Once upon a time, there was an app developer who invested $30,000 in the development of an app and not a penny in user acquisition. And he made billions and lived happily ever after.
Sounds good right?
In real life, you can invest all your money in building an app, but if you don’t have a user acquisition strategy, it will be very complicated to get a lot of people to use it.
At Baccus, we like to talk about this number : According to ComScore’s Mobile App Report for 2017, more than 51% of users download less than one application per month.
The one and only challenge is to be the only application they download.
So what are you doing to get users to find, use, and keep your app?
Define your user acquisition strategy
Your team works day and night to develop a fantastic product. Awesome! But did you make a plan to attract users?
Even if the app isn’t finished yet, you need to start working on your user acquisition strategy.
Start to draft your action plan in terms of App store optimization, paid advertising (Google, Facebook, etc…), organic user acquisition…
Because it will also significantly impact the way the application is designed. Don’t forget that waiting until the product is launching to start marketing it is the first step to fail.
So, where do we start ?
Start by designing your application marketing funnel.
The more you research your market, the more you’ll be able to add information, methods, tools, and even get in touch with people/influencers that can help your application get noticed.
Now, your first goal for being successful in user acquisition is to make your application easy to discover.
If you throw your masterpiece straight into the sharks’ tank, there is little chance it will survive for very long.
If you want to give it a chance to survive, first look at the tank you throw it in. Think about user segmentation and define who your target users are.
Choose several parameters that are the most important for your application and list questions based on them. For example, if you are planning to launch a dating app, here is a list of questions you should be asking:
- Where do the users live?
- What languages do they speak?
- How old are they?
- Are they mostly males, females, or a mix of both?
- Are they single or married?
- What devices do they use?
- What types of applications do they use?
- Do they pay for apps or only use free ones?
- Do they prefer in-app purchases or recurring subscriptions?
- Do they tolerate in-app advertising?
- How do they search online?
- What are their hobbies and interests?
Can you answer all these questions? Great, then you can start building your user’s profile.
Also, it’s important to stay rational!
Don’t try to find too many unnecessary details and avoid excessive segmentation. Oversegmentation is just as bad as no segmentation at all.
Ok, you have done a good job with user segmentation, now let’s move on to the next part.
How will this help you ?
Now that you have a clear vision of WHO your users are, you will better understand HOW to find them (or rather, how to be found by them).
It will help you determine the strategy to adopt for:
- ASO (App Store Optimization)
- SMM (Social Media Marketing)
- Content & Blog Marketing
- Press & PR
- Community management
- Online ads
You think we’re done ?
No, we’re not done yet 😊.
User segmentation will provide a solid foundation to increase user retention and loyalty after the launch of the app. Based on user segmentation, the developer can create personalized content and push notifications, determine the right ad spaces and banners within the application, implement personalized recommendations and special offers, improve community management, and much more.
User segmentation is an important step. But if you don’t process all the data you’re gathering and use analytics to constantly update your strategy, you risk being overwhelmed and missing out on new app marketing opportunities that your competitors will notice and integrate. Do you want to be outpaced by someone who was just more observant than you? Probably not.
Conclusion
App stores have become very crowded. To get downloads, an app must be visible and attractive in its own unique way. The path to success is long, and it starts with user segmentation and a good marketing strategy.
What is important to keep in mind is that segmentation can take many forms and include multiple parameters. Be clear, rational, and pay attention to what your competition is doing.
It can take a lot of resources and time, but remember that, if done well, a good user segmentation will be your first step to build awareness and will serve as the basis for other marketing efforts and user acquisition strategies.
