10 day marketing plan to launch an app

10 Day Marketing Plan to Launch an

App

Puneet Yamparala, App Entrepreneurs Association


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One of the most exciting as well as the scariest time in the life of an App Entrepreneurs is when they are about to

launch a new app.


While working at a startup in Silicon Valley, when we were about to launch our first app we stayed awake the

whole night trying to make sure …


… that we were ready for the thousands of customer emails which we were going to get the next day and

trying to be prepared for all the press our app was going to receive.


We assumed that having a great launch was all about building an app and releasing it to the app store.


We released our app on a Tuesday, because everybody told us that people are more active on social media on

Tuesday and a launch gets increased visibility on Tuesdays due to this.


Now when I look back at our launch day, nothing went as per the plan. As soon we released the app into the app

store, we got a few downloads …


… but soon there was nothing much happening with our app. Instead of the tens of thousands of downloads which

we were expecting, we got less than 100 downloads.


No blogger or reporter reached out to us to write about our exciting new app. In fact when I think about it, the

few downloads which we did get were probably …


… from our friends who were just curious about our app. This was a great learning experience for me. Over the next few years I have done extensive research on …


…the right way to launch an app and here is what I think really works.


What not to do


The biggest mistake most app entrepreneurs make is that they try to do everything and anything during a launch.

This just ends up wasting your most valuable resource –TIME.


So the kind of things, which I will strongly advise you against spending your time and money on, are:


Building all social media accounts:You just cannot focus on all social media accounts at

once so just pick the one social channel which works for your kind of account. Look for competitors in these social

channels.


If you don’t see any competitors in a certain social channel then just stay away from that channel.


Submitting your app to review sites and worse, paying to get reviewed:

How many people in your target audience do you know who read review sites everyday and download the

reviewed apps.


This used to work a long time ago when there were very few review sites, but now nobody cares.


Sharing your app in developer forums or groups:This is a waste of time unless your app is actually meant

for other developers to use.


Buying burst campaigns: I have seen developers literally throw away thousands of

dollars by buying burst campaigns (5,000 low quality downloads in one day) …


… and regret it deeply when all these users leave within a month and then get dinged in the rankings due to low

retention.


Buying incentivized downloads:Just don’t do this.

If you pay somebody to download and use your app then obviously he is not the right user for your app.


Exchange reviews:I was originally a fan of sites like smooth reviews.com which helped you get reviews for your app, but I have

been hearing a lot about the problems with this.


If you want to know more about what the problems are just drop a comment and I will explain in comments.


Your 10 Day App Marketing Template


Before we get started, download the free app marketing template and use this to track your progress. Each

marketing task is listed out in the template …


… and it can ensure that you succeed with your app launch while using the template. I have also filled out

some sample data to help you understand …


… how to use the App Marketing Template.

Download the Free 10 Day App Marketing Template

https://my.leadpages.net/leadbox/1456ff9f3f72a2:14373a897b46dc/5730082031140864/


Your App Launch Marketing Plan


Your app marketing plan basically has two phases. The first is the pre-launch phase and the second is the post

launch phase.


Both the phases are equally important and actually the post launch phase cannot be implemented without

completing most of the steps in the pre-launch phase.


The kinds of tasks, which are present in both phases, are guaranteed to get you results. None of these are hit or

miss kind of strategies.


So let us jump into the pre-launch phase and figure out how to implement the marketing plan.


Pre-Launch App Marketing Plan


Before you launch your app, you need to lay the groundwork which will help you get a ton of downloads

once you launch your app.


In fact some of the pre-launch activities which you are going to participate in will let you validate your idea even

before you launch your app.


6 Days Before Launch


The first thing which you need to do as part of your pre-launch activities is to create a landing page for your app.

The reason for this is to figure out the right messaging for your app.


Unless you know how to position your app and the right kind of message to use to attract users, you are always

going to see sub-par results.


To create a landing page, you can use http://unbounce.com. Unbounce has a free theme for mobile apps and you can use that to create your app …

http://unbounce.com/


… landing page very quickly. Unbounce also lets you track your landing page conversions, which is very useful for

validating your idea and messaging.


While creating a landing page make sure that the landing page says that your app is going to launch soon and if the

users want an invite, they can provide their email address.


Once your landing page is ready, it is important for you to send relevant traffic to your landing page so that you can

achieve two goals:


The first is to actually get a few emails of people who are ready to download your app once it launches

The second is to validate your idea


To send relevant traffic to your landing page, the most reliable channel is a Facebook paid campaign. Just

create Facebook ads and drive traffic to your landing page.

http://appentrepreneursassociation.com/guaranteed-app-downloads-using-facebook-marketing-scholarship-and-course-access-application/


This traffic obviously needs to be of people who are the right target audience for your app. Once you start sending

traffic to the landing page, take a look at unbounce …


… and see what kind of conversion rate you getting. If the conversion rate is around 3%-5% or more than that, then

you have a good app idea on your hands …


… and you have also identified the right target audience for your app. Continue running ads to the landing page

based on your marketing budget to collect as many emails as possible.

http://appentrepreneursassociation.com/how-to-get-guaranteed-downloads-for-your-app-a-step-by-step-guide/


In case you are not seeing a good conversion rate then you obviously need to modify one of the following –

landing page messaging, target audience or your complete app idea itself.


If you want to get huge bang on your launch day, good press coverage for your app can definitely help you. The thing to remember with getting good press coverage is …

http://appentrepreneursassociation.com/get-press-coverage-for-your-app/


… that you need to understand how press coverage during launch works. If you have a good app and want it

covered, you need to do three things:


First find reporters who cover app launches and you can do this by looking up coverage on other apps which

launched recently


Second reach out to these reporters and pitch your app. You need to make sure that you tell them not to

write about your app before it is released.


This is commonly referred to as an embargo. The third thing, which you need to do, is offer exclusive

access to a reporter.


When you have an interesting app, reporters are extremely interested in being the only people to write

about your on launch day.


Obviously you need to select the right media outlet when agreeing to exclusive coverage agreement.

There are many ways to reach out to press …


… but the most effective way is usually the simplest. Search for the email address of reporters from your preferred media outlets and drop them a short pitch

about your app.


Now that you know what kind of messaging works for your app, you need to create your app store description

and get started with App Store Optimization.


The app store description can contain the same sections, which your landing page contained. So basically you are

going to have things like – …


… headline, benefits, features and a few testimonials. Coming to App Store Optimization, you can pick any tool

out there. My personal favorite is SensorTower.


You can use the trial period to complete your basic app store optimization.


As you are getting closer to the launch day, you need to ensure that the analytics tool which you are using to track

your app is properly setup.


Verify that you have created events for the major checkpoints in your app and also setup funnels to track

progress of users in your app.


1 Day Before Launch


This might not be relevant to all apps but in recent times Instagram has turned out to be an excellent source of

downloads for app.


Especially if you notice that there are a few accounts with a theme similar to your niche, you can contact them and

ask them to do a sponsored post.


Most instagram accounts, which allow such posts, have a “business contact” or “business email”. Just make sure that these accounts have good engagement from their

followers before you work with them.


Launch Day


On the launch day, the only thing which I would suggest that you do is to make sure that all the reporters who

were supposed to write about your app have actually ...


… done that and also to send out an email blast to all the people who provided their email addresses, informing

them about the launch of the app.


1 day after Launch


Once you start seeing the initial set of downloads, the next stage is to keep the momentum going by launching

mobile install ads using Facebook.

http://appentrepreneursassociation.com/guaranteed-app-downloads-using-facebook-marketing-scholarship-and-course-access-application/


You can do basic mobile install ads or you can use some advanced ninja tactics to get downloads at a really low

cost.


2 Days After Launch


Your Facebook ads should have picked up some steam by now and you should be seeing a good number of

downloads coming in for your app based on your budget.


Now you want to increase these downloads even further and break into the top ranks of the app store by launching

the Instagram sponsored posts, …


… through the partnerships which you setup before the launch. Instagram sponsored posts can be very effective

as long as you have done the following right:


Partner with a relevant influencer The influencer has an engaged audience

Your post does not look like an ad but blends in with the content


If you get these three things right then you should see a good number of downloads from instagram as well.


3 Days After Launch


Next is my favorite tactic to get a huge number of downloads. You can use giveaways to get thousands of downloads. There is a right way to do giveaways and I

have covered that here.

http://appentrepreneursassociation.com/complete-guide-to-getting-thousands-of-app-downloads-using-giveaways/


4 Days after Launch


Although this says 4 days after launch, you can actually wait for a few more days before you start looking at your

analytics and figure out at which stage of the funnel …


… a user drops off. For example, if you notice that a user drops off after opening the app for first time and completing event 1 but does not get to event 2, …


… then just focus on improving the workflow to get a user to event 2. This way you can gradually keep improving your app while at the same time you get downloads …


… to keep up the momentum, which you gained through your launch. I hope this is useful for you. If you feel that I

have missed out something …


… or if you have some other interesting tactics to improve your app launch just comment below and let us know.


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