How to choose the most effective promotion channel for APP?

After the APP is launched, promoting the product through various APP promotion channels is one of the key operational tasks. Operators will try to maximize the brand effect with the least investment, by concentrating all promotion resources on a possible outbreak point, constantly amplifying, analyzing, and waiting for the outbreak process, ultimately attracting more users and increasing their market share.

Finding a good App promotion channel can make App operation and promotion achieve twice the result with half the effort. Many people think of free promotion channels when promoting for the first time, but often do not see any results after a long time, and then turn to paid App promotion channels. In fact, there are many APP promotion channels and there are many options to choose from. Let’s take a look at what they are?

1. Free channels

For entrepreneurs , first of all, the most important thing is definitely the free channels. Currently, the free channels include app market debut , app market self-recommendation, app market special application, SNS operation and mutual promotion, and vertical media submission.

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 major channels.

Instructions for first release in 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 36Kr, Huxiu, Chuangyebang , iHeima , etc. In order to increase the chance of coverage, you can also ask friends to introduce reporters and editors of these media.

2. Payment channels

Finding a good App promotion channel can make App operation and promotion achieve twice the result with half the effort. Many people think of free promotion channels when promoting for the first time, but often do not see any results after a long time, and then think of paid App promotion channels. So what are the effective paid App promotion channels?

1. App store launch

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 charts 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. But in fact, for products around the top 100 in a category, the natural activations per day for products that are not very famous or do not attract much traffic are only around 1,000 to 1,500. If the number of new users 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 Nine-Grid should be from October to November last year when Uncle Tongdao promoted his own app. Through his personal Weibo alone, the activations in one month were close to 300,000. After that, many apps began to try to promote on Weibo , that is, they joined forces with 9 apps, found some app introduction-type Weibo posts, and then found some big accounts to repost them.

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 only 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 ones on Changjiang are Douban groups and Baidu Tieba . For a group with 300,000 members, generally only about 600 comments will be posted at the top for a month, which is a 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 entire 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.

3. Other methods of APP promotion

In addition to the above free and paid APP promotion channels, I will share with you some commonly used methods and techniques. You should have used some of these methods more or less:

1. Website promotion

(1) Search. Baidu SEM , 360SEM, Sogou SEM, Shenma SEM, Baidu SEO .

(2) Website navigation. hao123 website navigation, 360 website navigation, sogou website navigation, 360 website navigation and so on. The mobile browsers include QQ Browser , UC Browser , Xiaomi Browser, etc.

(3) Network alliance. Baidu Alliance, Sogou Alliance.

(4) Portal community. Four major portals, local communities, and so on.

(5) Cross-industry cooperation.

(6) Lifestyle classified websites.

2. App Market/App Store

Xiaomi App Store , Baidu Mobile Assistant (including 91 Mobile Assistant and Android Market ), Huawei App Market , App Store, 360 Mobile Assistant , Meizu App Center, PP Assistant , UC App Store, OPPO Software Store, Jifeng Market , Sogou Mobile Assistant , Meizu Store, Wandoujia, Anzhi Market , Gionee Easy-to-use, Mumayi , Lenovo Le Store , App Store , Wo Store, Mobile MM, etc.

In addition, some browser app stores can also cooperate, such as QQ Browser, etc.

The APP promotion method here is to first launch the basics, and don’t miss out on anything that can be launched. Then make use of some resources, such as new product launch, first release, activities, exchange volume and so on. If you have some budget in the middle, it is recommended to increase the volume to do ASO optimization and give some good reviews.

3. QQ Group

QQ groups and WeChat groups are gathering places for precise users. If done well, you can obtain a group of seed users .

4. Wap

There are too few channels for APP promotion now, and WAP traffic is so large. If you have the money, you can make good use of it and jump directly to the app download page. I had a friend who often used this method to push up the app store rankings, which was really weird.

5. Zhihu promotion APP

I have a friend who insists on interacting with users on Zhihu. He has accumulated nearly 30,000 followers, nearly 50,000 likes, and more than 10,000 thanks. He once gave an answer, which was reposted by many Zhihu netizens on Sina Weibo , bringing him more than 10,000 new APPs that day.

6. Community

Through prize-giving activities in the community, a group of seed users can also be attracted.

7. Super App

In this era where everyone is their own media , every APP is also a traffic media. You can exchange traffic with APPs , pay, or participate in activities.

8. Brand Advertising

For example, television, building celebrities, subways, buses, cinemas, videos, etc. are suitable for brand exposure, but they require a lot of budget unless you are particularly good at making a name for yourself or have some special tricks. I really hope that one day I can get something for nothing, haha.

9. Colleges and universities, communities

Accurate offline promotion channel, and relatively efficient. If the quality problem can be solved here, it will be a very good channel. It is said that offline is the most efficient channel for game promotion .

10. Advertising Platform

Duomeng , Dianru, Dianle, Qincheng Interactive, Yunju, Youmi, Jupeng, Rehulu, Midi and so on. The resource forms are recommendation wall, interstitial screen, banner, push , points wall, etc. to promote APP software.

11. Pre-installation and flashing

I have never tried promoting APP in this way, but it is said that the effect is average and suitable for Baidu, Taobao , assistant, security, browser and other applications.

12. About the gameplay on iOS

The genuine ways of playing are: rushing to the top of the list , rushing to the points wall, brushing the list, brushing by machine, ASO, brushing directly by machine, optimizing the points wall, copying the main APP, changing the skin to make a vest, etc. Recently, some apps have directly put 20 keywords into the TOP10.

In addition, some can be used as associative words and hot searches. When I worked for my previous company, every time we did TV commercials, they were automatically promoted, but the results were average. But I heard that financial management APPs are quite effective. Limited-time free channels, such as Xianyou Technology’s limited-time free collection , Gaoqu.com and other channels. The jailbreak channels include PP Assistant, Apple Assistant, XY Assistant , SyncIpush , Hippo Assistant, Fox Assistant, Aisee Assistant, etc.

13. Precise channel promotion APP

We can also use some platforms for promotion, such as: Tencent Guangdiantong, Sina Weibo Fanstong , Toutiao, Momo Information Flow , Sina Fuyi, Shenma SEM channel, admob, inmobi.

14. Social Marketing

Launch activities through Weibo, WeChat and other channels to attract user participation and gain downloads. There is a product in Nanjing called Scallop, which has gained considerable downloads from Weibo and WeChat through small games such as word memorization competitions and naming. This costs very little, but the effect is very good. The Annie incident proves that the combination of Sina Weibo and WeChat Moments can generate amazing traffic and create rich residual commercial value for big Vs. The fact that NetEase’s H5 “I want to be on the headlines” was once very popular is enough to explain this.

In addition, the Weibo nine-square grid promotion, which was popular before, is also a way of APP promotion.

15. Event Marketing

Simply put, event marketing is to grasp the laws of news, create events with news value, and spread this news event through specific operations, so as to achieve the effect of advertising. Durex has done a good job in this regard, and you can learn from it.

16. Viral Marketing

Viral marketing can also be called a type of word-of-mouth marketing. It uses communication between groups to allow people to build up an understanding of services and products and achieve the purpose of publicity. Faceu, Zuji , and Moman Camera are the best among them.

17. Big V or Internet celebrity marketing

In the early days, My Aunt's Stories gained a lot of accurate and high-quality users through the recommendation of many CEOs of startup companies. This requires two conditions: good product quality and a celebrity recommendation.

18. DSP

DSP has always performed relatively well abroad and is also developing continuously in the country. Currently, DSP platforms that are operating well include Juxiao, Xiaoniao Push, etc., which are focused on APP promotion.

19. Subsidized promotion

Didi Dache and UBER are typical cases. Now there are companies that are unwilling to spend money on channels and are willing to spend money on customers, which is more accurate.

20. Live video streaming platform

The live broadcast platform channel refers to a channel in which the host recommends or even calls on everyone to download the APP through oral broadcasting and other forms. Those who are interested can try it.

21. Free channels

Chuangyebang, IT Ear, 36Kr , Internet Analysis Salon, NetEase Recommended News, Most Beautiful Applications, etc. can all be promoted through activities and articles.

22. Administrative channels

Previously, there was a product related to educational examinations that ranked first in the APP STORE overall list. It was said that it was a product that educational institutions designated as a must-use for students, so it achieved a large amount of traffic without spending any money.

The above mentioned some normal APP promotions. There are also some abnormal promotion methods, such as brushing the rankings. However, both Android and iOS have imposed strict restrictions on this type of cheating and formulated harsh punishment measures. If you are discovered, then you will ruin your own future.

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

The author of this article @马海祥 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map