As of Q3 2019 on Google Play posted about 2.7 million mobile applications, and the App Store has about 2 million applications. Quite a lot, right? But don’t think that launching a mobile app is easy. You must be competitive and stand out from the millions of mobile apps in the industry… You need a working strategy that is thought out to the smallest detail to ease the path to success. So how do you launch the application?

Application launch strategy has a significant impact on user acquisition and retention. It is a marketing effort that requires extensive research and ongoing work to achieve results. To improve your chances of success, we’ve compiled a list of six steps that we recommend you follow at each stage of the startup process. By following these guidelines, you will develop a strategy to maximize user retention, daily product use, and reduce post-launch uninstalls.

Step one: know your audience

The first step in preparing a mobile app launch strategy is market research and understanding your audience (e.g. demographics and pain points). Feedback is very important, knowing your audience’s desires will help you better understand how your product fits their pain points and fits into their daily life. In addition, these studies will provide insight into what they dislike about the applications available on the market. Important reveal the main reasons for user frustrationstudying his behavior and attitude. To do this, you must know the answer to a number of key questions:

• Who is this product for?
• How to solve the user problem?
• What benefits should the product bring?
• What type of content would be most appropriate?
• What tone, voice, and style of content resonates well with your audience?
• Are there any visual branding patterns among the audience?
• What are the best platforms to use for paid ads?

If you don’t have a clear understanding of who your audience is, you won’t be able to properly target users with your launch strategy. Investing in market research will provide you with a solid foundation to launch your mobile app. Before developing an android application or developing an ios application, ordering audience research or doing it yourself is the right decision.

Step two: positioning

After the market research is completed, you need to turn all the collected information into a result. The knowledge gained about the strengths and weaknesses of your product needs to be communicated to the team and key stakeholders.

Positioning will help determine what sets your app apart from the competition. This is especially important for new applications, as consumers tend to evaluate new products against what is already on the market.

For example, users won’t appreciate a new dating app without comparing its features to Tinder. Is the new app easier to use than Tinder? Does it have a superior algorithm that will lead to better matches? If not, users are unlikely to download the app and instead use what they know.

You must tell your audience why your application is the most valuable. The message will not be heard if you just describe the functions of the application. Instead, focus on how it differs from any other product on the market.

Step three: define the criteria for success

The success criteria for android or iOS app development is what your product will be compared against to determine if the app has been successfully launched. To show stakeholders key information about your success or failure, you need to at first set some goals and define how they will be measured… For example, Active Install Metrics, Number of Reviews, and Average Rating. If you want to be successful on a project, you must define what the success of your project looks like.

Step four: promotion of a mobile application

Have you done market research and identified the criteria for success? Now it’s time to focus on the mobile app launch itself. For everything to go well, there must be a marketing plan in place to ensure that every step is taken in a timely manner and completed properly.

What should a marketing plan include?

Content promotion

“Content” is a pretty broad term that encompasses almost everything: blog posts, social media posts, landing pages, ebooks, white papers, examples, customer testimonials, newsletters, emails and videos.

Press Release Creation

To maximize your chances of getting press coverage, make it as easy as possible for bloggers and influencers to present your app. Structure all of your resources on a website or online directory so that they have easy access to the information they need to promote your product. Here’s the minimum you should include in your press release:

• Graphics and creatives (logo, icon, screenshots and promo video)
• Description of your application
• Links to your website, social media accounts.
• Contacts

Optimize your product description

Think carefully about your product description to convince users to download your app. For example, on Google Play and the App Store, users only see the first five lines of your descriptionif they don’t press the button: read more. This means that you have to interest the user literally from the first lines.

Step five: launch the mobile app!

Now it’s time to finally publish your app on Google Play or App Store. At this point, you should be aware of the submission rules that your app must comply with before submitting them to any app store. The Apple Guide can be found here, and the Android Guide can be found here.

You will need a lot of materials: an application icon, screenshots, a description of the functionality, an advertising description, keywords, a link to the privacy policy (required for the AppStore) and the application itself itself, loaded through platform-specific development environments.

Step six: post-launch follow-up

According to a Localytics report, 21% of users uninstall apps after the first launch. Advertising and user purchases are important factors, but retention of those users is even more important. Therefore, it is imperative that your application makes a good impression within the first few days, demonstrating the most value and providing a good user experience. If you can’t get users interested right away, you will likely lose their interest.

There are several techniques you can use to increase user engagement and retention. One such technique is to encourage users to use your application. Incentives can be anything you want: rewards, access to specialized content, coupons, special promotions, and other offers. All this will give users a reason to choose your application, help increase conversion and stimulate engagement. We talked in more detail in engagement article…

Read also: Disadvantages of a mobile app that affect its success

You can order the development of an application for mobile devices on our website, appcraft managers will answer all questions, and you can read about the price of developing applications for iOS and android in the article.

Final thoughts

The release of a mobile app is not a one-time event. There will always be room for improvementthat make release a cyclical process requiring revaluation as the market changes. Newly launched mobile apps should be regularly updated and re-released. And for the best results, your launch strategy should create multiple touchpoints that potential users can explore before the product is available for download. Raising awareness before launch gives users an idea of ​​the purpose and benefits of the app, so when they land on the store listing, your product will not be overlooked.