Believe it or not, more app entrepreneurs promote their business without spending a dime. And there are a couple of them who actually made millions off those apps just by promoting it for free through press publicity and social media platforms. Others also went for a more traditional approach and opted for recruiting customers and referrals. But these are not the only methods you can go for to create a buzz for your app.
Before you start budgeting for those high-quality SEO and marketing services, you need to check your OTHER options first. Sit down and think through all the clients that you already made business with. Email, billing invoices and websites can easily be used to promote your app.
One way for you to attract potential customers is by building a microsite. One or two pages about your app will do. This is just to let the audience what your app is about, its relevance and what makes it unique. Or you can try adding a teaser website that collects email addresses for interested people who’d like to try the app once it’s launched.
Blogging is a conventional way to market your product online. The trick here is to provide quality content with all the relevant information the viewers need to know about the app. You can then share contents off your blog site and post them on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn a couple of times per week. You can also add videos that tells a story of how your product came about and what it can do to improve their lives. It’s a good idea to tap bloggers to share your content (and even promote in their social media) to get people to do the marketing for you.
Create a series of video snippets that talks about the ‘how-to’ of your product. This will likely attract potential customers from the Vine and create a #howto hashtag and keep them posted about it.
Running a contest is a great way to promote your product. This contest has the potential to tap into others who are not aware about your app and will also spread the interest among their own social network. Viral sharing of videos, pictures and even hashtag’s your products in their social medial account is quite effective with minimum marketing cost. In return, they get to download your app for free (if this is a paid app) or they can also win a subscription for that same product.
There are a lot of mobile development speaking gigs that you can attend to. Research events in your area that talks about upcoming app developments and contact the coordinator if you can speak in that event. It’s good to start in small events and get recognized as the authority of such space.
Once your beta app is launched, expect negative reviews. But you don’t turn away, get discouraged and stopped. Rather, take the obsession to develop the app and make it better. Remember that these customers are the ambassador of your app, so take criticisms constructively.
Technopreneurs would rather find ways to keep the expenses low during the early phase of the development. And with more free platforms for advertising online, this opens the doors for startups to really make it big in the mobile industry. However, despite all the hypes on advertising, nothing beats good ol’ product that speak for itself.