Mohamed Shaheen, Author at Appgain

Best ways of retargeting in retail marketing

Retargeting is the hottest type of marketing nowadays. It allows you to actively target people who were interested in what you offer in some way. Instead of trying to find new customers, retargeting lets you get your existing customers to buy more of your offers. It is not surprising that retargeting fits so well into retail marketing too. Still, as with everything, there are right ways, and not so right ways of doing it. Let’s see what are some of the best ways of retargeting in retail marketing

Know your customers

Since retargeting means reaching out to specific people, you need to know in some way who those people are. Thus, we can safely say that the first step of a proper retargeting campaign is to gather knowledge on who to retarget.

Follow what customers are more likely to buy what product, and when for example. With this knowledge, you can target them with the right offer when they are likely to buy it.

Modern technology allows you to have many ways to learn a lot about online users and to use this information to inform the right marketing plan for the right audience. Of course, you need the right tools to be able to enjoy these benefits.

With Appgain for example, you can target your social media ads towards people who have visited the landing page for your product/campaign.

Though, since digital media is the best place to learn of your customers, you should try your best to get them to your digital funnel.

Use all the channels in the right context

There are quite a number of ways to reach out to your customers to retarget them. App or web push notifications, SMS messages, emails, social media ads…

Each of these channels has various advantages and disadvantages compared to one another. Make sure that you are able to make use of them all.

Target the most valuable customers

Extending further from knowing your customers, how much lifetime value they have provided you with is a very useful thing to know.

Every step in retail marketing costs you time, effort, and money. Therefore, it is wise to use these resources on targets that will benefit you the most.

For example, if a user has bought lots of a particular brand of perfume many times, you can let them know when you have more of those in stock.

Deliver your message at the right time

Depending on the type of customer and what kind of retailer you are, there are a few critical times you can choose to retarget someone.

For example, if you know that a user buys a certain type of consumable in let’s say every month, you can remind them to buy some more when their last purchase was about 4 weeks ago.

Alternatively, you can retarget someone right after they buy something! Did they buy a new, shiny gaming console? Well, remind them to buy an additional controller or a game that is rather popular for that console just after their purchase!

Did someone place an order for a product of yours? Great! Send a confirmation SMS/mail, and add them to your retargeting queue to turn them into more than a one-time customer.

Examples of similar “critical times” to trigger your retargeting messages are:

People who have visited recently
People who have not visited in a while
People who have bought something recently
People who have created a shopping cart, but abandoned it without completing their purchase.

Use the most applicable of these opportunities to reach out to your customers to get them interested in your products again.

Appgain is the toolkit you need in retargeting, and retail remarketing

With Appgain, you can get a detailed database of users, see their information neatly, target them with web push notifications, app push notifications, emails, or SMS messages. Host a mobile and SEO optimized landing page, and get social media ids of users to show them targeted social media ads. Retarget them based on their LTV, last order date, number of sessions, etc. Create Smart QR Codes to bridge your physical and digital marketing. Automate your marketing actions based on events.

All you ever need for smart retargeting in one place, Appgain is ready to cover all your retail marketing needs.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

QR codes in marketing: Phygital bridge between online & offline!

Today, both online and offline media are vital to your marketing campaigns. They both have wide reaches into different audiences, and one can cover where the other may not be easily visible. Although they are virtual vs physical in nature can make it difficult to run them together seamlessly. So can you even bridge your offline and online marketing together? Of course, you can, just use QR codes in marketing! Let us have a look at how!

: “Are QR codes dead?” we often hear being asked. On the contrary, the use of QR codes in marketing is the bridge between digital and physical media! Hence the term “phygital”.

QR codes in marketing: Connection between the worlds!

Are QR codes dead? This question seems to be a popular one… Well, QR codes in marketing are quite alive and kicking 😉 They have this important position of being the bridge between online and the offline. They are, the heralds of phygital marketing!

Since pretty much everybody has a smart device nowadays, they can scan and use the QR codes pretty easily. Just incentivize them, offer rewards for using the QR code to let them into your digital marketing funnel.

These codes can be printed on any media: flyers, coupons, billboards, bus stops, or even on digital signage… Where you will use QR codes is only limited by your imagination!

These codes allow you to link people from any offline media to any digital content, and, with use of the right platforms, also give you ability to retarget these users, and gain valuable information from them like where the best buyers come from, which campaign performs best, etc.

Now, yes, online and offline marketing campaigns are connected great! But what’s the benefit? How can I use QR codes to bridge online and offline marketing?

There are multiple things that you can do, let’s look at them one by one.

Do you have an app? Use offline ads and get them to download it!

Apps can be either the meta or a channel in a marketing campaign. Since smart devices are everywhere, apps are always with us, so they are a great marketing channel.

However, for an app to be profitable, you need many downloads. There are many ways to achieve this. ASO and SEO efforts being the first two that comes to mind.

However, you can get people to know of, and even directly download your app even when they aren’t browsing the internet or app stores.

Let’s say that you hand out promotional items, perhaps in an event. Brochures, or a nice, branded notebook. Feature your QR code link there with an offer for additional benefits to app users.

Someone who is already positively influenced with the experience in the gift item will be more likely to check out the offer of the app, and you can gain users easily like that.

By turning QR codes into Dynamic and Trackable QR codes, Smart Deep Links technology makes it easy for users to get onboard within the apps. These context-sensitive links provide the following benefits:

They will take the user to their destination regardless of the platform they are using.
Let’s say they don’t have your app and are using an iPhone, the link will take them to download the app from App Store.
If they are using an Android device instead, the same link will take them to Play Store page of the app.

Handout coupons

Coupons and vouchers are a great way to build bridges with potential customers. It is even better if you get them to scan a QR code to enjoy the benefits. This way you will be able to track the success of your campaign, and even potentially build a database of users for later remarketing.

: Coupons and vouchers are a popular customer loyalty and marketing tool in many industries, such as retail market. When used together with smart QR codes, they are the incentivizes of the phygital marketing.

This is usually a great option for food and beverage venues for example. But it can be used in other services and products as well. The retail market would be one of those, for example.

Do you have a great landing page? Well, let people see it!

While a flyer or a billboard is great in their own right, a web page can feature so much rich media content that can not.

This way you can really get two types of media to mutually support each other. People can see a physical ad anywhere, in public transportation, in a cafe, just anywhere… You web content, on the other hand, can include many images, videos, text, and even interactive elements. These can help you convey the message of your product/service much more strongly.

Just put the link to your web content inside a QR code and feature this prominently on your offline ads, and reap the rewards.

Know what your ads are doing

Information is the greatest strength in marketing. You need to know many things to achieve the most successful campaigns. Who is the best audience to target? What do they want? Where are they? What time they are most likely to buy? Do they respond better to this or that kind of campaign? Marketing is hardly the cheapest thing when you don’t know what is working and what isn’t! Are you doing it right, or are you just losing money? Information is paramount in knowing this and adjusting accordingly.

However, collecting all this information may not always be the easiest thing to do. Well, at least it wasn’t always, but now marketing automation and analytics tools let you have this power at the tip your fingers!

Though, unless you integrate offline and online campaigns, their powers will only work in the digital realms.

This is where QR codes come to play! They can help with getting data from your offline campaigns too.

Retarget people who look at your offline marketing materials

Giving people an incentive to scan that cool little QR code on your ads will make it possible for automation platforms to retarget them later.

First off, you may ask the user to fill out a contact form to enjoy the benefit you offer. They may give an email or phone number.

Almost uniquely among the platforms, Appgain also enables you to get a database of interested users without even asking their contact information. As you may know, some users don’t quite like giving personal info to marketing campaigns. With our web push notification feature, they can just subscribe to your notifications and then you will be able to retarget them with notifications even if they are on a desktop system.

How can you use offline and online marketing together? How do you employ QR codes in marketing?

: QR codes will let your online marketing efforts work on physical media too, here you can see how it would work for a retail market case

Well of Course With Appgain! Appgain gives you the opportunity to make the best use of the QR code’s powers, and adds more to the pack! The answer to “are QR codes dead?” is a resounding no, and our platform is ready to provide you with all the benefits phygital marketing and more.

Retarget your customers on social platforms, with notifications, SMS or email. With Dynamic, Colorful and Branded QR codes, our offer is feature-rich, and besides, we offer not just a QR code platform, but a whole marketing solution!

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

How mobile marketing automation boost conversion!

Mobile Marketing Automation

It is never easy to take a campaign literally from zero to hero. You need to reach out to people, make them aware of the product/cause, and then get them to be a part of it. But your campaign needs to champion that new thing, which is a droplet in an ocean of other, perhaps even well-established competitors. It doesn’t always need to be this hard, however, to boost conversion rates of your campaigns.

Let us have a look at how you can achieve great campaign results, and how we can benefit you in doing this.

Acquire the Attention of Right People

The first step of any campaign is to attract people interested in your cause, who may then decide to buy, join, donate, and/or share with other like-minded people to build more awareness for you. While the traditional media like TV (or nowadays YouTube) ads, billboards, etc. do have their places, today the greatest and cheapest way to be found is using the power of web and search engines.

Therefore, a mobile-friendly and SEO optimization-ready landing page is where it all starts. Your landing page needs to be visually simple but attractive and should have short but strong lines of text to outline the offer of your campaign. It should include a visible call to action (CTA), and the content needs to be created with a good target keyword in mind. Having a strong domain name in the address is also important.

Appgain’s benefits already start right here. Mobile Deep Pages are among our most prominent features, and allows you to have just that!

The benefits of Mobile Deep Pages include:

Stripe payment and lead forms
Can be created easily with a visual editor
Or, if you have an app, can be autogenerated from app metadata
Gives you a place with rich and powerful content to link from less powerful media like SMS messages.
Creates valuable advanced analytics for you to visualize your users’ journeys, see what works and what doesn’t in your campaign. Where do you lose interested people? Who can you retarget to convince?
Fully supports custom domains.
Allows the users to subscribe to your web push notifications. This is a very powerful tool that enables you to create a database of interested users without collecting contact information. Not only does that allow you to send notifications to both desktop and mobile without needing an app, but it also lets you retarget the correct people with notifications.

To fully benefit from our Mobile Deep Pages, we complement it with another powerful technology built by our tech team: Smart Deep Links. More importantly, they will help you to improve your conversion rate significantly!

Turn them into Customers With Mobile Marketing Automation!

The users are most often lost at the step of registering or the actual checkout process. The whole journey needs to be as simple and enjoyable as possible for them. It doesn’t matter what your campaign goal is. Whether you are trying to get more users for your app, get people to register for an event, sell some product, or gather donations for a charity… If your users need to jump through hoops, crawl under rocks, and dodge a few arrows, while also having to listen through useless and boring rhetoric, you can be sure that you’ll lose them…

Smart Deep Links are designed to help you with this issue. These links allow you to take the user to the right place, according to their context.

How does it do that though? Well it offers benefits such as:

Takes the user to right place depending on their platform. Let’s say that you are trying to get them to see a specific page in the app. Do they have the app at all? What if they don’t? Do they use Android or iOS? A single smart link can consider all these cases for you! If your user has the app, great! The page launches right away! If they don’t? Well, if they use iOS, they’ll be taken to the app’s App Store page, and if they use Android, they’ll go to Play Store one. Once the app is downloaded, they’ll still see that page you wanted when it launches! It doesn’t limit to apps either; if the user is on a desktop, you can get them to a website or a PWA.
Are you using SMS messages to reach out to potential customers? Well, you can incorporate the link there. This way you can use shorter but still more powerful messages, which will take the user to a media-rich page.
Let’s say you use the link to take the user to a checkout page for payment. Depending on being on mobile or desktop, you can choose to take them to a payment page, or SMS payment.
Do you want to tie your old media and digital media campaigns together? We can encode a quick deep-link to a QR code, and you can put it on your ads, etc. to take the users into your mobile marketing automation funnel even from a billboard ad!

All these features are tailored to make it much simpler for the users to go exactly where you want them to. No hoops to jump, no bullets to dodge. It is quick, friendly, and easy for them to go and do what they will. In just one magic link to get them right there!

This ease of use and the ability to suit every platform to work with just one link increases the user conversion rates with a considerable degree, often even multiplying it!

Well, This All Sounds Nice and Pretty, but… Do You Have Any Examples of It Working?

Well yes, indeed we do! And the example we chose here may not be what you are expecting: it is a charity! Shows that you can use our mobile marketing automation to benefit every kind of campaigns!

Here in Appgain, we are not only helping app developers and marketers, to achieve their goals. Our product also helps charity organizations! Furthering a cause, rushing to aid of those in need…

The charities are fighting the good fight! But to get people to move, they first need to reach out to them. This, in turn, is only possible with running an effective publicity campaign, using all the right tools available for the task. Today, the most important tools are digital media.

Through the digital channels, you can:

Reach potential benefactors
Make them aware of the campaign
Make it easier for them to donate, and hence…
Convert them into actual donors

One such charity organization is Sharjah Charity International. They usually do charity campaigns on social media channels and run SMS donation campaigns. While looking for a solution to make donations over SMS an easier process, the organization has found Appgain to be the answer.

And the answer we indeed are, as the Sharjah has enjoyed:

An increase in their SMS conversion rate from 3% to 12%
Shortened SMS length from 3 messages long to 1, decreasing their campaign cost at the same time.

Sharjah is just one of the many other charity organizations that have enjoyed a great jump in their success rate, as well as a great decrease in their campaign costs. And this is just one industry, we have app creators, digital marketers, and app marketers benefitting from our marketing automation product.

With the Right Tools, mobile marketing automation isn’t Rocket Science! Boost Your Conversion Now!

The science between digital marketing is made available in a custom-built automation tool in Appgain. Our features are designed and built by industry veterans of both technical and PR side of things, to offer you the solution for the challenges you will meet in converting people from mere strangers into clients, donors, and volunteer ambassadors who do your marketing for you!

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Mobile Marketing for Apps – How To Acquire, Engage and Retain Users? Part 3

How to acquire, engage and retain users? How to create the right mobile app marketing plan to achieve so? These are the questions we have been answering since we started the series. In the previous parts of our guide, we shed light on our user growth model; AARRR MODEL. Tackling 3 of its pillars which are acquisition, activation, and retention, we are now ready to address the 4th pillar.

How to earn money from apps? Time to learn to utilize the app revenue item!

IV- Mobile App Revenue

How to get money from the mobile app?

“By 2020, mobile apps are forecast to generate around 189 billion U.S. dollars in mobile app revenues via app stores and in-app advertising.” Stated Statisa in one of its mobile app marketing thoroughly researches, proving that apps can drive you colossal revenue and raising the urge to earn money for your app as well!

For that mission, we have collected the most useful app monetization models that can help you figure out your options when it comes to earning money from apps.

Explore your app monetization options for generating the highest mobile app revenue:

1- Freemium

Free apps are the top and the most useful app monetization model among them all. Whatever your app is offering to users, being offered for free is the always-working teaser that turns possible purchasers into actual app users.

Freemium model functions as:

A “Trying before paying” strategy
Users can download fermium app with no charges at all, and they can enjoy some of your features for free as well. However, at some point, their free trial will end, and you will need to make them pay for unlocking more features or viewing app hidden partitions.
A teaser campaign.
It’s all about getting your users to feel and live the real user experience you are offering in here. Your job is to make them fall in love with it; get them attached and then they will never stop asking for more!

Both ways, you will need to follow the below tips to make sure that you are playing it smart enough to generate actual app revenue out of your freemium model.

Don’ts:

Offering too much: “don’t make yourself too available” this advice goes for freemium apps as well! Offering too many free features will make them get all that they want without having to spend a penny.
Offering too little: avoiding too many free features doesn’t mean to go for the “too few” strategy. Offering less-than-expected free features will not give your users the change to fully explore your app and will not be tempting enough for them to pay for it. Be moderate. Give them enough reasons why your app deserves their money.

Dos:

Turn them into your app advocates: yes they don’t pay actual money, but they can unconsciously work as your marketing team.
Hint: offer to unlock them a new feature when 5 of their friends download the app, or when they achieve a certain number of shares for your app on their social media accounts.
Get as much data as you can: the broader the base you have, the more data you can get.
Hint: Always ask for their data and for accessing their data and their friends/email lists, then you can keep push marketing messages to them all
Give them something to look forward to: People love mysteries and surprises.
Telling employees that there will be a surprise by the end of the month and watch how curious they will be. Do the same for your app users.
Try to withhold a particular feature or section in your app that would unlock with paying and watch how dynamic they will be.

2- Paid Apps

Unlike freemium ones, this app monetization model is about getting paid per each download. It’s a “pay first, play second” strategy. Paid apps are the most direct sales generator model yet the hardest one. As we all know, getting users to pay is not the easiest thing to do. So you will need to follow the following:

Dos:

Mind-blowing added value: you need to offer something unique, something free apps don’t afford to provide.
Hint: use all of your weapons to show the added value you got! Showcase five stars rating, offer video tutorials, present screenshots, etc. Just let people see the real value they will get.
The precise targeting: the three segments you need to target are:
1. experience mobile holders
2. users who are addicted to your app category
3. those who already downloaded a paid app before.
These categories of users are the ones who are having the mindset of paying for an app, so customize your marketing strategy to fit them perfectly.

Don’ts:

Make them feel that they are getting double what they paid for: they do pay, and now they are on your app. But they are finding nothing! Too few features that it isn’t unique. Don’t be stingy when it comes to the features of your paid app, be the opposite.
High pricing: free apps are all over the place. So when you decide to launch a new one, it should be as cheap as you can. Users will not pay much money on something they didn’t try first.

3- In-App Purchases

In this app monetization model, your app functions as a showcase. It’s your online store where you start selling your goods, whether it’s visual like some icons for a game or it’s actually like food or clothes.

Such a model will suit you the most if you belong to the eCommerce app categories, but of course, it can be used in other categories too.

Dos:

Explore your options: you can use in-app purchase for both free and paid apps. You can also use this app monetization model differently with each industry.
Hint: If you are a magazine/newspaper it will be in the form of paid subscriptions. If you are a music app, it will be in the form of latest hits downloading. It’s a model that fits all.

Don’ts:

Poor visuals: you are targeting people who are possible online shoppers. So whatever you are selling, it needs to be showcased perfectly.
Hint: Post many pictures to what you are selling and feature the zoom in the bottom. Just make sure that they can check everything so clearly.

Regarding this one you need to take care of two points:

When you are selling non-physical goods, apple store got a percentage out of your revenue
Apple and Google stores are applying restriction policies to prevent accidental purchases done by kids

4- In-App Advertising

In-App advertising monetization model has the same concept of in-app purchase; both are advertising/selling using the app as a showcase.

The differences here is that the In-App advertising app monetization model is not selling your goods, it’s functioning as an ad banner for others. The challenge here is to gather as much database as possible so that your app will be tempting enough for others to advertise in.

Dos:

Play it cool: when it comes to in-app purchase, you need to make it feels like it’s a part of the app itself.
No annoying pop-ups.
No pauses for your activities on the app with an ad banner and definitely.

Examples of the apps that use this model so smoothly and perfectly are Facebook and Instagram. You can pass by a sponsored ad without even notice that it’s an odd item among the rest.

Don’ts

One-size-fits-all: Never follow that concept! No one size can fit in all.

Thoroughly study the suitable ad banner dimensions of each device.
Nothing is more annoying than an ad that is poorly designed and not even fit into the screen.
Customize the suitable ad position for each screen size. This infographic will help you that mission.

These were the main four app monetization options that you can use in your upcoming mobile app marketing plan to generate the highest revenue. However, they are not all. There are two extra models which would be extracted from the four main ones mentioned above, and they are used along with any of the above mentioned.

5- Subscriptions/Paywalls:

This app monetization model is another version of free apps. But what is offered for free is your app content, not your features.
Example: you are a reading app. You start offering readers free samples of a certain number of books they searched for; then you ask them to pay for a subscription to access the full books and more other books as well.

This model is a great way to engage users, but it can’t be used to a wide range of app categories.

6- Sponsorship

Sponsorship is the latest model of app monetization models. It’s an incentive system where users are encouraged to take more actions through the app to get rewarded. And these rewards are all sponsored by other parties.
Example: When a transportation app collaborate with a mobile company and start advertising the following “reach more than 50 rides per week, and you will get a chance to win the mobile X for free”. As an app owner, your revenue is generated directly from the sponsors and adversities.

This model hasn’t been utilized enough yet to judge its effectiveness, but it is a promising one.

One extra tip for that part is: you can always as for our help!

Appgain has been successfully diving revenue to mobile apps globally. One of our big hits was ikhair app – the first mobile donation app in Middle East – where we are driving them revenue that is more than 3M USD donations till now. We are also handling DTCM (Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing) three mobile apps on our platform, where we have proceeded more than get 3,8 M transaction. And there are more.

We can always give you a hand when it comes to boosting your mobile app revenue, ask for it

Here is for all of those who ever wondered about how to referral mobile app users. After going all the way long of applying a massive mobile app marketing plan for acquiring, engaging, retaining and gaining money out of your app, you will need to take one more final step. It’s the 5th and last pillar of the AARRR Model, app referral.

Learn how to plan for Mobile App Virality in your mobile app marketing strategy.

II- Referral: Do users tell others? (Mobile App Virality)

Do users share your app? Do they spread the word? Do they recommend it to their family and friends? That is what Mobile app virality (aka app referral) means, it’s to turn your users to your app advocates where they do marketing and advertising for your app by themselves.

The ultimate goals for mobile app marketing plans are not only to generate revenue, but also to go viral and to be on the top of the most demanded apps. And to achieve so, there are three types of AppVirality strategies that you will need to explore.

1- Infectious Mobile app marketing virality

The infectious strategy depends on pushing your app users to invite their network to try/download/share the app. It mainly depends on rewarding users for doing so.
Example: Dropbox referral email campaigns that drove them user growth rate up to 3900% over 15 months!

When using Infectious App Virality strategy, you will need to pay attention to the following tips:

Continually use incentive programs:
No matter to what industry you belong, our role model regarding perfectly pitched incentive programs will always be Uber! This app arose using the power of referrals.
Through getting a free ride every time a friend download the app, they managed to generate huge user growth rates and unstoppable ongoing referrals.

Go for double-sided incentive referral systems:
Don’t monopolize the reward. Instead of making it related only to your app, you can collaborate with another app or website in a double-sided incentive referral system, and the benefits would double.

2- Demonstration app virality

When using this strategy, you will depend on how much users do really like your app. There will be no rewards or incentives for them to share your app content, it just happens when you gain your users’ trust, and they are happy enough to share. All that you have to do is to motivate them with some sincere push notifications and so.

And here are you some tricks to manipulate their unconsciousness to share:

Evoke their emotions:
“Whether you’re selling soda, car insurance, or a presidential candidate, evoking emotion increases word-of-mouth.” Stated Jonah Berger in his findings of how things go viral and motivate users to share.

Produce content and features that make them feel good or happy about themselves.
Example: snapchat and Instagram did when they gave people the opportunity to use filters that make their photos look way better than usual.
Socialize your content:
Make your app content interesting enough to be shared on your users’ social media accounts. You need to know what people prefer to share.
Hint: people like to share achievements, things they are proud to reach and happy to own. They also like to brag stuff they bought. Try something like “in love with your new original watch? Share it with your Facebook friends now!”
Produce content with value:
Users tend to share valuable information with their related friends. Whether it’s an article for your reading app or it’s a new sale for your eCommerce app products, make sure that it’s tempting enough for users to tell others about.

3- Word-of-Mouth AppVirality:

“92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising.” Stated Forbes in its article about the powers of word of mouth marketing.

Mobile app virality depends on being the most effective marketing tool just like any other business virality does.

This app referral strategy is similar to the demonstration, but it is not limited to sharing the app content on social media platforms. Word-of-Mouth mobile app virality includes a press release, face to face recommendations and any mean of networking where apps are mentioned.

To make sure that your app is easy to be spread by word of mouth, you need to pay attention to the following:

Watch your brand spelling: your app needs to spell easily and smoothly. It also needs to be short and sweet so that people can remember and memorize
Be careful with how you describe your app: when someone as your users about your app, they will unconsciously repeat what you wrote about yourself. That’s why you need to write your app description and ads very thoroughly.
Double check that you are utilizing the three E’s: Engage, Equip and Empower.
These are the three pillars of the word of mouth marketing strategy.
– Make your users feel that you are not a mere app, you are a humanized and can engage with them through social media, customer service, etc.
– Give them something to talk about, whether it’s a unique service or cool features.
– Give them power, let them suggest and decide some new stuff and make it happen for them.

Tools that will assist you when using any of the above mobile app marketing virality strategies:

AppVirality: “World’s #1 referral marketing software that helps you design, manage, and optimize successful customer referral campaigns.”

Appgain.io: “boost your app virality through the most effective deep linking and push notifications tools.”

Referral saas quatch: “referral program software that pushes promo codes and other incentives for your mobile app.”

And with that, we finally conclude our detailed guide on how you could acquire, retain, boost your users and have all the insights for how you could boost your app, and also how to be a successful Digital marketer, we hope that our guide was helpful to you and we would like to invite you to try our platform.

if you missed part 1 you could check it here, and part 2 here

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Mobile App Marketing Strategies – How To Acquire, Engage and Retain Users? – Part 2

To acquire, engage and retain users, you need to know the rules of the game. And to win the triumph of this game, you will need to take each phase of it by storm! What we are tackling here is the steps you need to follow. Previously in part 1, we addressed step no.1 “Know more about the game” where we enlighten your path with some real-time statistics about mobile consumer behaviors, mobile experience and install attribution. Then we tackled step No.2 “Understand your user journey” where we introduced the AARRR model and its benefits for your mobile marketing process. Now moving to step no.3

Step 3: Utilizing the AARRR Model in your mobile app marketing plan

I- Acquisition

– How do users find your app? (your app discovery)

Having more than 1.2 million apps in app stores, your mobile app acquisition process is not such an easy task to accomplish. After double-checking on your users’ persona and segmentation, and making sure that you are targeting the exact right audience to your app, you need to start researching where exactly to hunt these audiences. And the question here is “From where can you start?” The answer is right in this insight

These are the most active mobile users’ acquisition strategies and channels. After thoroughly checking it, you need to do the following:

Determine which channels of these you are using the most
Determine how common/successful it is according to the graph
Check out your app acquisition insights (aka mobile attribution) from each channel and document all the findings
Compare between the insights of each channel you analyze and determine which ones work for you the most

After doing this exercise, you will definitely find out that the most effective channels/strategies on your list is one of these: social media, video ads and ASO. These three are the top channels to acquire audience, but do we know how to approach them correctly? Let’s see…

– Social Media

Social Media is ranked as No.1 channel on the “most effective channels” list for a reason; it’s a magical channel if you just used it right! Evolution of social media throughout the years is impressing. Nowadays it is marketers’ no.1 channel to reach and acquire the broadest possible base of audiences, and to network with them as well!

So here are you some Do and Don’ts when you start setting your social media strategies:

The Dos

Create a worth spreading app content: Wants your mobile app go viral? Then listen to this. The fastest and most effective way to spread your latest news/updates about your app is to get people to share it. The easiest way for people to share these news/updates is to find them right there on their timeline. So create that shareable and engaging app content and let your audiences do the rest! It can be a written post, a GIF or a video
Interact: think of social media platforms as your online PR. Reply to your audience’s’ comment or engage them through a game that is related to your app, and most importantly, act like a human being, not like a robot! Collaborate with influencers: Social media influencers are talking marketing by storm, forget the old school strategy of focusing all of your budgets on paid ads, save some to the right influencer who is in the same field of your app and collaborate to advertise for your mobile app.
Hashtags: watch the most used hashtags closely on each platform you are using post regularly on those platforms. Choose what is suitable for you and use them wisely.

As for the Don’ts, this chart says it all:

Here are you some tools that can assist you:

Socedo: “Automate Social Media Lead Generation Machine”

Hashtagify: “Find and Analyze Top hashtags.”

Hootsuite: “Manage Multiple Networks and Measure your campaign results.”

Edgar: “Social Media Scheduling Tool That Manages Itself”

Crowdfire: “Grows your audience and build up the brand

That’s where can you start from regarding social media mobile marketing. Follow appgain.io step-by-step guide to acquiring. Engage and retain users – part 3 to explore the rest of the channels.

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Mobile App Marketing Guide – How To Acquire, Engage and Retain Users? – Part 1

Mobile apps are not a “set-and-forget” thing, you don’t just create it, and that’s it! Building the app is your start line; it’s when you start the game.

The real case here is to go through all the challenges you face until you reach the finish line successfully, and then go to the next level and so on.
Accordingly, we are providing you with what you need to win this mobile app marketing challenging game;

“Appgain.io step-by-step guidelines in Mobile App Marketing and how to acquire, engage and retain app users.”

Throughout this guide you are going to learn more about mobile app user journey, how you can trigger them in each phase of this journey, and how to successfully pass each phase till you reach the triumph!

To see how you can boost your acquisition with Appgain, visit our acquisition for mobile apps page.

Step 1: Know more about the game

Before taking any step forward in the game, you need to study its related facts and figures first. So here we go. Researchers found that “Four out of five smartphone users check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up, and 44% admit to sleeping with their phones beside their bed.” Huge huh? And the ugly truth is that users don’t even spend this time equally between different apps. A mobile app user has an average of 26 apps, but s/he uses only 5 of them for 80% of the time!

These insights will tell you more about that:

an insight on app categories share and average time spent in each

While you have a dominant top 10 apps of all times

When you try to introduce a new app, these are your chances

But knowing what your users expected will help in a million

using these facts and figures, you can now map most of the challenges you may face and get prepared.

Time to learn how to win them all!
Moving to step No.2

Step 2: Understand your user journey

To win users’ attention and to stand out despite all of the above challenges, you need to know your users’ lifecycle starting from the minute they hold their digital device and start navigation.
Growth framework “AARRR” is your best enlightenment model for that aspect. Invented by Dave McClure back in 2007, AARRR was and still that simple and clear way which well-illustrated how exactly your users move from a phase to another and get you one step closer to the understanding of their behavior. AARRR states that mobile app users go through 5 stages; acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral, as shown in the diagram:

Your task now is to master every single phase of these; to understand how to encounter each one, to know the best strategies to be used, and to discover the suitable tools to analyze and manage your strategy… Let’s dig deeper!

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How will iOS11 Updates Affect Your App Store Optimization (ASO)

More discoverable, more intelligible and beautifully redesigned; these are the words that will jump right into your head when you start navigating Apple new IOS11 App Store!

“Now, we are taking everything we’ve learned from the App Store over the past nine years and putting it into a stunning new design. Every element of the new App Store is richer, more beautiful and more engaging.” – Philip Schiller Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

Such changes are highly affecting apps’ rates of discoverability, engagement, and downloads. And as an app developer or a mobile marketer, you need to get ready to restructure your whole ASO strategy accordingly. So, let’s dig deeper into these revamps?

TODAY

Remember the old “Featured” tab? It’s now replaced with a very advanced tab, and it’s now called “Today”! Today is a unique feature where users can daily view the latest apps and news in their IOS11 app store. So, every morning when you check your store, you will find the app of the day, the game of the day, the news of the day, etc. there will also be a wide range of stories shared by developers from all over the words. Such a tab has raised the bar too high; it’s not easy to get featured in the today’s tab, but when you do, it will be one of the most powerful booster tool ever made for your app.

APPS AND GAMES

The old days where apps and games were all stuffed in the same place is gone! The new IOS11 app store is categorizing both now, which reflects a great understanding of how different they are and how much better it is to separate them. This separation thing is giving developers their own space to work specifically and thoroughly on the marketing of both and presenting an easier tool for users to reach their purchasing destination with the minimum effort.

PRODUCT PAGE

Now, this is a whole new story with lots of details that can benefit you the most! So let’s take it one by one:

1- App Name

Your app name is now shortened to be only 30 characters instead of 50, a problem? Not at all. iOS11 is now giving you a chance to skip all the long boring app names and encourages you to grape your purchasers’’ attention with a short, attractive and sample names

Apple tip for you: “Choose a simple, memorable name that is easy to spell and hints at what your app does. Be distinctive. Avoid names that use generic terms or are too similar to existing app names.”

2- App Subtitle

The same thing is applied to your app subtitle.

It’s a new additional bonus from Apple, where you are offered an extra 30 characters in the form of a short subtitle that appears right below your app name.

It’s your extra chance to tell more about your app; and here is where you should include your CTA and your app’s added-value.

But watch out, you can only change your subtitle with an update.

Apple tip for you: “Avoid generic descriptions such as “world’s best app.” Instead, consider using your subtitle to highlight features or typical uses of your app that resonate with your audience.”

3- App Promotional Text

More promo characters to use, a 170-character promotional text to describe your app and will appear on the top of your description area.

This promotional text is an extra way to highlight the most important aspects of your app.

In that particular feature, there are no watch-outs.

You can change your promotional text with no need to re-update your app.

But the pair in mind that this text will not be part of your ranks-higher strategy in the app store search.

Apple tip for you: “Consider using promotional text to share the latest news about your apps, such as limited-time sales, upcoming features or content, or other events within your app.”

4- App Previews – Videos and Screenshots

More bounces from iOS11, a very attractive gift that consists of three video app previews and five screenshots for previewing your app, what a gift!

Now you do not just have title, subtitle and a written description, you also have these to make empower your app.

Each video of these can last for 30 seconds, and it will be localized according to the country your user is viewing the video from.

Another watch out in here these app preview videos will be auto-played with muted audios when a user enters your product page, which means that your first few seconds of the preview need to be the most captivating and attractive one for users to open and download.

What will happen if there are no video previews? Your screenshots will jump in, where the first one to three images will appear in the search results

Apple tip for you: “Think about using your first app preview to show an overview of the app experience, focusing on the app’s core features and content.

Aim to tell a cohesive story that gives users a sense of the journey they will experience when using your app.

Then create a second or third preview to highlight additional features or specific content that users might not know about.

Make sure that each video shows users something new about your app.”

5- App Rating and Reviews

Forget all the low rating you once worried about. Now IOS11 is only displaying the overall rate of your app.

Not just that, you can also reset that average rating whenever you want. Which means that you can delete the old unpleasant rates when it exists, for your app to convey the ongoing quality only.

Regarding the reviews, you can promote the reviews’ requests for your app up to 3 times per year.

So, you need to restructure your new strategy to get the max out of such some limited promotions.

Apple tip for you: “ask users to rate and review your app at appropriate times throughout the user experience. Make the request when users are most likely to feel satisfied with your apps, such as when they’ve completed an action, level, or task.”

One last watch-out tip for apps that haven’t been updated for so long: Apple is no longer supporting 32-bit

summary

Lots of exciting changes and gifts to utilize, lots of attractive features to use, and surely Apple will not stop. So what should you do now regarding ASO new strategy? We got one advice for you….

“USE. YOUR. CONTENT. WISELY.”

It’s all about content. If your description, app name, promotion videos/screenshots, etc.

didn’t attract your user’s attention in the very first 10 seconds, then you are wasting all these gifts IOS11 app store is offering to you.

Remember that, less is more. This is the real trick in here.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

ASO Checklist: Your 2018 ASO Strategy Guidelines

ASO matters for your app exactly as much as SEO matters for your website! ASO is your gateway to optimize your app and ensure the highest ranks for it.

What is ASO?

ASO is a process to optimize your mobile app to be highly ranked in app store search results. Higher ranks in search results increase your app opportunities to get discovered by potential customers, which accordingly deliver more traffic. With ASO, app users can take action, download your app, and get you more engagement.

So, we will go through a quick mind-mapping for your ASO strategy together, to guarantee you are using ASO to the max. While we are going along ASO Checklist, check off points you are already covering and mark the ones you are missing.

1. Understand your customer

This is where you must start from; to determine who your customers are, what their persona is, and accordingly, what strategy needed to reach them. But how to do so? Here is a persona-mapping exercise that will help you a lot.

Imagine that your target customer is walking right now into the room, what do you see now?
Is it a man or a woman? What is the age? How does she/he dressed-up?
What is the job title? Do she/he has a car? Which type?
Which social class is she/he belongs to? Which language is dominating the speech?

Keep asking yourself so similar questions and write down the all the answers, by the end of this exercise you will have an actual and precise visual image to the segmentation and interests of your most suitable customer. Now you can confidently set your marketing strategy.

2. Monitor your competitors

Monitoring your competitors is your best guideline!

Determine who exactly your competitor are and who your benchmark is. Monitoring your competitors will give you a clue about what is working with a particular audience and what is not, it will also guide you to the most common keywords in the field you are in. While Monitoring your competitors will give you a clue about the best practices in the area and the most suitable style, techniques and channels to communicate with your target audience.

3. Maximize your keywords

A study stated that Over 65% of all downloads on the iOS App Store come from search, which means that the discoverability of your app and your apps organic reach are highly depending on choosing the right keywords. So, besides monitoring your competitors to determine which keywords to use, you need to take care of the following:

Always use Keywords in the title of your app, it gives more weight.
Use descriptive keywords besides your app name. It will help your target audience to get the purpose of your app and will rank higher because it is placed in your app’s’ title.
You have got 100 characters in the App Store keyword field, why to waste any? Use them all.
Google play store is just like SEO; it scans keywords from your description, which means that you have got 4,000 characters. Embed your keywords logically into it.
Create a balance between your keyword difficulty and its traffic.

4. Localize your app

Which language do you most commonly use in your apps? If the answer is English, then you need to reconsider it. According to Onesky, “Today, only 31% of app revenue is generated by North American consumers. And of those consumers outside the English-speaking world, 72% prefer to use their native language when shopping, even if they’re fluent in English.” See how many audiences you are missing by not localizing your app? Some nations are so restricted to their mother tongue, so why don’t you localize and communicate with your audiences by their home language?

5. Standout with a unique icon

Always pare in mind that some of your users are visual people; they don’t like to read, if your visuals didn’t catch their attention, they would ignore your app. Your top visible item is your Icon, so make it unique! Your app icon needs to stand up among all the other apps stuffed in the store.
But watch out, it’s not just only about the design and how creative it is, it’s also about which design is suitable for which store. So always remember to read the icon designing guidelines presented by the store you are publishing your app at.

Side tip: there are so many things connecting to the way you are presenting the app that you must master, such as choosing the right app name, creating a compelling description, Including screenshots and videos, and watching out for your rating and reviews. In case you missed reading them in the “How to get the max out of ASO” part in our preview article, check it out from here: What is ASO and why it is important for App Discovery

6. Promote your app on social media

Who doesn’t use social media platforms nowadays? The power of social media is magical if you just used it right! Create a page for your app on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram and so. It gets you closer to your users, empowers your online presence, drives more traffic to your app and helps it get highly ranked.

7. Frequently analyze update and support your app

“App Store Optimization is not a set-and-forget activity that you do once and run with it.” Yes! Your app is your baby, and you are the parents, it’s not once, and that’s it, it’s a 24-hrs job. You need always to keep your eyes on your app; analyze its performance weekly, reconsider your ASO strategy with each new trend or upgrade, keep tracking your competitors and continuously refine your keywords. You also need to convey to your audience that your app is interesting enough for them always to check and pursue; brainstorm for new ideas for your app, promote it through push notifications and others, and don’t forget to do the actual app update frequently. That’s how you give your audience a reason always to come back.

One more tip, and then you are free to get back to your app and utilizing all the above: A/B TESTING what may work for others may not work for you, always test till you reach what works for you the most.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

IOS 11 ASO – How iOS 11 changes impact mobile marketers

“A giant step for iPhone. A monumental leap for iPad.”

That is how Apple describes the new mobile operating system they launched last September, and they were absolutely right!

The new IOS 11 advanced mobile operating system is such a revolutionary change that empowers Apple mission of providing the best user experience people could ever have. As for us app developers and mobile marketers, IOS 11 raises the bar way too high and here is why:

1- New Prompt API for Apps

It’s obvious that Apple is heading more towards getting 100% user satisfaction,

so one of its tools to achieve so is to stop the “rate-me-now” annoying pop-ups that users always get while using a certain app.

Instead of having to leave the app to do the rating thing in the app store,

IOS11 built a new review prompt API where users can now review any app right on the spot without leaving it.

As for developers and marketers, now you can’t have a custom review prompt anymore;

you are only allowed to prompt for reviews just three times a year or less.

However, you still got your chances to connect customers and gather feedback using the new interactive review system.

You also have access to your user’s comments and reviews and can now directly respond.

2- Intelligent Tracking Prevention

If you depend on cookie mechanism and other traditional tools to track user’s web-to-app Installs and Mobile Attribution,

then you will definitely need to change that strategy now! With IOS11 new Intelligent Tracking Preventer,

developers are no longer allowed to use Safari web cookies and others to reach for any app.

accordingly, you will need to rely more on deep linking from trusted platforms that use more advanced tracking and attribution tools.

3- In-app purchase promotion

Previously, if people need to understand what’s more into your app, they had to download it first.

Accordingly, you had a big percentage of your content undiscoverable for your purchasers,

just waiting for them to download the app to view.

With IOS11 this is totally gone! Now you can promote up to 20 of that previously-not-discovered content on your product page,

where users can browse and buy even before downloading the app.

Such a feature enable you to boost your app downloads,

give your purchasers a clue about what exactly is in here for them inside your app and Increase the discoverability for content that previously only viewed when downloading.

4- QR codes native support

Presenting a wide range of new features, IOS 11 is now natively supporting QR codes.

Which means that IOS11 camera apps can now open a URL in Safari or a deep link of an already app.

It can also promote app installation; if the users haven’t got your app yet, IOS11 QR Codes can send them to the app store to download it.

5- NFC Reader Mode

Remember when computers came to life and change everything?

That’s exactly how IOS11 NFC reader Mode is doing to the mobile industry!

Now is not only supporting vertical market like security and gaming, but it is also taking horizontal technology like WiFi and camera by storm!

NFC Reader Mode is utilizing the internet of things, and you as a mobile marketer and app developer must start thinking of how to seize such an opportunity.

Staying on the top is not an easy task to do. To keep track you need to start applying your intensive SWOTs,

determine what is in here for you and seize such opportunities, point out the challenges you got and start working to endure them,

and finally reconsider your whole strategy and figure out how you are willing to deal with such technological turn of events!

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Power Words: The Magic Wand for your Push Notifications

You are on your mobile phone scrolling down your Facebook timeline and then this push notification from Uber just popped-up

It’s your Birthday, and we got a special gift for you A 50% Discount on your next ride! Click here to get your gift

Feel the urge to hit the CTA already? But, what exactly causes that urge into you? Is that the 50% discount? Or is it the intimacy you feel when you found out that the app knows your birthday, or maybe it’s the happiness of receiving a gift?

… Let me tell you something; it is them all!

This push message got it all; it evokes the feeling of intimacy, it is personalized especially for you, in addition to the excellent offer of course. And that’s what power words are; they are those words that bring you a certain feeling that makes you immediately hit the CTA button without any second thoughts. Think of it like that: your push notification is the wizard who can get your app more engagement, traffic, and conversion, and in that scenario, “power words” is your wizard’s magic wand! Only if you use it right. Using power words – or trigger words as people may call it – is not enough to make your push messages bring you all the magic. You need to know how, when and where do you use them; you need to use them smartly and witty.

So let’s deep dipper in that.

Words have hugely influential power in human psychology. Using only the power of words, you can generate a variety of feelings; anger, excitement, trust, anticipation and more. For us, we mobile marketers, that can matter a lot!

The thing that Forbes studied for almost a year. Through analyzing 2.6 billion push notifications sent between January 1 and December 31 of 2016, they found out a list of 120 “power words” that has the upper hand on manipulating the users’ feelings leading to the increase in app engagement, and the total outcome was these four main categories:

Urgency

What a faster prompt strategy than creating an urge to purchase your product/service? Words like limited, one-day offer, don’t miss it, breaking news, quickly, immediately, etc. will get your user’s’ attention right away!

Exclusivity/Personalization

Two techniques that fall under the same category: Making your user feel special like you are doing that particular service just for him/her. Besides using words like you, we, exclusively, especially for you, etc. you can use user’s profile data – such as names, location, birth date, etc. – to make your push message more personalized and sincere.

Emotions

Evoking a certain feeling helps a lot in users’ decision of whether to respond to your push notifications or not. A medical app can use words like warn, avoid, etc. to evoke the feeling of awareness and cure from diseases.

A musical app can go for words like Epic, Awesome, one-of-a-kind hit, etc., while a traveling app can involve words like indulging, happiness, dream, etc. to get users’ to imagine how amused they will be by clicking the CTA, and the list goes on.

Value

No matter which industry or audience segmentation you are targeting, offers always work out! People love when you present something valuable to them. Always go for words like a discount, free, offer, sale, etc.

“Now I am ready to take my push notifications by storm” wait a second… not yet.

Using these power words is still not enough. Now you have the tools, and you need to know how to use them.

Overdosing of power words can fire back at you. It’s like when a girl wears too much makeup that ends up with being so ugly. So, you need to make your mind and choose just the two or three power words that will get you the result you desire.

Answers these questions will give you guidance about the words are you going to pick:

Which Industry am I Targeting?
What is the audience segmentation regarding this particular industry?
What is the emotional state that I need to arise the urge of hitting the CTA?

For example, if you are creating a push message for a news app, you must know that this kind of audience segmentation is so keen on being updated with every single piece of new incident or event. So you can choose from the urgency category “Ex. Breaking news” mixed with emotional teasers “Epic speech by…” While in an E-Commerce app you can use the power of value, with some personalization and exclusivity, so you will go for something like “Hi Mary, your free meal is ready now, made especially for you.”

Extra Tips:

USE EMOJIS

Who doesn’t love emoji? Emojis can save you space, convey your message clearly and smoothly, and get the attention and love of your users without using so many words.

WATCH THE TIME ZONE

Off course you don’t want to annoy your users by sending them to push notifications late at night or so early on the morning of their vacation day! Watch for the timing you users push messages; it matters a lot.

There are endless tips and tricks on how you can use power words to boost you push messages. Keep digging deep into that and always remember that you have got a total of 150 characters to deliver your message, get your users’ attention, and to make them hit your CTA. Make sure to use them to the MAX!

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.