What are the Necessary Pre-launch Steps for a Winning App
Congratulations on your unique app idea. We don’t want to ruin your party mood, but do you think a unique idea is enough to make your app financially successful? The answer is NO because the app market is very much competitive and with each passing day it is getting difficult to stand out plus it involves large investments in time and budget. Hey, don’t get disheartened as we are here to help you in strategizing some of the vital steps you should opt for the pre-launch of the mobile application.
Excited about it? Yeah...so are we.
Let’s get started:
11 Necessary Pre-launch Steps for a Winning App
Quick links
- Study your industry and perform competitive analysis
- Strategic pricing approach
- Website for your app
- Social media accounts
- Create a promo video of the app
- Make best of existing communities
- Choose an app store
- Use app store optimization
- Beta testing
- Create the buzz through email marketing
- Press Kit
1. Study your industry and perform competitive analysis
The very first step in the app development process that defines your success is your preparation. Begin by studying your competitors and the industry you are targeting through your app solution. Make use of online tools like Ahref, SemRush, MozBar to understand competitors’ online strategies, their digital tactics, digital campaigns, and analytical skills. The more you know about your competitors, it becomes easy for you to understand their strengths and weaknesses, to plan accordingly. Following should be your area of research to make your story successful:
- Competitor’s web presence
- Figure out your USP
- Competitor’s Unique selling point(USP)
- Competitors’ app ranks
- Reviews on competitors’ apps
- Their strengths and weaknesses
Once after studying the above factors, you can find loopholes in competitors' plans and try not to repeat those mistakes in your business.
2. Strategic pricing approach
There is no second thought on the fact that the mobile app development market is huge. It is also important to note that only a few apps can achieve the target of financial success and if you wish the same goal for your app, keep reading. You just cannot decide any random price but have to opt for the strategic pricing approach. The pricing of the app is directly proportional to brand awareness and brand perception. There are several factors that you need to keep in mind while pricing the app. Weigh your price on the following, to make the right choice:
- Match the value of what you are offering;
- Match the value of your offering versus your competitors;
- Support your brand;
- Check the customers’ affordability factor;
- Support your profit goal;
- Check out your competitors’ freemium price strategy;
If you are making apps for a wider range of audiences, then we’ll suggest you should go for the freemium option, just like Spotify. To experience ads-free unlimited music, they have offered a premium subscription option along with the download option. Free version users are also valuable as companies earn through ads plus get a large set of data which company to study users in a better way.
3. Website for your app
Creating a website is a great way to engage potential users before actually launching your app. Here you can create hype much before the launch to create a market for your digital asset. Create an online space, where they can give feedback about the app and this helps to cut down maximum chances of failure. Some of the key elements your app should consist of: app name with icon, user reviews, app tagline, different platforms on which app will be available, different promotional videos, social accounts link, mention on social media accounts, contact details, screenshots explaining different aspects of the application, etc.
4. Social media accounts
Identify the popular social media stations for your target audience to spread good words about your upcoming application. The beauty of social media channels is that you can choose your target audience based on various filters including geography, urban, rural areas, income, age, gender, etc which helps the marketer. Once on identifying targeted audiences on social media you can start attracting them with great content, app features, discounts for the first few, seasonal discounts, and other different marketing strategies.
5. Create a promo video of the app
Video and graphics leave a better impression on the user’s mind than text. A short but effective promo video can take your marketing effort to the next level as it brings your final message to life. An ideal promo video length lies between 30 seconds to three minutes. You can also hire social media influencers to give an extra push to your reach. But while making the promo video make sure the message should be clear, effective, and out of the box to lock special space in users’ memories. Hire the service of professionals for flawless video.
You can contact us today to develop mobile apps for your business.
6. Make best of existing communities
There are possible chances that you can find existing communities which are directly your niche. You can spend some time on research online to discover existing niche communities. Take the benefits of existing platforms like Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, and many more. By participating in these groups you can go deep in the market research along with the benefits of affiliate programs and explore a potential promotional partnership.
7. Choose an app store
Initially, you can choose a particular app store where you wish to launch your app. Is it the Android store or Apple store? The one-goal store helps you to concentrate best on getting high ratings and a large user base. Once your app gets recognition and fame, you can mark your app’s presence on multiple platforms. Initially, you can choose a single platform where a larger percentage of the audience is present.
8. Use app store optimization
The competition at the app store is very tough as there are more than 5 million apps on Apple and Play store. What is your strategy to stand out in the app store? Don’t get confused between app store optimization and search engine optimization. Both optimizations aim for better ranking but app store optimization aims to get better app ranking in the app store whereas SEO is done for better website ranking on the search engine.
Both include keyword optimization, conversion optimization, and backlinking. SEO involves a huge prospect with a large number of factors involved in it. Higher ranking apps get more downloads as generally users do not scroll much in the app store.
9. Beta testing
Beta testing is a vital step to take before launching your app on the store. Beta testing is a test where app updates are available to a small percentage of users to check if people like it or not. If people like it then you can roll out the app otherwise you can modify it according to users’ comments. There are various ways to set up your testing groups. Google and Apple encourage beta testing by guiding developers with step-by-step guidance.
10. Create the buzz through email marketing
Before the actual launch of the app, you can create the buzz around your app through email marketing. It is one of the effective yet affordable options if done right. You can persist the potential users with effective content, visuals to install the application. In this kind of promotion, customized content offers a higher open rate.
11. Press Kit
To maximize the chances to get cover from the press, create a press kit. The purpose of creating the press kit is to save time for bloggers and journalists by creating a summary of the app so that they can decide whether to cover it or not. To ease the task of journalists and bloggers, your press kit should include the following details:
- App’s logo, screenshots, icon, and video;
- Product page description;
- Links of different press coverage;
- Links of different social media accounts;
- Contact information.
Conclusion
The app store market is very noisy, so it becomes very important to grow the base for your app right before its launch. The bitter truth of this market is that good apps without marketing often fail, so to avoid failure, you can opt for the above-discussed plans. You can also hire the service of an experienced mobile app development company or can go with a dedicated mobile app developer. What are your thoughts on it?
