But success with apps may not be as straightforward as you might think. There are five common pitfalls often encountered when setting up mobile app marketing campaigns, and you should avoid them if you want to achieve your goals.

1. The “If You Build It, They Will Come” Fallacy

Mobile apps need to be developed with a marketing plan in mind. Your team may have spent months creating the most sophisticated, top-of-the-range, high-tech app that will simply blow away any competitors; however, if you have not pre-planned a marketing campaign for the app itself, then all the hard work will be worthless.

There are many ways in which you can market your app, even leveraging your existing digital assets. These include: subtle links on your website, mentions in your social media campaigns, and pop-up notifications that appear when someone opens your mobile-optimized website.

It’s not wise to push your app upon your audience, but rather, subtly ensure that your audience is aware of its presence and the advantages to be gained by using the app. It is also vital that you ensure that your app is optimized for mobile app store search engines if you want to increase your organic audience.

Planning Is Essential

2. Thinking Of Mobile As Static

Mobile devices are not the same as static desktop devices; therefore, apps should not mimic desktop features and functionality. Developers sometimes believe that consumers will want to see the same things on an app that they expect to see on the Web. However, mobile devices are quite often slower than a desktop, and therefore, mobile navigation needs to be simplified and text size and fonts must be adapted to ensure a better user experience.

In addition to simplifying navigation, text size and fonts, it’s also important to utilize mobile’s unique power. When a user is on a mobile device, the app can (with their permission) locate them, giving the brand the opportunity to offer localized deals and functionality, thus increasing the power that mobile marketing has to offer.

3. Mistaking A Mobile Website For An App

Just as mobile devices are not like desktops, it’s also important to note that a mobile-optimized website is not an app. A mobile website is simply your online website that adapts to the screen on mobile devices to allow easier viewing.

Although a mobile-optimized website allows easier access to your website and is mobile-friendly in terms of its visual resources, it still requires Web access and can be slow in comparison to a native mobile app. You can turn your mobile websites into apps by using third-party sources.

4. Failure To Interact With Your Customer

Mobile app marketing is distinctively different from traditional advertising as it requires a certain degree of interaction — both by the business and the consumer. It is increasingly important to provide a way for your customer to communicate with you via the app in real-time — and there better be someone listening. App users expect to receive instant responses to their questions so they feel like they are being heard.

Reviews and ratings are one way the app user can communicate with the app maker, but this one-way communication does not satisfy users. To ensure your app isn’t deleted, and continues to be utilized, you need to enable two-way communication via the app. This is vital for mobile marketing success and will improve customer service and user experience.

5. Neglecting To Follow Through

Getting users to download your application is a fantastic first step into mobile marketing; but, it is not your final step. One of the most difficult tasks app developers face is ensuring app retention. What is worse than spending months developing an app only to let it be ignored by most who’ve installed it after just a couple of usages?

Many businesses find running contests, or offering discounts and vouchers, have encouraged retention to some extent. Other ideas might include adding a forum, enabling social networking or offering a game from within the app.

Don’t fall into the above common pitfalls when setting up your mobile app campaign. You can succeed in mobile app marketing by pre-planning your marketing campaign, providing user-friendly features in your apps, building your apps for customer interaction and knowing how to foster app retention.

In recent times, we have seen a change in marketing strategies with many companies now opting to build marketing into their product, enabling these products to become viral. Seamless sharing helps word-of-mouth grow your business, increasing your audience at a rapid rate. While the marketing strategies below can be used in any industry, think of them in terms of marketing your mobile products.

What Does Building Marketing Into Your Product Really Mean?

It is common knowledge that those who have experienced your product are in a prime position to share their experiences with others. There is no better marketing than word-of-mouth.

Learning to get your audience to talk about and share their experience with your product all comes down to building marketing into your product through social networking links such as like buttons, tweets and share buttons. Building marketing into your product means giving your audience the ability to talk about and share your product from within the product.

Build Your Audience: Before you launch your product, it is vital that you have already built an audience. There is not much use sharing information if there is no one to receive it. Building content for your social audience prior to launch will help to create your initial user base. Content should be based around the product, but should never be aimed at selling the product. You are creating your brand and showing your intense knowledge of the mobile products industry, thus building trust in your ability and your brand.

Have A Dedicated Landing Page: When people download your app, or arrive at your business website, a dedicated landing page is recommended. The landing page is not the same as your homepage. This page will offer the users a chance to sign up for offers, monthly newsletters and RSS feeds. It should always include tick boxes to allow sharing to social sites. You can learn more about dedicated landing pages from our friends at Hubspot.

Plan Social Sharing Messages: In addition to having the opportunity for your audience to share information from within your landing page, you should also have share buttons and social links throughout your mobile app/website. When a social link is created, an automated message will be seen within the social network sites. This message should have pre-set messages that you have created.

An example of a pre-set message for sign-up could simply read, I’ve just signed-up to (your app/website name). You need to ensure that your social networking link is hyperlinked within the app/website name. What you must never do is have any form of selling on your social messages. People do not wish to be sold products. Keep the message short and concise.

Marketing From Within The Product

Pinterest is a prime example of a company that has flourished on marketing from within the product. They are currently seeing 45% monthly growth, mirroring the success Facebook had in 2006. Facebook grew from 14 million unique users to 26 million unique users between May 2006 and May 2007, and by November 2008, they had grown to 140 million unique users.

Pinterest did not go viral immediately; in fact, they only had 40,000 unique users after 8 months. However, they were sustained because the product, unlike games, maintains its audience for a longer period.

At the beginning, users were not sharing as frequently as they are now. For example, if you invite one friend per month, who then invites one friend per month, the growth will not escalate as rapidly as if you were inviting one friend per week — it’s a snowball effect.

Pinterest could build their viral effect slowly because their product kept existing users, allowing them to tweak their product-sharing and engagement techniques in the early days.

Pinterest has various product-sharing and engagement techniques that are now in place. For example, within their own network, they have the ability to pin, repin and like, sharing content within the product to existing users, keeping their existing users active.

In addition, they have out-of-network sharing such as Facebook likes, shares and Twitter. Existing users also get emails to alert them of new pins that may be of interest and receive notifications when others have repined their pins. All in all, Pinterest has managed to capture seamless sharing while marketing from within the product.

The app market for both iOS and Android is beginning to become overcrowded. Apple first opened its app store with a mere 500 apps in 2008, and now, the store comprises over 700,000 apps for the iPad and iPhone. Android hasn’t lagged behind, either. According to Statista, GooglePlay now boasts over 700,000 apps, too, growing from just 100,000 in the past two years alone.

AppsGeyser Roadmap to App Success

The overcrowding of app stores is not good news for app developers, and new apps entering the marketplace are finding it more difficult to succeed due to the huge intensity of competition.

Imagine having over 50 brands of pasta on the shelf at the supermarket. It would be impossible to see them all, and the lucky chosen brand will be the one you have heard of, or the one that happens to be at the front.

The same happens in the app industry. App consumers will either download an app from a trusted app developer, or a developer that has numerous apps in its collection, or the app that appears first on the search list.

Roadmap To App Success

The company I work for, AppsGeyser, which offers an app-making tool platform, has recently developed a Roadmap to App Success. Although the AppsGeyser Roadmap was created for the Android app market, the basic principles are also relevant to iOS.

The roadmap to app success was derived from data research collated from both successful and unsuccessful app developers. Its main aim? To help new app developers enter the app market on the right path.

The principles behind the road map to app success are based upon ensuring that the app developer begins with the right product. If a product doesn’t match industry standards or isn’t relevant to the app market audience, it doesn’t matter how much money is spent, or how well prepared the marketing campaign is.

Watch For Pitfalls

There are many pitfalls in app development, and the roadmap to success is aimed at guiding app developers around the pits to their ultimate goal – app success.

The pitfalls in app development appear at every stage in the app-making process, starting with the most fundamental aspect of any business – the name.

Most companies will use their company name on their app, which is acceptable if the app is to be used by the company’s current client base; however, if the app has been created to increase the size of the current audience, then the app needs to have the ability to be found through an organic search in the app stores, which means it should be keyword-friendly.

Keyword-Friendly Apps

The name of the app and the app description must be keyword friendly to enhance its position in the search rankings. Other influences on search rankings also include app ratings, number of downloads and ratio of download installs to uninstalls.

The ease of app making encourages app makers to jump straight into app distribution. However, if a developer is looking for app success, it is vital to take the making process step-by-step, ensuring, at each stage, that the pending pitfalls are taken into account.

I would love to hear some feedback on how this guide has helped your app making and app success through your comments below.

The New Messaging Mandate published in January 2012 by Forrester described the importance of turning email into a “multichannel conversation that includes a number of non-email communication vehicles.”

What they were describing was the ways in which marketers can get their messages directly onto consumers’ devices, be it their laptops, tablets or mobile phones. One of the emerging channels included in this report was push notifications from mobile applications.

What Are Push Notifications?

Push notifications are little reminders that pop up on the main phone screen to let the user know about a message from the app. You can consider the push notification a little dialogue that goes on between the consumer and the marketer. These little messages are discreet, non- invasive and are a powerful marketing tool if used effectively.

The original purpose for these “alerts” was to notify the app user that their app had been updated, new content had been added or to remind the user that they hadn’t accessed the app in a while.

App developers required a tool that allowed them to keep their audience using the app. If the app usage to download ratio is low the app developer would not be considered successful.

What Are The Other Uses Of Push Notifications?

There are a number of ways in which push notifications are used. Recently, my company, AppsGeyser, analyzed the way its more than 31,000 customers were using push notifications. We found that there were four main styles in which push notifications were being used to benefit businesses.

AppsGeyser Analysis

The main use by far, used 41% of the time, is to notify the current audience of new apps or versions that have just been released. The second most common use, at 24%, is to send the users a special offer or links to a landing page — this was more likely to lead to external content that they were being paid to promote.

Although used less commonly, 14% of push notifications were used to alert the users of new content that had become available on the app, and 12% of all push notifications were being used to provide a link to affiliate offers or ads. The remaining 9% of all push notifications are used for a wide variety of other reasons.

The New Marketing Channel

The realizations that push notifications could actually be utilized in other ways have quickly spread to the marketing world — what a wonderful idea, advertising alerts popping up on mobile devices!

Well, there is a fine line between encouraging engagement and being too pushy. Push notifications should provide value to the end user and be used to build a long term relationship. To that end, notifications must be timely and consist of relevant content to the user. After all, if a children’s app developer sells push notification space to Nescafe, the message will just get lost and be considered spam. This will not encourage the user to use the app or purchase the product — the relationship will be lost.

Some valuable uses of push notifications include Walgreens’ reminders about prescriptions being eligible for refill, or Foursquare’s updates to let users know when and where their friends have checked in. Twitter’s app can send a push notification whenever the person gets a direct message or is mentioned in a tweet. Some marketers are using GPS technology to send notifications when a person is near their retail location. The key is to provide information that people actually want to receive in a timely manner.

If you are considering using push notifications as part of your mobile marketing plan, make sure you follow these simple rules:

• Keep content relevant, timely and branded
• Link it to your social networks when possible to keep the conversation running
• Allow for opt out
• Do not over use this channel — six messages a day will indeed annoy most of your users

Most of all, remember that practice makes perfect. Your first mobile push notification campaign may not be perfect, but it will give you a foot in the door and some data to learn from.

If you are creating a mobile app, it is vital that you understand what a keyword is, how to create a suitable keyword for your app and how to avoid abusing keywords when planning your mobile app. If you use keywords correctly, you are on the way to app success.

App success starts with keywords

What Is A Keyword?

When an app maker refers to keywords in mobile apps, they are referring to the words or phrases that tell search engines what the app is about.

SEO for mobile apps differs from optimization efforts for websites in that app engines do not search content for keywords, but they extract the information from the app name and description only.

You may feel that because you only have a small space in which to include your keywords, you need to use them as many times as possible; but, this is not the case.

By adding your keywords into the name and description too many times, you could find your app being banned from Google Play because they see this as keyword stuffing.

How Do Keywords Help My App Succeed In The App Markets?

Keywords will help your app be found in an organic search. Our research has shown  that app makers who have spent time on their keyword research received ten times more downloads than they received prior to doing their research.

 How Do I Find The Right Keyword For My App?

1. Log on to Google AdWords and go to the Keyword Tool
2. Type in some words related to your subject
3. Note what words/phrases are used most often
4. Try a few more times; each time, note your favorites
5. Now, go back and check the competition level — you want to choose a keyword/phrase that has low competition
6. Trial and error – If you find the app does not succeed, then try changing the name; on average, we found that apps changing their names up to four times see seven times the number of downloads than those that did not change

Competition

It is vital that you check the level of competition for your chosen keyword. A popular keyword that is viewed over 20,000 times a month and has a high competition rate indicates that numerous people are already utilizing this keyword in their mobile apps.

What this means is if you type this keyword into your app search, there will already be numerous apps already using this name. Choose a keyword that has low competition, giving your app a better chance to appear in the first page of search results.

App Store Optimization starts with the correct use of keywords; by creating the correct foundations for your app you are generating the basics for app success.

Now that focus has shifted to the mobile world. Due to the increase of mobile smartphones and tablets, coupled with the increased popularity of mobile apps, businesses throughout the world have taken to converting their online presences to mobile applications.

Creating an app for your business is not as difficult as you may think, there are companies that will allow you to convert your online websites into an app for free. However, making the app is the easy part, marketing your app in the ever growing app market is where the work starts. QR codes are the marketing secret behind a successful app.

What Is A QR Code?

QR codes, (Quick Response codes) are the key to making your app downloadable from almost any source. A QR code looks similar to a bar code. In fact, it is a form of bar code that can be scanned from a QR reader installed on your mobile phone.

Most smartphones and tablets come with a QR reader already installed, however if you don’t have one installed you can install them for free. I use one called QR barcode scanner.

QR barcode reader – free app

Create A QR Code

Some app-making companies will automatically provide you with a QR bar code  that has your app details already set up.If you haven’t been supplied with one, don’t fret, creating a QR code is easy. There are many websites like  Qrstuff  or Qurify that can create a code for you for free.

Once you have saved the downloaded QR code to your computer, you can use it on any of your promotional materials.

Where Should You Place The QR Code?

QR codes can be placed upon any item that you can think of — on a poster, a website, a business card, back of a bus, carrier bag, keyring, newspaper, banner ad, t-shirt, invoices. The list is endless. What is important to consider is whether your audience will have access to these codes and whether they have the means with them to be able to scan them.

Placing QR codes on the back of a bus is something we often see, but is this particularly sensible? What is the likelihood that someone behind the bus will have their mobile phone ready to scan a code? If they are driving, especially behind a bus, scanning a barcode is not acceptable.

Another example of bad use of QR codes is putting a code on your mobile website. If the user is already using their mobile phone they can’t scan the code. Putting the code here is worthless.

Also make sure there’s internet access available in the place where your QR code is displayed. There’s nothing more frustrating than scanning a QR code but being stymied by non-existent or spotty connectivity.

Think logically when creating your QR code marketing campaign. If you are running a conference, you can add the code to the promotional materials, such as the daily schedule or name tags.

A fast food company should add the code to their menus, on the door to their business, even on the food box. The moment people are engrossed in your service or product is the time to encourage them to commit by installing your app.

A mobile app is your stamp. Once it is downloaded, its easily accessible; it is there when they are considering a product or service that is similar to yours and therefore it is more likely to generate repeat business. A good business is one that people come back to and building repeat business will build your reputation. People that return to a business more than once recommend that business and in turn your audience will grow.

The above image shows the rapid growth of the apps market (thanks to the telecomblog and Chetan Sharma consulting).

The mobile app industry is booming, and since the one-million-app mark was reached in late 2011, the competition to get your app noticed in the marketplace is fierce. However, there is space for your app, and, if marketed correctly, your app can and will succeed.

Factors To Consider Before You Launch

Marketing an app is often treated like an after-thought, left to after the initial idea has evolved and is placed in the market. It is at this point that the full-scale marketing plan goes into force. Stop!

Marketing planning should start at the very beginning of app development, well before it is launched. There are a number of factors that you must consider in the early stages of your app development, including branding, keywords, and competition.

Branding

Your brand is what represents you and your company. It doesn’t matter if your business is within the financial or gaming sector, branding is equally important. When you are developing your app and designing your brand, you must take the following into consideration: the name of your business, the style of the app and, of course, the icon that will represent you in the app market.

The brand that you develop becomes transferable to other mediums; it will remain static in new apps that you may later develop — a new website, or merchandising and so forth. Your brand is how your clients will recognize you and connect with you. The initial impression your potential users will get of your app and brand is on your app’s download page, your screenshots, brand identity and app description; this is what will convert possible users into downloads.

Keywords

What is a keyword? In the app world, a keyword is a word or phrase that your user will look up to understand what your app does. If your app is a children’s game called Donkeyman (this is a purely fictitious name), the most appropriate keyword would not be [donkey] or [man], but something relevant to the game, like [educational children’s game]. Having a keyword in your name helps your app get found. It’s also important to have it in the description.

Wondering which keywords work for your app? There are companies out there that specialise in ASO (App Store Optmization). Try their free trials to see what works.

Competition

Using your knowledge from your keyword exercise, you are now equipped to find out who your main competitors are, find out what their other keywords are and see how they rank in the market.

From this exercise, it is also easier to determine which category you should be placing your app under. Choosing the right category is difficult, and you will need to take a calculated risk. If your competition is fierce in one category, it may make more sense to choose another relevant category that was not your first choice but will get your app ranked higher and, therefore, more likely to be downloaded.

Post-Launch Marketing

Once you have launched your app, the second stage of mobile app marketing takes over. The first thing I recommend clients do, is to connect to an apps store analytic program, like Millennial Media or App Annie. This enables you to view the progress of your app.

Feedback

Submitting your app to app review sites will increase your brand awareness, allowing potential clients to discover your app while they are reviewing similar apps or while they are searching for an app they are considering downloading.

Encourage your users to review your app after download. Positive app store reviews will build trust in prospects who are wondering whether to download your app, especially if the app is not free.

Creating apps has become increasingly easy, especially with companies offering free app creator programs. Coupled with the right marketing strategy, the app market is still a place that offers successful business opportunities. What are you waiting for?

Although many marketers are aware of alternative app stores, many don’t know the advantages of using these additional app stores. The vast amounts of app developers initially opt to publish their app in the largest and most popular app store, Google Play.

Google Play – The Two Sided Coin

With over 25 billion apps downloaded and more than 600,000 apps in the store, Google Play remains the most popular app store for Android apps. Its success is aided by the fact that all Android phones come with Google Play installed, giving consumers instant access to this portfolio of apps. Add the vast amount of choice of apps that the consumers get, and you have a recipe for success.

Well, there are two sides to this. You can look at consumer popularity and say that Google Play is the place to be, or you can look at the scope of competition and the likelihood that your app will be lost in a huge marketplace. Between February 1, 2012 and June 30, 2012 there were on average 828 apps released per day — these figures alone highlight the competition your app will face.

The success rate for an app on Google Play is extremely low, but we can overcome this by using other app stores to test and market your app before you submit to Google Play.

Did you know that Angry Birds did not debut on Google Play initially but debuted on a lesser known site called GetJar? There were two reasons behind this; firstly Google Play did not have a worldwide audience and secondly GetJar promotes free apps.

Angry Birds gained its reputation for the free app first, testing the market and learning from any mistakes it had made before releasing to Google Play. Strategically, that was a smart move; it prolonged the entrance into the wider marketplace, allowing the Angry Birds folks to perfect their product and built audience anticipation.

What Other App Stores Are There?

The number of app stores popping up is increasing. It’s not the perfect scenario for app users, but for app developers, the additional platforms for their apps provide sturdier foundations. And, if utilized correctly, these markets increase the opportunities for app success. Here are the app stores that I personally recommend to app developers.

Amazon App Store: Amazon is a favorite of mine because it not only regularly highlights apps — which is a great free advertising tool for you to utilize — but it also has a review process that encourages apps to be of high quality.

The process can prove daunting and somewhat annoying if you want your app released quickly; however, this will ensure that your app quality and description quality are high. Amazon’s interface is also connected to their online store which will bring up your app in searches there too.

SlideMe:  This is the second most popular app store currently available to app developers. This site has a large user base and a smaller quantity of apps than Google Play, which increases your app’s visibility. There is a review process but it is not as stringent as Amazon’s.

Unlike some of the other app stores, you can offer your app for free or at a price and you can take up to 91% of the sales revenue home, compared to 70% with Google Play and Amazon App Store.

 GetJar –The GetJar platform only allows app that are free. The advantage of this is that this store is known for having apps that were previously paid for and are now given away. People flock to this site for a bargain and, as Angry Birds has proven, developers can use GetJar for testing the market and building an audience before publishing to Google Play.

The downside to this Android app store is that the submission of apps is a long process and the site does have a lot of down time.

Mobango –  This is an app store with a difference and one that should not be overlooked. A recent winner of the Red Herring Europe award, Mobango offers a free service to app publishers. This app store is hitting over one million downloads a day and it is definitely worth investigating.

AppsFire – This app store is an up-and-coming store in both the Android and iOS world. This store has over 7 million users and is growing in popularity. What is great about this app store is the number of ways it enhances the app developers’ tools to connect with potential users. In marketing terms, this store is the one to watch.

Competition in the app world is continuing to grow. Gone are the days when creating an app was enough to secure its success. The emerging, and somewhat fragmented, Android app market can be and should be utilized by app developers as a marketing and development tool for their app.

I would love to hear about the experiences you have had with alternate Android app markets.

There are over a million apps on the market and businesses worldwide are becoming mobile. The time has come. You have finally decided it’s time to take your business mobile. How difficult can it be to make an app? The question is: do you choose to make a mobile site or an app (or both) and what is the difference?

Mobile site or app? Image via Etisbew

What Is A Mobile Website?

A mobile site is a website that has been optimized for viewing on a mobile device, i.e. a tablet or a cell phone. Your current webpage address can be reached through the phone’s web browser as long as internet coverage is available.

But that does not mean that it will be easy to read or navigate on a mobile device with its current design. It is important that you make your website mobile friendly. There are online tools such as; Onbile and Wirenode that will help you achieve this.

Optimizing your website to a mobile site has its pros and cons.

Pros:

• A mobile site works on all the different app platforms, such as; iOS6, Android
• Converting your current website to a mobile site is considerable cheaper and faster than creating an app from scratch
• You can embed a mobile site into an app at a later stage of development
• A mobile site can be found and accessed through internet searches and web links on a mobile browser
• There is no need for someone to download your mobile site since it is found via the mobile browser
• Updating your mobile site is managed via your website management system

Cons:

• Mobile sites are not written in native code which can affect quality and performance
• While browsing on your mobile site the phone’s features become unavailable
• Bookmarking your mobile site can be difficult for some users who will need to input the web address each time they want to view your site

What Is An App?

A mobile application, otherwise known as an “app” is written in “native code,” the technical language of a particular platform; such as the Rim Blackberry OS, iPhone OS, Windows Mobile, Android, or MeeGo. Unlike a mobile site, an app functions independently from your existing website and requires you to create, update and maintain it separately.

Creating an app over a mobile site has its own list of advantages and disadvantages.

Pros:

• The use of native code allows the app to run with high performance, quality and speed
• Once the app is downloaded there is a single click icon for easy access
• Many apps are available offline and do not require internet access
• Opening an app does not affect the use of the mobile phone features such as the camera

Cons:

• Creating an app in native code only allows your app to run on one platform. If you want it to run everywhere, you need to develop multiple apps — one for each OS.
• Your app can not be found directly from a webpage and must be downloaded from an app market
• Downloading an app can be daunting for some mobile phone users
• App markets often require a fee to publish or certify your app

 Why Choose A Mobile Site Over An App?

Infographic by MDG Advertising

• Search: When people initially look for information they will use a web browser to search for it and they are not as likely to search the app store
• Cost: Having to only optimize one website for it to work on multiple mobile platforms automatically produces a reduction in development costs
• Performance: Although not as high as an app, the improvement in mobile web browsers is increasing dramatically along with the access to from WiFi
• Longevity: Mobile platforms are still being developed, upgraded and are in transitions. The web is a secure environment which will remain stable in the years to come
• Webapps – Tools are making it easier to convert mobile websites into apps for free within minutes

Moving your business into the mobile field is a natural step to reach customers who are increasingly using mobile devices.

Creating a mobile website, by either optimizing your current website or creating an app, tends to be the first step into the mobile world for many businesses.

We have seen here that there are some fundamental differences between the two and although I suggest starting by optimizing your existing website for mobile use and then moving this to an app, I fully appreciate that you may have other ideas. I would love to hear more about your business’ first step into the mobile world.