Expert Advice to Successfully Launch a Mobile App

When it comes to launching a mobile app for your business, it’s important to do it right. Your app, no matter what industry you’re in, will help improve customer experience and sales overall. Whether you’ve successfully launched a mobile app for your business in the past or this is your first time, here is expert advice for a successful app launch every step of the way.

Pre Launch

In order to successfully launch a mobile app, you need to think about the critical pre-launch process. Here’s how to get started.

Define Buyer Persona

Before you’ve even begun developing your app, you should have taken a look at your buyer persona. Your app needs to fulfill a certain need to make it successful among your customers. Thinking about what problem you’re solving and who you’re solving it for will improve the odds of success.

Study Competitors

If businesses in your specific industry have launched apps before you, take a look at their apps to see how you can improve on what they’re trying to accomplish. Pretend you are a customer and use your competitor’s app to perform the average tasks a customer would. Make a note of any issues you see with the app and anything you would do differently and keep these in mind when launching your own app.

Conduct Market Research

Market research should be your first step when it comes to developing an app to see if there is a demand for your product while showing the various opportunities to differentiate yourself from competitors. This simple step will help you when it comes time to develop an effective marketing strategy.

Develop Marketing Strategy

You don’t want to wait until your app is ready to launch before developing a marketing strategy. You need to get your new app into the hands of your customers, so you should consider your marketing strategy throughout the entire application development process. Key aspects you should consider are:

App Name: The name will be an important factor to help customers find your new app. Your name should be creative, but also include the functionality in the name so that your customers understand what it’s for. You can also include your brand name so that they know exactly how to look for it in the app store.

Keywords: Start your keyword research early so that you can launch your app with optimized pages and use those keywords on the marketing materials you’ll use.

Previews: Your customers will want to see what the app looks like before choosing to download. You should have visuals that clearly demonstrate the app and the uses to show customers how the app can improve their everyday lives or solve an immediate problem.

Build Buzz

As part of your marketing strategy, you should utilize tools like social media and content marketing to help you create and build buzz before the app is launched. You can create a social media presence to connect with your target audience and link back to the app store. Continue to market in your preferred ways throughout the entire launch process instead of just letting it fizz out after initial outreach. This will help continuously promote the app and reach new customers.

Beta Testing with Potential Users

The best method to find out if your application is what the customers want is to test it on real users. Getting early feedback from your target market can help you avoid costly errors and validate your existing concept.

Implement In-App Analytics

Analytics will help you collect data and better understand your users. You’ll need to understand user behavior to enhance overall user experience and optimize your marketing strategy. Focus on metrics that are the most useful for your business and marketing strategy that will help you better market to your target customers.

Create a Press Kit

To boost your public relations efforts when it comes to launching an app, you should have a press kit already created by the time of launch. A journalist will need to be able to find information about the app without the need to contact your business. They’ll want information fast so it’s important for your press kit to include: a press release, store icons and screenshots, video demo, app description, reviews, and company information.

Review Official Submission Guidelines

Apple and Google both have checklist guides that will help you launch your app. These official guidelines need to be followed before launching your app and uploading it to the store.

Localize Your App

Your app needs to reach your target audience so it’s important to localize your app and add the appropriate resources to launch an app and ensures that a certain country, locale, language, or culture is supported. You may have to change the language depending on location to make sure your app can be accessible across your entire target audience. Luckily, because you’ve already defined the buyer persona, you’ll know if this needs to be done ahead of time.

Schedule and Prepare For Your Launch Date

You’ll want to schedule your launch date at a time where you’ll be available to handle inquiries from the press, customers, and everyone in between. This will be a busy time for your business, so it’s important you set aside time to deal with everything that goes into the launch. Be prepared to receive messages from the press and customers alike who have questions or may need help.

At Launch

Now that your app is ready to launch, you’ll need to perform a few tasks to make sure your app is accessible, easy to find, and marketed properly.

Invest in App Store Optimization

One of the major methods of app discovery is browsing through the app store. App Store Optimization (ASO) strategies are going to be extremely beneficial so that your target audience can easily find the new app. ASO allows your app the ability to rank higher and make them easily discoverable to your audience. You should test and optimize your app’s name, keywords, description, and visual assets.

Continue the Buzz

Before launching your app, you may have put a focus on PR. Throughout the launch, you’ll need to continue to keep up the buzz of your new app to put it in form of more users. Simply reaching out to journalists in your niche or industry can help you create buzz. You should use the press kit you created pre-launch so that they can get a better idea of how the app works and who your business is.

Build Ratings

Positive reviews can boost app downloads. On release day, you’ll want to get as many positive reviews as possible. This will help your app immediately stand out in the store to achieve organic downloads and visibility. Your beta test users are a great place to start. Ask them to rate the app to help you get downloads and even more reviews immediately upon launch.

Use Paid Ads

A limited app launch campaign can help build awareness and increase downloads. While paid advertisements may not be the most cost-effective way to continuously promote an app, paid ads can be done for a limited time to boost initial visibility.

Post Launch

Congratulations! Your app has been launched and you’re ready to start getting downloads. The work is not over yet as you’ll need to follow through with your launch with a few simple tasks.

Plan Ongoing Engagement

Conversion is dependent on user engagement. You’ll need to stay engaged with your customers to keep them coming back and having a positive experience with your app. Consider how to build user engagement using special offers, discounts, reminders, and other information valuable to your customers.

Monitor App Performance

After your app has launched, you’ll need to measure and monitor your key metrics to easily understand customer behavior and how people are using your app. You’ll be able to see the flow of your app and also where users drop out of the app as well as other areas that need improvement. Staying up-to-date with your customers’ metrics will help you continuously improve your app based on their needs.

Update Regularly

Your app should change depending on metrics and customer behavior. As you continue to learn about your customers and they provide feedback, you’ll need to make regular updates to your app that fit your users’ needs. Your app should always be updated to fix bugs and release new features. Users will prefer an app that is updated regularly to show that it values the customers and their reviews and insights.

Re-Evaluate Marketing

Now that you have analytics on your mobile application whether it’s an iOS app or an Android app, you can use these metrics to focus and refocus your marketing efforts based on data. As your app evolves, so will your marketing strategy and you’ll be able to come up with more effective ideas and tactics to promote your app in order to continue to market it successfully.

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