resources: Although we don’t have money, we have resources. This may not apply to most situations. One is to have your own resources and replace the regular promotional positions with APP downloads. The other is to beg for resources, gifts, and advertising space from sister departments, and even beg friends to use their big WeChat accounts to post advertisements... Not every product can enjoy the shade under a big tree, but every product team will have some resources. 4. Seek users: Although we don’t have money, we have users. Products that truly meet user needs can be self-marketed, and users are willing to spontaneously conduct word-of-mouth marketing for you. Let users tell users that they can automatically post a Weibo post upon login like a certain bitch did, or remind users to post a Weibo post when they are enjoying the app, or hold a (fake) lucky draw to encourage users to recommend your app... The above are the methods I have seen in my work, and they are also the promotion plans I designed for the products I made for myself. People who are poor and arrogant are forced into that situation. Yes, many methods seem low-level. If you don’t like them, then you can give me the promotion fee [stretch out your hand… If I had money, I would also like to invest in subway advertising, okay? TT In short, 1. Your APP is indeed good enough; 2. You treat your APP as your own son and want everyone to know about it. In this case, it is still possible to do your best to find free resources for promotion and maximize the promotion effect without spending money. Zhihu user: Wang Dayao I am currently in charge of promotion in a startup company, and I know that promotion is not easy. Here I will introduce to you all the channels and methods I know, and attach the cost-effectiveness index and contact information of each channel, hoping to help more people. For entrepreneurs, the most important free channels are definitely free channels. Currently, free channels include app market debut, app market self-recommendation, app market special application, SNS operation and mutual promotion, and vertical media submission. However, the frequency of acquisition through free channels is low, so if you want to increase the volume quickly in the later stage, you still have to do paid promotion . 1. First release on the app market Currently, except for Wandoujia , all mainstream app stores in China support first-release applications and are free of charge. From a product perspective, the first launch is divided into two types: new product first launch and updated first launch; new product first launch refers to the product that has not yet been launched in various markets, and updated first launch refers to the first launch of each updated version. In addition, the first launch is divided into exclusive first launch (first launch in one market) and joint first launch (first launch in multiple markets). Regarding the first launch, a first launch in a big market will not necessarily produce good results. If the position is not good, the results will still be average. However, if channels like Meizu and OPPO can be the first to release the product, the effect will still be very good. For the initial launch application, you can apply for the initial launch in several markets at the same time. When writing the update description, you can write more update content, which can increase the probability of passing. QQ groups for developers of various application markets: QQ groups for developers of various major channels First release instructions for each app market: First release rules | Xiaomi App Developer Documentation 2. Application Market Special Topic In addition to the first release, the App Store also has a special application for this free resource. Currently, Meizu, Xiaomi, Huawei, Sogou Mobile Assistant and Lenovo have all applied for special topics. The topics of Meizu, Xiaomi and Sogou are applied for in the developer forum, while those of Huawei and Lenovo are applied for in the developer background. What a topic generally focuses on is the quality of the product and its fit with the topic. 3. Self-recommendation of new products Meizu, Xiaomi, 360, Huawei, and Lenovo can all nominate their new products. Generally, they are required to be on the shelves within 6 months. If your application is not accepted once, you can apply multiple times. In fact, editors of OPPO, Xiaomi, Huawei, etc. will also choose products with better quality and give them certain recommendation positions, and the positions are generally quite good, and the effect is obvious. In addition, Zuimei App, DEMO8, etc. also have product recommendation modules. As long as the product is unique and interesting, you can apply. 4. WeChat and Weibo operations/mutual promotion Entrepreneurs basically have official Weibo and WeChat accounts, and if they are managed well, they can bring in a lot of users. At the same time, you can try to promote each other with other brands on Weibo/WeChat. There are also such QQ groups for mutual promotion (you can search keywords in QQ groups). You can directly find mutual promotion partners in such groups. Continuous mutual promotion can also bring a certain amount of volume. 5. Vertical media submission Contributions to vertical media are more inclined towards PR, but the effects brought by large vertical media are still very good, especially allowing more people in the industry and investors to see them. Currently, you can submit articles or apply for project coverage on your own to 36Kr, Huxiu, Lieyun.com, Chuangyebang, iHeima, etc. In order to increase the chance of coverage, you can also ask friends to introduce reporters and editors of these media. Payment channel 1: App store placement App stores all have paid promotions, which are basically charged based on CPD (per download) or CPT (per time). Wandoujia, App Store , etc. also have keyword bidding. In general, the cost of acquiring a single user in the app market is high. If you don’t have a high budget in the early stages, you don’t have to try. 2. Ranking manipulation As far as I know, the rankings that can be made by the companies that manipulate the rankings include 91, Android, 360, Xiaomi and OPPO. Although the effect of brushing the rankings is not as good as in 2012/2013, it is still a cost-effective method. However, 91 and Android have basically no volume and can be ignored. The ranking effect in markets such as 360, Xiaomi, and OPPO is still good, and the cost of a single activation can be kept at around 1 yuan. However, all major markets have also strengthened monitoring of manipulation of rankings, volume, and comments, but there is still a certain risk. There are many companies in the Appstore that can make category rankings and overall rankings, but the prices are much higher. Basically, the top 100 in a category cost around RMB 10,000. However, in fact, for products around the top 100 in a category, the natural activations per day for products that are not very famous or that do not attract a lot of traffic are only around 1,000 to 1,500. If the number of new additions cannot keep up, it will be difficult to maintain the rankings. Therefore, ranking manipulation on the iOS side is really for rich people. 3. ASO Optimization ASO is currently a very popular promotion method. ASO mainly aims to improve the ranking of your app under various keywords. First of all, developers should work hard on name targets, keywords, and app descriptions, and match more cold and hot words that are expected to bring traffic. For niche keywords, developers can improve their rankings by clicking on them or buying some activations. For hot words, in addition to gradually improving their rankings, they can find a professional ASO company to do it. However, the cost is relatively high at present. If you want to rank first, the cost per day will be about 10,000 yuan, which is very high when converted. For companies in the early stages of their business, ASO can be tried to some extent, and they should first work hard to do a good job with long-tail niche keywords. 4. Weibo Nine-square grid The earliest promotion of the Weibo grid was probably in October and November last year when @同道大叔 promoted his own app 陪我. Through his personal Weibo alone, the activations in one month were close to 300,000. After that, many apps started trying to promote on Weibo , that is, they joined forces with 9 apps, found some app introduction-type Weibo posts (such as @app菌), and then found some big accounts to repost (such as @微博搞笑排行榜, @英国报姐, etc.). From December 2014 to February 2015, basically, for products that attracted a lot of traffic, the activation fee for each product was less than 50 cents, and for the better ones it was only 2-30 cents. In the past, the general cost of a promotion was 2k-3k, but the activation fee was 4k-5k. Products like tools , women's products, and video reading products could even increase 7k-8k per activation. In addition, the users brought by Weibo promotion were all downloaded through search in the app market, which directly boosted the ranking of the app market. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. As the prices of major bloggers continued to rise, Weibo officials also strengthened their monitoring and blocking of such Weibo accounts. Currently, many bloggers can only do micro-tasks. At the same time, fans’ recognition of advertisements is getting higher and higher. The popularity of Weibo has been declining. Currently, the effect of Weibo is much lower. Although it is much lower, it is still one of the most cost-effective paid channels. The cost of a single activation is still 2-3 yuan, and the cost of a single registration is about 3 yuan. 5. Exchange Exchange volume is currently a more common promotion method. Generally, you help me bring volume, and I will return volume to you at a corresponding ratio. In fact, exchanging traffic can also be used as a free method, but for products in the early stages of promotion, you don’t have much volume and often need to buy volume, so it is placed in the paid channel. If entrepreneurs feel that the scale of their products is too small, they can adopt the strategy of attacking Wei to save Zhao. For example, Product A can bring us 10,000 units, but we can only bring 3,000 units of Product A. Then you can find other channels to buy the remaining 7,000 units, thus achieving the one-to-one exchange requirement. There is also another unconventional way. Many large apps have built-in app recommendation slots. You can ask your friends who are responsible for these companies to buy traffic. This will bring in a good number of users and the price is not expensive. 6. Vertical Forum Large vertical forums currently retain a certain amount of traffic and users, and user activity is high, making them a good channel for entrepreneurs in the early stages. Currently the most common ones are Douban groups and Baidu Tieba. For a group with 300,000 members, the number of top posts will generally be around 600 for a month, which is a pretty good effect. Because there are too many advertisements on Tieba, it is best to cooperate with the forum owner to organize activities, which will achieve better results. 7. Alliance /Advertising Platform Online alliances are a mixed bag of channels, including point walls , lock screens, silent channels, PUSH, interstitials, market recommendation slots, etc. There are few market recommendation slots, but the quality of users is good, so they can be considered in the early stages of entrepreneurship. Other types of channels are numerous, but the quality of users is low. In order to complete their KPIs, many companies will go to this step. For general alliance networks, the activation fee is around 1.5 and the registration fee is around 2.5. There are many channel promotion QQ groups that you can join (search keywords such as Internet, mobile Internet , Internet business, etc. in QQ groups), and there are also channel websites, such as CPA Home, etc., where you can post messages. Basically, dozens of companies will contact you every day, and you can choose the best one. Youmi, Baidu Alliance, Google Adsense, etc. are also currently well-known online alliance platforms, but most of them charge by click. The Tapjoy platform currently allows payment by activation, and one activation is about 0.1 US dollars. Users without regional restrictions can try it. When I say advertising platforms, I generally only refer to the advertising platforms of major platforms or products with extremely high daily active users, such as Tencent's Guangdiantong , Weibo's Fanstong , and Toutiao's advertising system. Now Momo has also opened an advertising system. The cost of this type is slightly higher than the previous ones. 8. Campus marketing Campus marketing has been talked about a lot by many people, but many people have not talked about the actual method of promoting at a lower price. There are two types of ground promotion. One is to set up a promotion point in the school, which is more nicely called a roadshow. This requires a venue. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the venue fee for one day is basically 2,000 to 3,000 yuan, and the number of registrations brought by a roadshow is only two or three hundred. The cost is relatively high, but the brand promotion is good, at least half of the school knows you. Another way is to go door-to-door, which is to find students and clubs and ask them to directly invite people to download and register, or to promote the app in dormitories and classrooms. The cost of door-to-door registration in Beijing and Shanghai is already over 6 yuan, so it is not recommended. However, in other second-tier cities, the cost can still be controlled at 4 yuan per real registration. Let me talk about the simplest method. Find a few students to work part-time as building sweepers in the boys' dormitory. Give one bottle of Coke for every download of the app. In this way, basically more than 60% of the boys will download it. If one person sweeps a building every day, there will be one or two hundred registrations. Pay this part-time worker 200 yuan a day, but the whole building must be swept and at least 100 people must download the app. In this way, the cost will not be very high. Other campus cooperation such as club sponsorship can be put aside for the time being. It is better to distribute brochures. The printing cost of 1,000 brochures (color A5, double-sided) is only 60 yuan, and the distribution fee is 80 yuan. If the brochure design is good, the effect will be good. The above are some of the channels that I know and have tried. Of course, there are also some other promotion methods, such as placing advertisements on search platforms. There are so many channels, and the most important thing is to make decisions based on our user groups and development stages. This article is compiled from Zhihu. APP Top Promotion (www.opp2.com) is the top mobile APP promotion platform in China, focusing on mobile APP promotion operation methods, experience and skills, channel ASO optimization ranking, and sharing APP marketing information. Welcome to follow the official WeChat public account: appganhuo [Scan the top APP promotion WeChat QR code to get more dry goods and explosive materials] |
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