How to promote a newly launched APP?

Mainstream App Customer Acquisition Channels

1. Available on major app stores

Major app stores are the main places for users to download apps, which are mainly divided into three categories:

• The mobile phone’s built-in app store: For example, well-known mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, etc. all have their own app stores. These built-in stores are industry-leading in terms of page experience and APP recommendation mechanism, and can be used as the main promotion channel.
• Third-party application stores: such as App Store, Wandoujia, Baidu Mobile Assistant, 360 Mobile Assistant, etc. These third-party stores have a relatively popular market share and can be used as auxiliary channels for APP promotion and customer acquisition. However, larger third-party application stores like App Store can be used as the main promotion channel.
• Major download sites: such as Green Download Site, Sunshine Download Site, etc., can be used as general channels for APP promotion and customer acquisition. It only requires users to be able to search for them on the download sites, because the user traffic of these websites is relatively low.

What needs to be noted here is to do a good job of ASO, that is, App Store Optimization, which means improving the weight of the App in the App Store by improving keyword coverage and ranking, so as to obtain more users' downloads.

2. Advertising

Companies with a certain amount of capital can consider placing advertisements to increase user registrations and product awareness. Common forms of advertising include: information flow advertising, search engine bidding advertising, and offline advertising.

• Information flow advertising: Baidu, Tencent, Weibo, Zhihu, Toutiao, and Douyin can all be used as places for information flow advertising. The key is to find the target users and add the right price to acquire users.
• Search engine advertising: You can place ads on search engines such as Baidu, 360, and Shenma.
• Offline advertising: For example, online education companies can choose to place advertisements in subways, bus stations, buildings and other locations near schools, while e-commerce companies can place advertisements in buildings, office buildings and other places.

It should be noted here that in the process of advertising, the key consideration is whether your APP type matches the channel.

3. Exchange

Traffic exchange means exchanging resources. You can exchange with the application market, with other APPs, or join the traffic exchange alliance. The forms of exchange include: content cooperation, pop-ups, focus pictures, in-app recommendations, etc.

• Content cooperation: It is to attract some potential users in other APPs/websites through the high-quality content of some products, so as to achieve the purpose of attracting new users.
• Pop-up promotion: It is a form of advertising that pops up when users open other apps/websites. This type of promotion is effective, but it greatly affects the user experience.
• Focus picture promotion: It is to place pictures about product information in a more prominent position in other applications/websites. Because this method is completed in the form of pictures, it has a certain visual appeal.
• In-app recommendation: It means placing each other in the recommendation position or recommendation column within each app.

What needs to be noted here is that before exchanging traffic, you need to consider whether there is a competitive relationship with the other party, what the other party’s brand image is like, etc.

4. Social Communication

Social communication is the mainstream customer acquisition model for apps, which mainly uses interesting ideas or some small benefits to ignite users' social circles. This is an app promotion model from point to surface. It can be roughly divided into old customers bringing in new customers, red envelope fission and group purchase fission.

• "Old users bring in new users" means encouraging existing users of the App to invite friends to participate in activities. At the same time, both users and their friends can get rewards, which ultimately creates a fission effect. Rewards can be in the form of material or spiritual rewards, such as red envelopes, VIP, coupons, points, etc. If used well, these rewards can also stimulate users to make secondary consumption. “Bringing new users with old users” is currently a relatively low-cost way to increase APP users.
• Red envelope fission: refers to when a user completes a consumption behavior, he can share the red envelope to the user's own social circle. The user's friends can obtain an indefinite amount of consumption red envelopes or discounts, etc. in the shared red envelope.
• Group buying fission: refers to sharing user product information to social circles, inviting friends to help bargain and support, so that users can get more discounts, and at the same time achieve the purpose of getting new users to pay attention to or download the App.

What needs to be noted here is to grasp the user's social mentality, grasp the timing of the user's social sharing, and pay attention to the user experience. Regarding user experience, it is recommended to use the app's one-click launch and invitation code-free functions.

5. Ground promotion

Ground promotion, as the name suggests, means ground promotion. It is an effective way to acquire customers for App. Compared with online promotion, ground promotion is a customer acquisition method that is more directly aimed at user groups. Ground promotion is very important for accumulating word-of-mouth in the early stages of a product, because it is the most direct way of communication with users, which can eliminate some potential users' concerns to a certain extent and increase potential users' trust in the product. Even during the field promotion process, we can interact with users and obtain the most direct user feedback, thereby optimizing the product.

What needs to be paid attention to here is the sales talk. Sales talk involves direct face-to-face communication with users. This is a communication process that requires the guidance of sales talk. For example, Internet financial products basically require users to authenticate their real names and bind their bank cards, which makes many users feel unsafe. You may think, if you complete real-name authentication and bind your bank card, will this cause you financial losses?

In fact, it is normal for users to have doubts, so in this process, field sales staff are needed to guide the users with field sales talk to eliminate their doubts and make them have more trust in your product. For example, tell users that our products are from a state-owned enterprise, that we have strong support, and that we are absolutely safe. Most people would be more convinced when they hear that it is a state-owned enterprise brand.

Conclusion

When a product is first released, there is a blank in the channel. We need to do some basic things well, so that at least users can find the product when they search for related content, making it easier for users to find it.

Theoretically speaking, the more promotion channels there are, the better. One more channel means one more place to cover users and one more download entrance. But are the more channels really better? I thought about it carefully, and there are two points that should be noted:

The first is to do a good job of sorting out the information. App promotion involves a lot of detailed work to do. We need to list the things to be done in advance and sort them out, such as which channels to lay out, how to promote each channel, which channels to find relevant contacts, etc., all need to be listed out and a priority should be given.

The second is to do a good job of data monitoring and analysis. When laying channels during the App promotion process, our general idea is: lay out channels widely - data monitoring - adjust and optimize promotion strategies based on data. However, the prerequisite for doing this job well is that the data obtained must be real, valid and accurate. This can be solved by connecting to some third-party channel data statistics tools, such as openinstall, which is relatively professional in the field of App channel statistics. It specializes in App installation source tracking technology and provides an installation service without filling in an invitation code, which can realize flexible user invitation functions.

By continuously analyzing and mining promotion data, and then carrying out App promotion in a step-by-step, planned and strategic manner, we can achieve strategic victory in App promotion, make sure that every shot counts, and maximize the App promotion strategy.

Author: Senshu Baiyun

Source: Zhihu

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