Tuesday 10 November 2015

Steps to Effective App Market Research

In order to market a successful app, it is essential that you first carry out comprehensive research to really understand your market and audience. This research allows you to shape the app and your strategy accordingly, including choosing the right marketing channels, setting realistic goals and measuring the right success metrics.

Fail to plan and you plan to fail, as they say.

Know Your Audience

It is vital that you fully understand who your target audience really is and how to approach each different type of target user.

When considering your target audience, identify any relevant core demographics; these may include:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Ethnicity
  • Income
  • Marital status
  • Residential status
  • Employment status

Of course, understanding your audience is about more than top-level demographics such as these. To really drill down into the behaviours of your target audience, you need to consider individual information, including hobbies, interests and behaviours, particularly in digital and social.

Start to plot who your target audience is, what these people do and what interests them. This will allow you to consider what will resonate well with them, how you can find them and what they might expect from your app.

Study Your Competitors

A critical and often overlooked step in any type of marketing research is competitor analysis. To understand who your app competitors are, start by reviewing apps that appear in the various app stores for the sorts of keywords you’re likely to want to appear for.

Download as many of your competitors’ apps as possible and thoroughly test each one, asking yourself:

  • Are they targeting the same audience?
  • How does their app compare to what you intend to offer?
  • How do they work to retain users and avoid uninstalls?
  • What do they do well and what can be improved upon?
  • What features do they use which could work for your app?
  • What are their reviews like and how do they encourage positive reviews?
  • What channels are they using to drive downloads?

Select Your Channels

Social App MarketingOnce you understand your audience and have reviewed what your competitors are doing, you can start to think about how and where you will market your app. Different app markets will work differently across different channels, and assessing the success of competitors across different platforms should help you make informed decisions on your own marketing.

Social is often one of the most successful channels for app marketing, but different platforms may perform better for different markets and target audiences. For example, for a dating website you may find Facebook advert targeting options are perfect, allowing you to target single users and even drill down to gender and sexual orientation for highly tailored ads. Jumping on the back of trending Twitter hashtags, on the other hand, could be a great way to get in front of an already-interested audience.

Social platforms which may be appropriate for your app include:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Other relevant niche networks

Other channels to consider when marketing your app include:

  • Paid search – are there target keywords you can bid on with relevant text ads?
  • Email – do you already have an email list you can market to?
  • Organic – do you have an optimised website about your app?
  • Referrals – what relationships can you build with other relevant sites and publications?

Set Your Goals

Once you have researched and put together your go-to-market strategy, you need to carefully select achievable, measurable and time-centric goals. Think SMART. Goals may include:

  • Achieve x amount of downloads by y
  • Retain x% of users for at least y
  • Maintain x% active users

Using insight gained from your competitor research will allow you to set achievable goals. The more research you carry out before going to market with your app, the better your chances of succeeding and meeting your goals.

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