11 Mobile App Growth Hacks To Acquire Users

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1 Driving mobile app downloads is far harder than building the product. That s a fact and we have to live with it. But who says this can t be made easier? What if I were to tell you that you can too drive up to a million downloads within the next one year? I have had the privilege of helping hundreds of entrepreneurs launch and grow their mobile app startups and have learnt many secrets (hacks) that some of the industry biggies use regularly to keep themselves at the top of the charts. I even wrote a book to help non-technical funders to launch a successful mobile app business. Instead of you spending your time reading a blog or searching across the net for ways to increase downloads, I ve put together this free course to help you double your app downloads week after week. If you re in it for the long haul (read: building a successful and profitable business), then these hacks are just the one for you! And if you re looking for an App Development firm to get your project off the ground, write to us at sales@arkenea.com. Don t forget to check out our expert advice video series on marketing your startup featuring experts such as Guy Kawasaki, Morgan Brown, Brian Balfour, Brian Dean, Rand Fishkin, etc.

2 #1 Did you know that a majority of social networks were started by ing an initial database of people? MySpace used an marketing list of 100+ million people to send for first users. Facebook used all the Harvard lists to get the first 2,000 users in a day. I'm sure you do not have some such ready list to send to (you'd rather give away all your money than purchase a mailing list). So here's the best hack to get you started with your very own list that you didn't know existed till now! 1 Open LinkedIn website. Click on Connections in the top menu. 2 Click the gear icon that appears in the top right corner of your connections page. 3 On the right hand column under Advanced Settings, click on Export LinkedIn Connections. 4 Choose the format you want it in and your download begins. 5 You now have a spreadsheet with the addresses of all your LinkedIn connections. There you go, your very first list to get started with!

3 #2 This may sound a bit gutsy, but it s a fantastic growth hack. If you re one of the few lucky ones who ve managed to budget marketing spend for your mobile app, then consider this: Typical marketing spends are spread out over a number of weeks or months. Consolidate this budget into a very short time frame. Depending on your overall marketing budget, spend all of the money within a day, a few days or at the most a week. Spread the advertising across all channels Facebook, mobile advertising, you name it. The more the concentrated the advertising, the more likely that you will get a sharp spike in downloads for your app in a very short time. This will help your app store ranking as one of the factors is download numbers and over a certain period of time. Once you get to the top rankings in the app stores, this position will help get consistent download numbers. And who knows, this may even generate enough interest from Apple or Google to feature your app in the store, helping you gain users even after you ve burnt your advertising spend.

4 #3 There's nothing like reaching out to journalists and bloggers personally and crafting a personalized message. Use the 200+ App Review Sites List to get press contacts. Assuming you are preparing to launch your app, get in touch with the press at least two to four weeks before the scheduled launch date. Address the directly at them (no one likes to receive a mass ). Write a brief note and describe the benefit of your product in one sentence. Include a link to your app's landing page or demo video. In the end, ask them if they would like to know more or would want to try out your product. Here's an template that you can use: Hi <insert reporter name>, I will be launching <YourProductName> for <platform:ios/android/web> later this/next month. One unique feature of <YourProductName> is <BenefitStatement>. Here's a quick video about the product in action: <InsertLinkToVideo>. I've also put together a teaser webpage for the product: <LandingPageURL>. Let me know if you have any questions or would like to try out the beta. Thank you, <YourName> <YourContactDetails> An example of Benefit Statement: One unique feature of Foster is that it lets you share content that your audience loves to read on social media and . Never be too pushy or spam their mailbox. Follow up with a press release at least a week before the launch. All the best and let me know how many responses you received!

5 #4 Now, if you live in the US or UK or any other matured mobile app market, getting press is going to be a mammoth task. Imagine the number of requests that tech media would be getting each day from thousands of app developers or entrepreneurs like you. How then do you get through to the press? While you re at it reaching out to the mainstream press, here s a strategy worth implementing to boost your downloads this week. Iliya Yordanov, founder of personal-finance app MoneyWiz has been successfully running his mobile startup, driving revenues upwards of the $1 million mark. When he launched his app on the app store, he thought contacting U.S. media and app review sites would get him the much needed publicity and get a spike in sales and downloads of his app. Much to his dismay, none of the media sites got back in touch with him. So Iliya went on to hack press coverage by customizing his app (even localizing the language would do) for a few select foreign markets with good app penetration -- Russia, Spain, Germany, Italy and France -- and contacting the media in those countries. To the media in these countries, getting an from an indie developer wasn t as frequent as their counterpart in the US. The response and coverage from the media in these countries got them the No. 1 finance app ranking on the App Store. This helped them get noticed in the U.S., and they started going up the ranks in the U.S. app store, which got Apple s attention to feature them. And it then finally captured the fancy of the American media. Similarly, adapt to the local language of the countries (entire app, every mention of it on the app store including the screenshots and promotional materials) you ve identified and once the app is live, contact the local mainstream and business press in those countries on how your app could make a difference to their people. Use Fiverr to hire local inexpensive translators.

6 #5 Let's say 100 people land on your app's landing page or your website. How many people actually convert (sales, downloads, signups)? If you're doing exceedingly well, the number would be anywhere between 4-8%. What about the remaining 92% of the visitors then? Most businesses ignore them, but if you draw your attention to this segment, they will help you generate far more leads and business than you can imagine. The visitors who are not ready to buy on your website typically love to receive a free gift in exchange for their address. You can continue to market to them through the address, but more importantly, offering something for free and of value increases the chances of these visitors buying your product/service. The way we do it at Arkenea is by offering weekly strategies in building and marketing a mobile app. You can offer freebies in any format you like. Here are some examples: course Whitepaper Checklists ebook Video or video series Webinar User guide or a coupon Whatever medium you choose, remember, the idea is to present yourself as offering value to the visitor.

7 #6 How to get featured in the Apple and Google app stores? You can't just expect to put up your app and get featured. At least, not anymore. You have to work for it. But it's totally worth it. How? It could get you 10,000 downloads a day for as long as you're in that coveted spot. So what do you do to get there? Here's a hack from Tamara Steffens. Engage with the people at Apple and Google. Yep, that simple. Ask the App Store team at Apple for a design review. This demonstrates good faith, high interest, and flexibility all attributes Apple looks for when approving apps for their platform. Keep sharing what you re doing with every new release. Tell them how you ve been designing for bigger screens, or leveraging the new features of ios 9. Tell them how you re taking advantage of the things they have a stake in showcasing. Google Play s process is more straightforward. You submit your app to the editorial team and ask for a review to be featured. What follows resembles a simple bug review. The team at Google will give you notes on anything that s broken or features that don t work with Android. If you fix those things, they re very likely feature you. There are different review teams in different regions, so make sure you contact the someone from App Store of your region to share a word about your app. I often hear questions well, how do you contact App Store team? So, there are 3 things you can do: 1) LinkedIn Premium (just try searching App Store at Apple and you will be surprised how many people are there, send them InMail and you might get response); 2) have you ever seen WWDC videos? Remember what Apple employees have on the last slide? Yep, sometimes they have their there. And you can contact them on Engineer/Evangelist level and then probably they will share a word about your app; 3) attend WWDC and you will have myriads of opportunities to get in touch with Apple.

8 #7 This hack can get you well over 2,000 downloads, just this week! There are many avenues for you to share the link to your app or Beta-signup landing page and get feedback from the community of developers and entrepreneurs. Take for instance Tyler Hayes, CEO of Prime who submitted a link to his landing page on Product Hunt, which got him over 900 unique visitors, five comments and over 50 signups. A similar post in Hacker News got his company over 2,000 unique visitors. A similar story with Belle Beth Cooper s Exist on Product Hunt got them 823 unique visitors with 4.53% conversion rate and Hacker News got them over 27,500 unique visitors with 0.26% conversion rate. Submit your mobile app to these websites for a guaranteed traction. Of course, assuming your product interests the community. 1. Betalist 2. Product Hunt 3. Hacker News 4. LayerVault 5. Reddit iphone

9 #8 App Store Optimization Hack to boost your app downloads. Start as early as possible to reap in maximum benefits over the long term. Identify some of your most popular competitors. Lets say your competitor app is called Exif Wizard. Include the term Exif in your keyword submission to the app store and your app s description. This will put your app up next to the popular one when people are searching on the App Store. Similarly, look at reviews from people who have written about your mobile app for specific use cases. They would mention what they ve used the app for. Include the most common ones into your app description to rank better in app store searches. You could put in under the head: How others are using <app name>:

10 #9 Create an associated advertisement about your mobile app and submit to directories such as Yelp, Craigslist, etc. or classifieds section of some of the most popular mainstream and industry publications. Find out more such popular directories in your industry. Say, if you re in the travel industry, Tripadvisor can be a good choice. These sites have great rankings for keywords that people are already looking for and can send them your way. AirBnB generated initial traction by posting on Craigslist. Be innovative in identifying the category and the solution to a specific problem within that category that your mobile app solves. Create a compelling story and copy and link back to your landing page or the app store page.

11 #10 Get your mobile app or web app featured on AppSumo. They are a distribution channel for companies/products that help entrepreneurs start, grow, optimize, and scale their businesses. AppSumo connects you to hundreds of thousands of potential new customers using marketing, social networks, and display ad campaigns. AppSumo customers are entrepreneurs, freelancers, designers, developers, and professionals. They have over 730,000 newsletter subscribers, over 110,000 Twitter followers and over 80,000 Facebook fans. They ve spent over $1.4 million on advertising to promote their partners. So if you ve got an app that fits their bill, you can apply here: You will have to provide a discounted price for your product, but you will make up for it in volumes.

12 #11 YouTube can be leveraged in more ways than one. I m definitely not suggesting you make a video or a series of videos and upload to YouTube. It already has an established base of content creators that have massive following. The trick is to identify and get in touch with them with a proposition that is mutually beneficial. If they feature your mobile app, you could set yourself up for a massive early traction. Think about what would be cool to show instead of what my mobile app does. Pairing up with a so-called YouTube Star (someone with millions of subscribers on his or her channel) is the Holy Grail. If your content is compelling and a right fit for their audience, you can enter a time-limited rev-share deal. You could also use Famebit to hire YouTube stars that have a great fan following and are willing to endorse your brand.