Ten major challenges in promoting mobile Internet apps

Friends often ask, "I have made an App, how can I promote it?" or "Our company has developed an App, and we want to get a huge number of users in a short period of time, what should we do?" Others ask, "Is there any good channel that can get 1 million users in three months, and the budget is 100,000?"... For the above questions, I am speechless and really don't know how to respond. Here, the author answers the top ten questions you may encounter, hoping to let everyone understand the difficulties encountered in the process of App promotion, and understand that App promotion requires the support of many other factors to do a good job.

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1. User needs are too vertical

For example, a friend of mine developed an app for insomniac users, an IM tool for insomniac users. I feel that this user group is too segmented. On the one hand, many large IMs already have such functions. Why do those insomniac users still download such an app? What is the innovation? How can it help users? Many questions need to be considered. Therefore, it is too difficult to promote such an app. There are many apps like this. The main reason is that user needs are too segmented. Although the user characteristics are very accurate, the number of users will be very small after promotion, just like the promotion of 2D products on 2C media, the conversion rate must be very poor. Therefore, it is recommended that when starting a business and making an app, do not choose a too segmented group in the selection of user groups, which will be very difficult to promote.

2. Poor App Quality

In fact, many promoters do not pay attention to the quality issues of the App itself, such as the compatibility of the App. After many App teams develop products, they basically test them on a few mobile phones and start promoting them if there are no problems. After the promoters took over, they spent a lot of effort to get store resources for promotion, but they were dumbfounded when they saw the conversion rate: the conversion rate was too low. I have tested several friends' Apps on testin cloud testing, and after testing, I found that the compatibility of the new Apps was generally poor. Many mobile phones could not install it, and the number of lost users was also very large.

Often, when the number of users is not increasing, the boss will usually blame the promoters for not being effective. In fact, this has nothing to do with the promoters, but the poor quality of the apps developed by the program. Therefore, as a good app promoter, you should have an understanding of the quality of your own app. After all, when the number of users is not increasing, the boss will most likely ask for promotion, and you cannot afford to lose in silence.

3. Zero or low cost

People often ask me some questions, that is, try not to spend money or spend a little money to get a large number of App users. I am usually speechless when I meet such people, because they are obviously from traditional industries. The popularity of the App industry has made a small number of people rich overnight. It has attracted many people from traditional industries to come to seek gold. Maybe many teams spend a few months to make an App, and then start to promote it, thinking that millions of users will be in their hands soon. If this is the case, so many App industry promoters would have made a fortune long ago. Now many CPs spend money to find volume, and there are long queues. If you want to get volume without spending money, it is too difficult. Unless you know the boss of BAT and ask them to put a download link for you on their official website, there is definitely a chance. Therefore, under the current trend, there is almost no chance to promote the App without spending money.

4. No resource accumulation

Of course, there are always people who like to argue. Some people say that it is possible to promote without spending money. Yes, it is possible, provided that you have accumulated resources. What is resource accumulation? It means that your team has a large amount of traffic resources, or has strong connections, such as many network promotion experts in the industry. Why are they experts? That is because they have accumulated resources for a long time. When they are doing new projects, they have already used a lot of accumulated resources, such as traffic resources, media resources, etc., and rely on these resources to promote, of course, without spending money. So, if your team does not have any resource accumulation, and you want to promote an App without spending money, it is harder than climbing to the sky. Everything starts from scratch, and it must be very difficult to promote the App.

5. Short promotion cycle

Many CPs nowadays want to quickly gain users, which I understand very well. The industry is developing very fast now, and there are many competitors. If you are a little slower, you will fall behind your competitors, so the requirements for promoters are very harsh. I personally feel that it is very difficult to reach a volume of one million in two months. Any promotion has a certain lag, which is different from technical development. A product can be put online after the technical development is completed, but promotion is that you may not see any volume even after one or two months. Promotion is a long process, a process of accumulation of quantity. Only when the accumulation of quantity reaches a certain level will qualitative change occur.

When I was promoting, I set the promotion cycle in years. This way, the growth of users is a gradual process and is not prone to problems. It is normal for the number of backend App users to grow step by step. If the promotion cycle is too short, it will be difficult to launch a good product, and the user quality will not be too high. In this case, you have to spend more money than the market price to promote. Otherwise, there is no other way.

6. Users have high quality requirements

Another problem found in the promotion is that everyone has higher and higher requirements for user quality, which means that the conditions for screening users are more stringent. Many apps, especially those for dating, registration, and games, have very stringent requirements. Judging from the current status of app use, users are getting smarter and they know these traps and purposes too well. Harsh screening conditions can only lead to users abandoning you. The right to choose an app is always in the hands of the user, so don't give up the interests of users for the sake of a purpose, otherwise your product will not last too long, and it will also be more difficult to promote.

7. Difficulty in attracting talent

Another problem is that it is difficult to attract talents. Many teams cannot recruit the best talents. I once encountered a team that recruited technical personnel who could not even solve a problem that I could solve, such as the problem of lost signatures. Such a problem is absolutely fatal to a startup team, and such technology is also a "nightmare" for a startup team! The difficulty in attracting talents is that everyone wants to get excellent talents at a cheap price, which is almost impossible. The leaders of the startup team should always understand the market. The App industry is hot and talents are very difficult to recruit. It is very difficult to recruit talents cheaply. Spend 5K to recruit a junior developer and 50K to recruit a technical expert. The technical expert may get a lot of things done in a month, and the beginner may find it difficult to produce a finished product in a year. Therefore, if you want to recruit good talents, you have to be willing to spend money.

8. Difficulty in obtaining follow-up funds

There are also some entrepreneurial teams that are basically at the beginning of their business. The initial funds are invested by themselves, and they started their business without any follow-up funds. This is really a life-and-death struggle. When even eating becomes a problem, how can a person be at ease to do things? "Before the troops move, the food and grass must go first." Many entrepreneurial teams have basically no follow-up promotion funds. In the early stage, they can only rely on some very low-cost promotion methods to promote. It is difficult to survive until the entrepreneurial success. At the same time, without any resource accumulation, the bet is too big with just enthusiasm. The promotion funds are only enough to make a fire in the early stage. If it cannot be sustained, it will definitely fail.

9. Bad timing in the Red Ocean era

Another difficulty in app promotion is bad timing. In 2010, many apps could easily gain millions of users, but now it is different. There are too many people entering the mobile Internet industry, and it is easy to imagine how difficult it is to succeed in this red ocean of app entrepreneurship. App stores are highly concentrated, traffic is decreasing, and the cost of promoting apps is also increasing. If you fail to start an app business at this time, it is not because the product is bad, but a big reason is that the timing is wrong.

10. No strategic direction

***One is the strategic direction. I found that many apps can only imitate others. Whatever apps others make, I make the same app. I do whatever others do. I have seen two apps competing. This app held an event, and the person in charge of that app quickly ordered the people below to do one. Whatever function that app updated, this app also quickly added the same function. I feel that such a team is really a rip-off! The person in charge stares at the opponent every day, and the result is that he will never be able to catch up with others. In fact, when promoting an app, you must have your own promotion direction and plan. Blindly following and imitating will only make you die faster. The work of many promoters is always interfered by the leaders. In fact, many leaders basically don’t promote, so this is really harmful. Therefore, you must have a plan and steps for app promotion, instead of being a follower.

So App promotion is not that easy. App promotion has a lot to do with a company's product demand, product quality, team background, and self-promotion. Some teams are very rich, but they don't do a good job of promotion; some companies are very small but still do a good job of promotion. All of these are related to "people". If the team can overcome the above ten problems, then promotion will become easy.

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