Spending Money on Mobile App Marketing

Investing in Marketing is Part of the App Development Business

Do you ever wonder why some apps perform great in the market, like Angry Birds, Instagram or Pinterest? Do you ever wonder why they reach a thousand downloads per day? Do you even wonder why mobile users are willing to pay to download apps even if they would cost them a dollar or two? If your answer to all these questions is a yes, then you must not be that aware of powerful marketing strategies. In today’s strict competition in the app market, it’s not about how good or bad an app is. It’s about how good an app is packaged to attract downloaders.

Deciding How Much to Spend on Mobile App Marketing

Now, there are two ways to deal with marketing problems. The first one is to spend some bucks and have other people do the marketing for you. The second one is to devise your own, personalized way to bring the app to the market without having to spend a lot of money if you are on a tight budget. The question here lies on whether you are willing to shell out money from your pocket or not and if you really have the budget. Creating an app requires skills, but marketing it to all mobile users in the world requires creativity and some amount of money.

What is the difference when you let others do the marketing and when you do it by yourself? You are an app developer, so you are more concerned with how your app will work for the mobile users. You are on the technical aspect of everything. Unless you have double majored in marketing, you wouldn’t have any idea about marketing strategies. Therefore, you have limited capabilities in assuring that your app does well in the market, unlike if you have your own marketing team that knows the techniques and strategies to attract your target audience. You wouldn’t want to risk your app’s performance in the market, right? You wouldn’t want to waste money also. That is why most successful app developers have an effective marketing team that is responsible for making their apps a big name in the business.

Where to Spend Your Mobile App Marketing Dollars

Now, if you have the budget for a more effective and more sure shot marketing campaign, here is what you can consider doing:

1. Hire a marketing team. Marketing is not just about selling your product. It has its own techniques and mechanisms to introduce your product to the market. It’s not simple actually because from the name, down to the look, down to every word you use in describing your app it all must be studied before coming up with the entire package. How you market your product depends on who you’re marketing it to and that is what a marketing graduate has mastered through the years. You have to choose your team wisely. They should be educated and experienced. The number of members of your team will depend on how big your target is. Are you aiming to market in just one country? In just one platform? It all depends on you. The rate per member of the team will also depend on you although be prepared for some negotiations, especially because app marketing is in demand right now and the rates have continuously been increasing. Better search for app marketing firms on Google first and check out the feedback before hiring the person so you don’t waste your money.

2. Spend on the best platform. Do research on the best mobile app development platform. It’s not just about your app’s performance. There are platforms that do not only make your apps perform better than in other platforms, but they also tie up with some review sites that automatically create commentaries and reviews about new apps. There are also platforms which automatically upload a recently created app into different markets such as the Google Play Store, Apple App Store and the Amazon for Android Store. In this way, you get to put your app in different avenues where people can see and download it right away.  An annual subscription to such platforms will only cost you $200 to $400. The price is reasonable and affordable enough because it will save you from uploading an app to different marketplaces all by yourself.

2. Be a member of different app promoters online. With one quick search on Google about great apps, your app should be included in the list. How do you do that? Be a member of any online app promoter like GreatApps.com. For as low as a $100, your app will be promoted on this site for a year, what with its 50,000 visitors monthly. App promoters like this website are usually visited by mobile users who are doing an online search of the best apps to download. If you want full promotion, you can subscribe and pay $400 to $500 for the highest level of subscription. With this, you don’t even have to hire a marketing team because these promoters will do the job for you. Your app will just have to be on their list so that when people get redirected to their website, they will see your app’s name on the top downloads and will eventually get your app. It may be pretty costly, but that rate is for an entire year’s promotion. At least you can sit back and relax for a year and know that your app is still hitting it high on the market.

You Have to Pay to Play in the Mobile App Industry

Some app developers are hesitant to expand their budget for app marketing, believing that they can do the marketing on their own. Yes, they can, but the marketing strategies will surely be limited. If you’re thinking about staying long in this industry, you have to have enough resources to support your app. Keep in mind that you have giant competitors out there, some are even huge companies in the industry, that are willing to spend big amounts of money just for their apps to be patronized, so you’d better do your best and compete with their efforts.