The launch of Android and iPhone’s operating systems set forth a motion of evolution in Mobile applications; so much so that Android devices witnessed a new age, thanks to apps. With the passage of time, the mobile app market began to grow at a tremendous pace and the number of apps being launched in the market on a daily basis hit new heights. Expected to generate a gross annual revenue of over $189 billion by the year 2020, the mobile app industry is far from saturated.
As a result, every single aspect of our lives has fundamentally transformed; right from ordering food online to checking our account balance; the life of a 21st century man has become entirely dependent on this industry. This streamlining of apps into our day-to-day activities is merely a peak into what the future of mobile apps hold. And since the growth and popularity of “all things mobile” has become so massive, so has the demand for mobile app developers. Having launched billion dollar apps like Uber and Tinder, mobile apps and developers have become one of the hottest commodities in the tech world. So, if you’re keen on launching a niche mobile app that aims to become the next hot thing in the market, this article is your guide to doing so.
At Virtual Employee, our mobile app developers built Kess Kravings—a food and drink delivery app which delivers meals ranging from breakfasts and dinners to desserts, and all other meals in between. Using the experience gained through the building process of this app, here’s a quick 8-step strategical guide with real time examples, which will ensure that your unique idea in-fact turns into the successful app you envision it to be.
Define Buyer Personas
As the name suggests, buyer persona refers to the real world of real buyers; it is factual data that tells you what your prospective customers are thinking and seeking, to finally reveal the factors that influences a buyer’s decision to make a purchase. By studying customer attitudes, concerns, and criteria, you get the insight and knowledge to position and market your product to meet a buyer’s expectation.
While creating buyer’s persona for Kess Kravings, we took into consideration customer demographics, behavior patterns, communication preferences, motivations, and goals in order to picture the ideal customer and develop the apt food delivery application accordingly.
Study your Competitors
All businesses face competition, and the sooner you study and analyze your competitors, the sooner you can take advantage of your competitor’s weakness and make it your strength and USP. While monitoring your competitors, you need to pay close attention to:
- How they market their product and services to customers
- Their strategy to distribute, deliver, and the prices they quote
- How they enhance customer loyalty
- Their media activities (advertising)
- Other aspects such as technology awareness, staff numbers, business methods, etc.
For Kess Kravings, we closely studied and analyzed few of the top competitors like Grubhub, Uber Eats, Eat24, SkipTheDishes, etc.
Develop Marketing Strategies
A marketing strategy basically defines how you intend to market your product and business to a customer. After initially listing out your core objectives, you then work on its execution. Your business goals could range from bringing in new customers and increasing sales to launching a PR campaign. Once you’ve set out realistic goals, you develop a step-by-step marketing strategy.
- First, you conduct a detailed research and analysis of your market and competitors. Then, you conduct a company analysis and identify the strength and weakness of your product/service and plan on how best to execute your strengths and overcome your weaknesses.
- Second, you identify your target customers and split them into various groups depending on their needs. Then, you make a comparison of each of these groups with your competitors and strategize on how to offer the best customer service to each of these segments.
- And lastly, you identify the USP of your product/service. Once this is identified, you decide on the best mode of communication to market your product. You can use a combination of marketing tools like ads, PR, promotions, etc.
While launching Kess Kravings, we adopted different marketing strategies to successfully increase sales, bring in new customers, get existing customers to buy more, increase market share, and to establish the brand.
Create a Landing Page
Since iPhone’s app store and Google’s play store consists of millions of apps, the chances of a visitor stumbling upon your app is close to nil. This is why you need to have the right channels to promote your app; and creating a stellar landing page is one of the ways to doing so. With a landing page, you not only grow an audience to your mobile app, but you also manage to create an excitement around it.
A mobile app landing page primarily focuses on the features of the app and on its value proposition, so as to enable visitors to click, download, and install your app. The landing page should also explicitly state the exact problem your app intends to solve. Focus on aspects such as the headline, body copy, call-to-action (CTA), social proof, etc.
For Kess Kravings, we created a landing page wherein we were able to retract, edit and republish content at any given point of time. However, do keep in mind that the URL, associated audience, or the store cannot be edited once a page has been published.
Post on Pre Apps
For those of you who are unaware, Pre Apps is a platform that connects a user to app developers, and users can act as beta testers to an app even before it launches on iOS, Google, or Windows app store. This not only allows a user to pre-check the upcoming apps, but also allows a developer to view their upcoming competitors. Posting on Pre Apps works as a great marketing strategy as it creates a pre-launch buzz and builds a brand recognition; all before the app has even been officially launched.
For Kess Kravings, we posted on Pre Apps and discovered several new apps that were soon to be launched on iOS, Google, and Windows app store. This not only helped us compare features and incorporate changes accordingly, but also helped us gain critical and valuable user feedback. Overall, it generated an excitement around the app prior its official release.
Find a Ready Audience
In order to find the right audience, the category of the application needs to be analyzed in-depth to figure out the ideal target audience. For instance, if an app provides a location based catalogue of children’s medical shop and services in the US, it is safe to assume that all children between the ages of 1-12 in the US are the main target market. Further, analysis of information about the industry, category, and competitors also reveal the right audience for the concerned app.
The primary reason for addressing target audiences is mainly due to the fact that not all products are consumed by every customer, and nor is it offered to all. Keeping this in mind, we assessed and attained feedback from the relevant audience group for Kess Kravings. This helped us gain an understanding on the areas we lack and thus enabled us to make the app perfect.
Choose a Release Date
There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration prior choosing a release date. However, the main one’s include:
- To check if the application has been completed in its entirety; this also takes into account user feedback received from the pre-launch.
- To check the market acceptance. For instance, if a much talked about app is launching around the same time, it is best to avoid a clash in order to ensure that your app launch doesn’t get drowned out by the noise.
- To check if you have sufficient time to fix bugs and enhance user experience.
Keeping in mind all the above mentioned factors, we chose 18th August as the release date for Kess Kravings. Here, the major event—Christmas was taken into consideration. This release date gave us ample time to create the necessary market acceptance prior the main event.
Build a Content Marketing Strategy
Building a content marketing strategy is a great way to build a community around your app, and in-turn, to build a relationship with the app user. Content has the power to attract users, keep them engaged, and provide valuable information regarding the app.
Keeping the above in mind, we developed several content marketing strategies to build a sense of trust among our prospective customers and to aid brand awareness. Content in the form of blogs, videos, social media marketing, etc. were made use of in order to build brand awareness and recognition for Kess Kravings.
To sum up, launching a mobile app can be easy, but the trick is to market the app strategically by taking into consideration the target audience, their needs, and your market competition. Identifying these elements correctly will prepare you for a pre-launch that will ultimately determine how well your app is able to create the necessary buzz around it.
Many thanks to Jasmine Philip for contributing to the article !
