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Businesses survival guide during and after COVID-19

COVID-19. A name we have been excessively hearing in the past few months. An expected pandemic that did not only threaten our well-being but also affected a countless number of businesses all over the world. Businesses from all industries no matter how large or small it is, this crisis could still diminish even the strongest in the market. Of course due to the fact that these companies hire a large number of employees who rely on a steady monthly income to be able to live and fulfill their everyday needs.

One of the most common actions that businesses took was laying off as many employees as possible and reducing expenses in order to survive in this cut-throat environment. Best of the best companies were trying to take every chance to avoid more losses and to sustain their name in the market. However, some sank at the bottom and officially declared their bankruptcy.

So, if you are reading this during the COVID-19 era. This will be your ultimate guide to survive the current situation. So let us spread some positive vibes and discuss how to adapt from a business perspective.

Digital Presence

If you did not have an online presence before the pandemic. This is your chance. Digital marketing is an advanced language for advertisements. It is considered one of the cheapest and most effective options you have to expand your reach online. Whether you are going after awareness, reach, or conversions. Digitizing your promotional activities is your first step to adaptation. Set your budget and launch your ads for customers to see in your area and you have just put your foot in the right direction.

Online Delivery

Brands from various industries including the ones that did not even cover delivery options within their business operations, provided a free delivery facility just to boost sales. As we all know, we have been home quarantining for some time as our beloved daily routine. Which makes this add-on to your order a brilliant deal. Surely, no one was going nowhere and businesses were thriving for selling products. Therefore, it was considered a win-win situation for both ends.

Discounts and Offers

Consumers love Discounts and Offers. Does not matter if we need it or not, we are taking two of each. Promoting a discount or an offer triggers the urge of conversion in customers. Qualifying it as an incredible way to motivate your target segment to take action.

New Direction

It is definitely very important for businesses to plan for the future. Will the pandemic be over soon? Would we be able to encourage customers to convert? Will there be permanent changes in the dynamic of consumer flow?. Lots of questions and a few answers found to settle us down. Thus, you have to be proactive and strategize while considering all of these different variables. While having a backup plan just in case things go well as planned.

How could we help?

Finally, we offer you a 14-day Free trial, all-inclusive access to our platform to help you take the first steps along the way. Got any questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Request a Demo.

Our customized free demo will help you to:

Measure the ROI of each running campaign.
Retarget users who didn’t convert from your campaigns.
Deliver campaigns across many channels such as Push, Web Push, Email, SMS.

Appgain gets seed funding from 500 Startups

We started our company in 2018 on a mission to empower mobile app marketers & entrepreneurs with all the tools they need to achieve app growth.

We invested a lot of time, money, & effort with lots of experimentation to reach a product/market fit and an increasingly growing user base.

In 2020, it was time to go bigger. We needed a partner to push our growth journey. We couldn’t find a better partner than 500 Startups to help us in this stage.

We joined 500 startups Misk Accelerator in March 2020. We got mentored, coached & of course funded. We graduated in May 2020 and received $50,000 seed funding.

With this investment, we will take our product development to the next level. By hiring more engineering talents and developing new tools to be the single platform that every app marketer needs in his growth journey.

Finally, we would like to thank all the 500 startups team for their mentorship & support. We also thank the Misk 2020 batch for the fruitful conversations & discussions we had.

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.

want help in mastering the phases? use our platform to ease things up for you and help you get more customers! start your 45 days of free trial now!

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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!

want help in mastering the phases? use our platform to ease things up for you and help you get more customers! start your free trial now!

Get started

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.