12 App Marketing Tactics to Increase Downloads on a Low Budget

If you find yourself struggling because you don’t have enough budget to promote your mobile app or game, read this post about App Marketing tactics and learn how to increase visibility, lead more visits to your product page, and get more downloads with only a few bucks.

You need to start promoting ASAP, even if you have not launched yet. In that way, you will be making sure that you will have some users in your pocket that at the same time could help you reaching out to more people. On the other hand, if you are already on the market but you feel like you don’t have enough audience, you should definitely implement a boosting strategy as well. It never hurts to get more users for a low price, does it?

In any case, read this post and learn about the most effective ways to promote your app with a limited budget.

12 Marketing Tactics to increase downloads on a low budget

1. App Store Optimization (ASO)

You should not have a single doubt that App Store Optimization is always a must. Taking care of your product page and appearing attractive to users is always a powerful way to increase Conversion Rate to install. Optimize the following before, during & after launching your app or game:

• Keywords: research and find out what are the keywords that are relevant to your product and bring you more installs at the same time. Carrying out an effective keyword research guarantees high visibility in the stores. Learn more about it in our post about Keyword Research.
• Visual assets: create an icon that identifies with your product and that is also eye-catching and simple. Select screenshots that contain relevant features and appealing functionalities. And above all, create a video. Users that watch a video about a product are more likely to download it and use it.
• Ratings and reviews: take care of your ratings and reviews. They are very important for ASO and 4-5 star ratings together with positive feedback are ways of pulling out more users.

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2. Owned media channels

Make a good use of the channels you have under your power.

If you have a website, use it to inform visitors about your app and how they can benefit from it. Locate the app and the link to download throughout the web on good spots – places that visitors are likely to see. You can also make use of email newsletters – this is a powerful channel to inform users about new features or opportunities within your product.

And, in addition, promote your app across your different social media channels or profiles. It costs nothing and you can create call-to-action campaigns inviting people to discover and download. But don’t focus on only naming your app. Create attractive banners and select your target audience. Think carefully about your features and plan out how to highlight them and who to attract with them. Social media helps new products go viral, so don’t miss the chance.

3. Influencer marketing

Getting in touch with influencers is a good tactic – you will get many more users thanks to them. When we follow the influencers, we tend to copy everything they do and use. Do you want more users? This is one of the most effective ways. They will help you promote your app or game and will drive loyal users.

4. Word of mouth

Take advantage of this double sided tactic. You can reach out to your family and friends and ask them to promote your app by posting it on your social media or by spreading the message across. And, on the other side, you should include a social component to your app. There are many ways of pushing your users to promote your app, here we list some:

• Ask users to share features of your app or their own achievements with their friends.
• Run contests and reward them.
• Encourage them to invite friends and give them a prize in exchange.

5. Encourage user feedback

Make sure that you implement an effective way of communication with your users. Study their behaviour within your app and find out the perfect time in which they would be down to give you some useful and powerful feedback.

As we mentioned before, Ratings & Reviews are extremely important for the stores (especially on Google Play Store) and therefore, you need to make sure that you get positive feedback and try to avoid the negative feedback. Fortunately, the developers can now answer to Reviews showing users that they care about their opinion and that they are working on improving functionalities.

Establish an easy way to communicate with your audience and lead them to the stores to leave positive ratings and reviews, and to your support page if they are going through bad experiences while using your product.

6. Launch a free app

Launching a free new product is a way of raising up your Conversion Rate and getting famous at the same time. Users that are browsing and looking for new apps in the stores are more likely to install a free app than a paid one. Once you have got your place in the market you can start thinking about turning your app to a paid one. You could also implement in-app purchases and make some of your features payable.

7. Update continuously

A way of promoting your app and getting you users hooked to your product is by sweeping away your bugs and launching updates frequently.

You should especially do your best to address the issues that your customers are pointing out in your Reviews section. If they feel like you are trying to make their experience better, they would continue using your product.

Let them enjoy the new and fresh content, catchy features and mind-blowing functionalities. In that way, they will promote the app by themselves, without even being asked to do so.

8. Localize your product

If you want to grow you need to localize your app in different countries. You could use the same low-budget promoting methods while reaching out to more countries and people. Users are more likely to engage with the content that is provided in their native languages. The multiple benefits of localization also include reaching out to wider audience, winning over more user segments and getting demand from unexpected places.

Maybe you are missing out some fans because you are not thinking globally.

9. Reach out to the media

It is well known that media attention is the way to gain exposure and target larger audiences. Prepare your press KIT and be ready to get in touch with the media and journalists. You can also attend conferences and share your product with the attendees. Guest posting is also an effective way of establishing powerful relationships with important companies in the sector and therefore promoting your app among their customers. Prepare a post highlighting your features and functionalities and share it.

10. Track user behaviour

If you only have some dollars to spend, it’s better if you spend them wisely. Understanding how your users behave (how much they spend, what is the functionality the spend most of the time at, at what time do they use you app, etc) is essential.

Information is power. You will be able to plan out what to improve, when to post updates, and how to make your users spend more time in-app.

11. A/B Test your new elements

Imagine that you become extremely popular among customers because you changed your features? You have to launch out and test new visual assets, description, keywords and anything you can. Monitor and detect what your users like the most.

12. Create a promotional video

If you don’t have much money you could use your team members to create and launch a video about your app or game. You should then post this video in all your own media channels and also include it in your press kit, guest posts or you could also ask your influencers, family, friends and partners to share it.

How to promote your app or game with almost no money

In this post we walked you through different tactics and methods to help you getting ideas in how to promote your app if you have a low or restricted budget. Remember to create a good product, target your audience and think why would they want to use it.

Start promoting your product RIGHT NOW. Use your circle of friends and family to spread the message across, post on your social media platforms, include a link to download it on your website (it’s FREE for you) Plan out your ASO strategy and track your performance as well as the user behaviour. Remember that it is very important to think globally and localizing will increase installs. Update your product continuously and push your users to leave positive feedback.

And to sum up, keep your users happy and let them promote your product for FREE. We hope that you are already planning out your promotion strategy.

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