How can small companies promote their apps without celebrity endorsements?

Products endorsed by celebrities can bring good sales for the products. In recent years, some celebrities have even started endorsing apps. The celebrity effect can bring a certain number of users to the APP, but the product development and design of the APP itself must be done well in order to retain fans; otherwise, what may happen is that your APP ends its cooperation with the celebrity, and the celebrity will run away with a wave of fans, and your APP will suffer a large loss of users ! When celebrities endorse an APP, it is mostly just to attract new users . The key is how to convert their fans into real users of our APP.

Looking across the entire Internet, there are quite a few apps endorsed by celebrities, but has celebrity endorsement become the key to an app’s dominance in the market? Let’s first take a look at what apps the celebrities endorse.

1. Two types of endorsement

Although they are all endorsed by celebrities, there are still essential differences. Let’s first take a look at which celebrities endorse the APPs and what are the differences in the endorsement methods.

1. Celebrities endorse apps

APP invites celebrities to endorse their APP, and some commercial activities will also invite the endorsing celebrities to the scene. This method is quite common. For example, financial products, e-commerce apps, O2O , live streaming apps , video/photo apps, life service apps, etc. They all use celebrity endorsements to obtain a large amount of traffic .

What I remember most is: Yizhibo . Last year, when I went to see a movie , during the commercial breaks before the movie started, there were often advertisements of Song Joong-ki endorsing Yizhibo, which created a brainwashing feeling and naturally left a deep impression on people.

Those who have watched Running Man know that Lu Han is the spokesperson for ofo. Lu Han has so many fans, and for ofo, it will be able to attract Lu Han’s fans and bring in a wave of users to better compete with Mobike .

Of course, there are more than just the two above, there are many more.

2. Celebrities start their own businesses and promote their own apps

Many celebrities start their own businesses in addition to their careers in the entertainment industry. Generally speaking, they endorse their own apps and use their fame to promote the apps and attract new users .

2. Why do apps start using celebrities as endorsements?

Why is it so popular to invite celebrities to endorse APPs?

1. Shorten the time to acquire users

Following the closure of Wukong Bike, 3VBlike also announced the cessation of operations . The shared bicycle economy is booming, with a large number of entrepreneurs and investors pouring in, and the shared bicycle market has reached saturation. In fact, this is a microcosm of the Internet industry. A large number of apps of the same category want to compete for a place in the market. How to gain a large number of users in the shortest time is a problem currently faced by app operators. Celebrities have their own traffic, and asking celebrities to endorse an APP can bring a large number of users to the APP in a short period of time.

2. Changes in APP operation mode

More and more APPs choose traditional marketing methods to promote APPs, such as building advertising, bus advertising, flyer distribution, etc. Online promotion is no longer the only way of promotion. Moreover, APP no longer exists in a purely online form. In the case of e-commerce APP, it is an online operation and offline pickup model, while in the financial industry, it is an online hosting model. The operating mode of APP has increased users' vigilance.

As for the financial industry APP Ai Qianjin, in order to attract users, in addition to declaring that the platform funds are deposited by Hua Xia Bank and that it is safe to use the Ai Qianjin APP for investment, Wang Han's endorsement also endorsed the Ai Qianjin APP. Celebrity endorsements reduce users’ wariness.

3. Build brand image

Asking celebrities to endorse your APP can also help in building your own brand. The Beauty Camera APP invited actress Angelababy as its spokesperson. The main user group of the Beauty Camera APP is girls who want to make their photos beautiful. Angelababy's young and beautiful image coincides with the concept of the Beauty Camera APP. As the spokesperson of the Beauty Camera APP, Angelababy embodies the personality of the brand of the Beauty Camera APP and shortens the distance between users and the brand. When users think of picture beautification, they naturally think of the Beauty Camera APP.

3. How can a small company promote its own APP if it cannot hire a celebrity to endorse it?

It costs a lot to hire a celebrity to endorse an app, so not all companies have the capital or resources to hire a celebrity to endorse an app. But if it can’t hire celebrities to endorse its products, will the APP be unable to survive? ?

Not really, okay?

There are many ways to attract new users to promote an APP, and inviting celebrities to endorse it is just one of the more effective ways. Celebrity endorsements can be good or bad, and the success or failure of an APP may be due to the celebrities. Without celebrity endorsements, we can only look for other methods and carry out down-to-earth promotion and new customer acquisition. Here are some effective methods to quickly find your own users:

1. Do a good job of ASO optimization

To attract new users and promote APP, it is essential to do ASO optimization. Doing a good job of ASO optimization can improve the ranking of the APP in the app store . If the APP can get a good ranking in the app store, it will be of certain help to the download volume of the APP.

When doing ASO optimization, you must ensure that the APP icon is clear and beautiful. Before setting the title , you must do a keyword popularity analysis and competitor keyword analysis in advance, standardize the title content, and how to integrate keywords into the title is the key. After the APP is launched, you can use your personal connections to increase the number of APP downloads and let users evaluate and rate the APP. These are all factors that influence ASO to improve keyword rankings. Although it is rather cumbersome, it needs to be done. APP also needs to maintain a certain frequency of updates and iterations, just like website operations, which also require daily updates in order to continuously improve the website's weight and keyword rankings.

To do a good job in ASO optimization, Hezijun has also made a detailed introduction in the article "Two Important Channels for APP to Attract New Users: ASO Promotion + Retention of Old Users".

2. Plan an event for the app

A good campaign can bring considerable downloads to the APP in a short period of time. When the fitness app Keep was promoting its APP , it once cooperated with the variety show "Real Men". By downloading Keep and completing training check-ins, you can participate in different types of lotteries based on the number of check-ins. The event cooperated with the popular variety show, gained a high exposure, and increased the number of downloads of Keep.

When operating an event , you should clearly define the purpose of the event and plan the event around this purpose. For specific event designs, please refer to my previous article "APP Operation, How to Design an Event that Users Can't Stop." Before the activity is carried out, it is necessary to confirm the resources of all parties, calculate the cost of the activity, and prepare emergency plans for possible risks. After the event is over, review and summarize, reflect on the shortcomings and highlights of this event, so that you will not fall into the same pit again next time you do an event.

3. Activate old users, attract new users through old users, and achieve viral user growth

The book "Demand" says that the magical product is not the first mover, but the first person who can create emotional resonance and grasp the direction of the market. If we apply this sentence to operations, we can understand that although there are countless operators of the same category of APPs, only those who fully communicate with users, give users care, and make users feel the warmth of the APP can win users for the APP. When users become loyal users of their own APP, they will naturally recommend your APP to others.

Of course, viral user growth also follows the AARRR model . From the AARRR model, the growth engine tool of the viral growth engine is derived. The Deeplink technology is used to realize the user growth from Referral [recommended user] to Acquisition [acquisition of user] in AARRR , and then return to decompose the user life cycle from AARRR for strategic operation! There is a continuous cycle between them that can achieve continuous growth of APP users!

Summary: Celebrity endorsement of an APP can bring a large number of users to your APP in a short period of time. After watching the excitement, these users will abandon the APP and leave. Celebrity endorsement of an APP is actually just a gimmick. The real key to success is to operate the APP’s users well and convert them into loyal users.