How to Make An App Go Viral? 10 (Proven) App Marketing Strategies

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By: Sandeep Agrawal

How to Make An App Go Viral? 10 Proven App Marketing Strategies

Just by launching a mobile app on the Play Store and Apple Store is not enough to gain a competitive edge. People tend to download only those apps that have prime visibility on the chart.

To be in the list of top mobile apps in your category, you need to define and execute the strong app marketing strategies that help you make your app go viral. With the right mobile app marketing strategy, you can optimize your app ranking of the different stores and also improve awareness about your app.

Jean Hsu said,

Unless people like to use it or feel the need to install and share it, reaching 100 million downloads is tough.

In this post, we deep dive into the highly popular but mostly ignored app marketing strategies that you should consider to promote your app.

In order to make your app go viral, Credencys features your app on the top publishing platforms such as Tech Crunch, Mashable, The Guardian, CNN, The Verge, Bloomberg, BBC, and many others. It helps businesses attract more audiences and get thousands of app downloads.

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Top 10 (Rarely Used) App Marketing Strategies that Make Your App Go Viral

#1. App Launch Time

Firstly, launch your app on Tuesday, instead of Monday, Friday or weekend as during these days, people would be up to their neck and the positive effect won’t be seen. Tuesday is recommended as four days before the weekend can bring the app in category ranks by the weekend.

#2. Cover All the Leading App Stores

Uploading the apps only on Google or Apple app store is not enough. You should distribute the app to different app stores. You can definitely choose the regions you want to target. Get your apps also featured in alternative app stores such as Windows, Amazon, Opera and a lot more.

In the app promotion summit, Stefan Bielau said, distribute your app on the different app stores to get an edge over competitors. In China, download volume of new app stores is a quarter of the Google Play downloads.

android app distribution channel

Freebies attract everyone and there is nothing different from your app. The alternative app stores such as Amazon allow you to make the paid app free on the first day of launch. The strategy helps in providing more exposure and boosts the download volume.

#3. Social Media

social media

Generate a lot of buzz by getting social. Using social media platforms like Facebook & Twitter you can get early reviews, extra downloads, and more eyeballs. Also, try a retweet campaign coupled with specific hashtags when appropriate or respond with simple ‘Thanks’ that will boost your social media activity.

Virgin mobile launched Virgin mobile live app and spread the word about its rich features through Facebook, Instagram, Buzzfeed, and Twitter. This approach helped Virgin Mobile get over 50,000 shares on Facebook & Twitter. And, now it gets an average of one million unique views every month.

#4. Cross Promotions

This is one of the very important viral app marketing strategies that create the hype of your app through cross-promotion from a network of applications or buying the users with PPI (Pay per install) program. It sparks the attention among people and pumps in the traffic.

Research shows that developers using cross-promotion would have 181,800 active users as compared to 76,600 for those not using them. There are many in-app cross-promotional tools available such as Chartboost, Fiksu, Admob, Tapjoy and more, which can ascend the visibility of your app.

#5. App Reviews

Less often, people pitch their app to distinct app review sites such as Cnet, 148apps, Mashable, Techcrunch, IGN wireless, etc. Submit your app there and if the sites mention your app in their review, then this tested strategy will help your app getting noticed by the masses.

There are thousands of App review websites available online, so try to go with the sites that have an Alexa rating of more than 50k. It helps gain a lot of traction for your app.

A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time – Henry Ford

#6. Press Release

If you have the budget, then you can extend the visibility of your app using the premium Press Release (PR) services. You can create news about your brand and publish it on different platforms such as NewsWire PR, PRWeb, eReleases and a lot more that has thousands of industry influencers.

Do you want to have an app that streamlines your app marketing efforts and helps gain next level hype on the different app store?

Consult Credencys

#7. User Experience

There are millions of apps available on the Google Play Store and Apple Store. To gain a competitive edge, it is very important either your app addresses the challenges of the users that your competitor apps cannot solve or it is easy to use compared to other apps.

Well, in this era of neck to neck competition, creating an app with a unique concept is more challenging than designing an intuitive and interactive. Thus try to deliver the best user experience to your target audience that helps them to perform their intended actions quickly.

To improve the user experience, you should consider the feedback shared by users, identify the areas they are not happy with and improve them. This could be adding required features, fixing bugs, improving user interface design, changing the app’s look and feel, and reducing resource usage.

By polishing the app’s user experience, you can improve the app rating from one star to five stars. Of course, reviews and ratings of the app matter a lot for the users. Thus, it is a very important strategy of how to make an app go viral.

#8. Create Videos

People avoid taking the pain in reading the content about an app, so it is better to shoot a video of your app with a catchy background. Make sure it is not too lengthy and convey the important information to the users about your product and/or service. Else, users will lose interest. It should be one or two minutes long video that showcases all the features and can be shared on YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook.

#9. Rewards

Allow users to earn rewards by sharing your app with their friends and family members. This is a powerful strategy to market your app. With the rewards, you get more exposure and they will get some extra bucks. Thus, it is a win-win game.

Considering the referral programs, you can encourage customers to use your app. For example; Uber enables every friend of yours with ride credits who sign up with your referrals. Promotions are also a good way to increase awareness of your app. You can run limited-time offers and discounts to get access to the premium features of the app.

#10. Email Campaign

Most of the entrepreneurs promote the app after it launched on the intended app stores. Would you think this strategy will help you to get more downloads? Obviously, it won’t. Infect, you will end up with zero downloads on the first day of your app launch. Moreover, till the time your app gets the awareness, it might be obsolete.

Thus, it is very essential to create awareness about your app before it goes live. Start promoting the important and unique features and benefits of your app several months in advance by considering different media coverage such as app blogs, app reviewers, app news sites, YouTube, and more. It helps create excitement about your app across your target audience.

One of the most successful viral app marketing strategies is to create a landing page and send it to the relevant audience before launching your app. You can inform visitors about what the app does for them and how it will be benefited to them. You can also use the email strategy once your app goes live to inform users to download the app and use it.

With the email campaign, you will get thousands of downloads on the first day of your app launch.

Real-world Example of A Viral App

The epic success of reaching 1 billion downloads of the Angry Bird game is not an overnight success while it’s due to huge efforts made in marketing. After releasing 52 failed games, Rovio Entertainment (developer of the game) redirected its marketing strategy and then the success they got was iconic.

With the optimum use of media-rich advertising, online marketing, a social media website, content and PR, the game created its position in top-25 charts. And, now it is still ruling the world of games!

Leverage Android or iPhone app development from an experienced mobile app development company who integrate all the aspects of app marketing and helps you streamline your app promotions activities.

Wrap-up

With a sound marketing strategy for the launch of mobile app defines the iconic failure or epic success. Effectively using the above-discussed tactics can help your app gain one of the top 25 slots on the app stores. Remember, how you market matters a lot!

Good luck!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you make a mobile app go viral?

To make your app go viral, you can harness the potential of social proof. When users sign up with your app, display the profile of their friends and allows them to follow the most active users of your app. Motivate users by showing them how they can expand their network in your app.

How do you make your apps popular?

To get your app noticed by a large user base you need to have powerful App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy, solid social media presence, and plenty of positive user reviews. Moreover, you can leverage app contests, social media advertisements, and competitor analysis.

How do I get people to share my app?

To attract more app users, you can promote your app on your website, improve app ranking with the help of ASO, create online and in-app ads, run offline campaigns, run email marketing campaigns, use social media, and more.

How do I make my apps more engaging?

To drive user engagement with your app, you need to create Steller app store listing, education users about app onboarding, deep linking, app permission requests, push notifications, allow users to “try before buy” and more.


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