Wondering whether to invest in mobile app marketing for your business? Mobile app marketing is one of the latest trends of 2016.

However, if you are not much of a trend follower and is more interested in learning which marketing strategy will reap you better returns, then here are some useful mobile app marketing insights from Google that will tell you about the what’s on and what’s not with mobile apps this year.

Did You Know?

• There are four types of mobile apps that smartphone owners use. Of these, social and gaming apps are used daily.
• Apart from the app store, there are other sources of mobile app discovery, out of which, the search engine is the key channel drivers of downloads.
• The percent numbers of apps that are discovered through search engines are –

• Technology – 43%
• Travel – 35%
• Local – 34%
• Entertainment – 28%
• Retail – 24%
• Social – 19%
• Finance – 16%
• Gaming – 15%

• People use apps for two-fold purposes – looking for information and making a purchase.

Mobile App Strategy is Important

Your decision to build a mobile app strategy depends a lot on other factors like your company’s total revenue returns and how much budget can you likely keep aside for mobile marketing. Almost 90 percent of the companies today are investing in mobile app development and majority of them agree that it is a strategy that is not something to talk about. In fact, many believe that it is the fastest way that businesses can grow.

Based on market survey reports, investment on mobile apps would rise in the year 2016. The average amount of investment that businesses would make would turn out to be as much as 24 percent. While 2 percent have plans of doubling their investment in the next 12 months, fewer than 10 percent had no such plans of increasing their investment expenditure cost at all.

A Few Good Reasons about Business Investment in Mobile App Marketing

The best way to explain these reasons is to provide you with a detailed graphical chart that demonstrates what decision makers feel about business investment in mobile app strategies. Look at the following image below –

About 35 percent agree that mobile apps can help to transform the state of a business and 37 percent cited business automation process to be the prime focus. Mobilizing web-based process was the key reason for about 24 percent of the people, while the remaining 5 percent refused to invest any money on app development.

Market experts feel that companies that are becoming more reliant on mobile workforce are more likely to derive the benefits from a dedicated mobile app strategy. It is now a common insight to see businesses using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets for dealing with customer-facing requests. Here is another graphical chart that reveals the use of mobile apps as a dominant business practice in many private sectors. And the numbers are pretty much on the rise. Has your brand adapted to this change yet?

Want to Get Started with Mobile App Development? Here is the Challenge

When everybody is investing in mobile app development, you cannot deny the fact that the market will soon become saturated at some point. Overnight business successes are a common affair now and every industry gets a taste of it one way or another. At the same time, mobile app marketing should be anything but conventional. There are also businesses that decide to invest their money on mobile app strategies but eventually end up hitting the bottom rock of loss. Want to make the mobile app the right software for your business? Read the following things and avoid making the same mistake again.

1. Focusing Only on Strategies is not enough

You will have to think of the possible pitfalls as well and it’s best to consider this when you even hire a mobile app developer or start putting all your money towards building your mobile app development strategy.

Pitfalls that Can Often Make a Mobile App Strategy Fail and What You Should Avoid

2. Not Researching the Market Around You

Market research will tell you a lot about what’s on trend and how are your competitors dealing with it. Studying your competitors is an essential part of every web design strategy and mobile app development is also included in it. How do you start your market research? By noting down the following things –

• Find out how are the other apps within the same category are named
• Are they memorable enough?
• How are your competitors setting out their targets in the market?
• Which of the high ranking keywords are they actually using?

Identifying the following points will help you to frame out your marketing strategy accordingly.

Point to Note – Do not forget to go through the customer reviews. It will help you to understand what the target audiences actually look for when they work with a mobile app development agency.

Making a list of all these things and then highlighting them during a team meeting session can help your mobile app marketing strategy to stay ahead of the game.

3. Not Recruiting Beta Testers

Getting your app reviewed is essential. Get your app Beta testing first. Beta testing can help you to get some first-hand unbiased feedback from the target audience. But why do you need to beta test? It’s one of the ways to get some real world exposure that will tell you how your newly developed brand app will feel like in the hand of your app users. It is a process where your app will be tried out for a consistent period of time before the beta testers get back to you with a report regarding any issues, bugs or even feedback. The following insights will help you to validate your marketing decisions and hence confirm whether your app is moving in the right direction. Beta testing is the key to knowing as to whether investing in mobile app development is worth it and whether it is meeting the user needs. Do not forget this one in your list.

4. Not Getting Your Marketing Strategies Involved On Time

Most of the times, a mobile app when developed, is not accompanied with on-time marketing strategies. This could be a dangerous mistake that could delay the stage of your revenue earning process. Besides, a digital marketing expert also needs to get properly acquainted with the features that your app supports. Based on this, the expert can help plan your go-to-marketing strategies to gain wider exposure and the right target audience. Here are some of the things that fall under the basic checklist and which you must make it a point to include in your marketing strategy. Read them –

• The USP of your app –that’s the unique selling point that makes your app different from the rest.
• App store optimization – Optimizing is the process of fine-tuning your app to make it target friendly and easily discoverable. Pay attention to the app name, the description, the keywords, etc.

5. Not Focusing on User Retention

Getting your app downloaded is just one part of the business success. However, user retention is another part and something that many fail to do. According to Google insights,  at least one in every four apps is never used.

38 percent of the smartphone owners are likely to download an app when they need it to complete a purchase. However, half of them would be uninstalling the app immediately after a purchase is complete.

Most of the times, an app is abandoned by users, due to the following reasons –

• Loss of interest
• No longer useful
• The discovery of an alternative app that is better and more useful

It’s evident now that users need a unique value proposition in order to continue using an app. And the best way to continue engaging your users is by investing in mobile app engagement strategies that will keep customers on the hook.

6. Nudging Your Users Too Much

Too much of nudging can make your clients lose their patience. The next thing that they are likely to do is to push on the uninstall app without thinking twice. That is why it is essential that you give your customers enough space and freedom as well. In addition, do not forget about the different time zones when you are sending then your push notifications.

When it comes to mobile app marketing, keeping watch on every small detail is important. It prevents your app development strategy from hitting the bottom line of waning user engagement. Make sure that you do not miss out any of these points if you want to stay out of the bottleneck situation.

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