How do you promote an app for free?
You have spent all your time and money developing your new app and have no budget to promote or market your killer idea.
You know you have to get it seen, so how do you promote your app effectively when money is an issue?
In this new article, we offer you 10 winning strategies that will help you promote your app for free.
Let’s get started!
10 Winning Strategies to Promote an App for Free
Having developed an app, you may face a problem — how do you then promote it?
There are a bunch of ways like advertisements and paid marketing campaigns.
But what if you lack a budget?
In this guide, we’ve collected the top ten promotional strategies that can help you reach success.
Before discussing the promotional strategies, let’s clarify that you need to start promoting the app before the launch.
In this way, you can save a lot of money since there will be users waiting for the release.
How to Promote an App for Free
Actually, there are a lot of ways to promote your application.
Below, we discuss the ten most wide-spread and useful.
Strategy #1. Hunt the Product
One of the most effective ways is to use the service called ProductHunt.
Simply saying, it’s a platform that allows pitching your application.
Why choose ProductHunt?
A bunch of investors are looking for incredible ideas to support.
However, investments aren’t the most important.
A lot of ordinary people can test your tech solution, give feedback, and tell their friends about your app.
Of course, ProductHunt isn’t the primary platform for promotion.
You can try the following:
Strategy #2. Use Social Media Marketing
Social media networks change the way people interact.
Also, they are the perfect marketplaces for app promotion.
These days, people tend to spend their free time scrolling their news feed.
So, you need to follow this trend.
It’s free and effective.
Facebook, for example, lets you can create groups and pages to post any news connected to the app.
They can be short videos with app features or how it works tutorials or just general news and updates.
As for Instagram, you also should create a profile to write posts or upload stories.
Remember that people are visual creatures, so the page design is extremely important.
The downside of Instagram is that you cannot add clickable links to your posts, but there is a work-around that will give you clickable links on Instagram and may well be a better option in the long run than working with just one Instagram page.
Whichever social channels you choose to promote your app for free be sure to create attractive and useful profiles to reach users.
If you decide to use multiple social platforms to promote then carry over your branding from channel to channel.
Social media networks allow commenting on posts, sharing useful information, and more.
Users can tell their friends about your app if they like it.
Strategy #3. Participate
These days, you can take part in multiple meetings or conferences related to your industry.
Meeting new people can lead to various opportunities for advertising the app.
You need to tell people about your exciting solution that you are going to launch.
Additionally, such meetings are good for getting investments.
A lot of stakeholders look for interesting projects and prospective startups.
Strategy #4. Consider App Size
Developing the app, you need to consider its size.
To reach success, the app size should be about 50 Mb.
People tend to download apps of this size without a Wi-Fi connection.
If your app is bigger, users can refuse to download it and forget to load the application later.
You can divide features into two groups — primary and secondary.
The main functionality stands for vital features of your tech solution.
As for secondary ones, they can be added later to reduce the app size.
Strategy #5. Start a Blog
One of the most popular ways to promote the app is to start writing useful blog posts.
They have to relate to your industry and somehow promote your app.
Users surf the web a lot, so they can read about your tech solution and download it from Play Market or App Store.
How to start a blog and start writing?
First of all, you need to study existing blogs related to your industry and mobile or web applications.
You should analyze the texts carefully and pay attention to the details.
But remember that your posts have to be witty and informative.
One more significant factor: users need an opportunity to comment on your post.
In this case, they can share their option and start an interesting discussion on the article topic.
Answering the comments, you gain their trust.
Strategy #6. Try Guest Posting
Don’t want to start a blog?
You can write guest posts for various platforms related to your industry.
This strategy is quite effective, and a lot of companies choose it.
So, the question arises — how to start guest posting?
There are several simple steps.
First of all, you should find websites or any trustful online resources and write them, offering posts for their blog.
It’s better to pick several topics, so that you can discover the most appropriate together.
After that, you write an article, and the platform posts it.
It’s quite profitable for both parts.
You can post on a great platform while the website gets quality content.
Having a lack of money, you can write guest posts for free.
By the way, don’t forget to put links to your product or blog.
Strategy #7. Optimize Your Content
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is vital for promoting your app.
Your website can be fantastic, but if the search engine can’t find it — it’s worth nothing.
In the case of applications, you need to consider App Store Optimization.
It means that you need to follow the rules to make your app visible in the app stores.
Users search for new apps and get requests based on their requests.
You need to include these keywords in your app description.
So the App Store or Google Play can find your tech solution.
Also, you should pay attention to the app page.
It’s better to make it well-constructed.
Short descriptions are preferable since users don’t read long texts.
Moreover, you should consider screenshots of the app.
They have to be informative.
Users can comment on your app, giving you feedback about the product.
You need to consider their comments carefully and answer them.
You can use the comments to improve your application.
Strategy #8. Expand The Market
A bunch of startups try to capture the Play Market and App Store with their app.
However, according to the latest research, you can reach better results with other places for mobile app promotion.
For example, you can choose Amazon Appstore, Opera Mobile Store, or Nexva.
There are a bunch of platforms, so it’s necessary to choose according to your location and app purpose.
Strategy #9. Set up a YouTube Channel
So, you can post short videos about your application or any related topic.
In the case of YouTube, it’s better to create a 10 to 15 minutes video.
Users tend to skip long monologues.
Additionally, it’s essential to offer useful and engaging content.
You can give tutorials or lessons on how to use your application.
Join the conversation: You have spent all your time and money developing your new app and have no budget to promote or market your killer idea.? How do you promote an App for free?Click To TweetStrategy #10. Update Your App Regularly
Let’s face it.
Users constantly want something new and interesting.
So, you need to offer existing updates to them.
Only updating your mobile or web applications regularly, you can have users and gain new ones.
Without updates, any marketing strategy will fail.
Users are spoiled, so they always look for a better solution on the market.
Additionally, it’s essential to understand what to update.
Here you need to analyze your customers’ feedback.
Look through their reviews on the App Store or Google Play.
Of course, there are more ways to promote your app for free.
We’ve listed the most wide-spread ones.
Also, you can use them without any specific knowledge or skills.
Don’t be afraid of telling about your solution.
Remember that ‘mouth marketing’ remains the most effective strategy.
Tips on free App Promotion
To give you some hints, we’ve decided to offer several significant tips that you can integrate during app promotion.
They allow reaching better results and gaining more users.
Landing Page
A landing page stands for a page that tells users how you are and what your product does.
Typically, a great landing page consists of the following parts:
- Screens of the app
- Purpose of the project
- Short functionality description
- Links to store
- Social sharing buttons
- Subscribe button
- Short videos of a product
The cost to develop a landing page isn’t high and the development isn’t time-consuming.
Additionally, there are a bunch of cool templates to create a simple website without the developers’ help.
However, to create an outstanding page, it’s better to cooperate with professionals.
They can set up analytics tracking.
It allows seeing the number of visitors, buttons they click, the time they spend on the page, and more.
Email Marketing
One more great tip for promoting a website is to integrate email marketing strategy.
You need to collect customers’ emails and write to them about exciting and personalized offers.
How do you collect emails?
The simplest way is to ask users to subscribe.
After that, experienced developers can automate email sending.
It’s possible to send a sequence of letters twice a week as part of an on-going email campaign
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Create a Tutorial
You need a tutorial in the case of new users.
Tutorials let customers understand the main features of the project.
Of course, you may think that your application is straightforward.
However, tutorials can show that you take care of the users.
There are a bunch of ways to create a tutorial.
Only your imagination can limit you.
A lot of enterprises decide to create a short video for YouTube.
This way tends to be the cheapest since you can make a video yourselves.
For example, you can show just simple steps of how the app works.
In this case, you need only a smartphone and a camera.
However, if you have some coding knowledge, you can use a graphic library to create an outstanding tutorial.
10 useful strategies to promote your AppClick To TweetGet More Downloads
Users don’t scroll far away.
It’s typical to look through several first results.
So, you need to appear on the first pages to get downloads.
So, the question arises — how to get a lot of downloads?
The simplest way is to pay for downloads to increase the number of installs.
In this way, you don’t need a developer but need money.
It’s better to use a reliable promotional service.
It allows getting as many downloads as you need.
Push Notifications
Push notifications are better in comparison to emails.
Users don’t need to open them in order to see the information.
You can send push notifications to remember customers to use the app.
For example, DuoLingo sends push notifications about having a 10-minute lesson.
Also, you can utilize notifications to let users know about any useful or interesting offers and recommendations.
Gamification
Users are quite spoilt these days.
You need to integrate gamification principles to your app.
In this case, your app becomes more interesting for users.
For example, you can add small gamification elements to pay users’ attention to a specific part of the app.
Promote an App for Free – 10 useful strategies to promote your app – Takeaways
As you can see, there are a lot of ways to promote an app for free.
You need to choose several variants and start using them.
It’s quite profitable to create a YouTube channel and post short tutorials.
Also, email marketing can bring new customers.
By the way, don’t forget to add social media buttons.
Your users can share the app with their friends.
These days, a lot of people don’t trust advertisements.
However, they pay attention to their friends or influencers’ opinions.
App promotion can be a tricky thing.
It tends to be a time-consuming and challenging process.
Before promoting your app, you need to consider your goals and expectations carefully.
Also, it’s vital to pay attention to the application quality.
Test the app to find and fix any possible bugs.
You need to offer an excellent user experience to reach success.
Moreover, pay attention to the app design.
It should be simple but attractive.
Users don’t want to spend time trying to understand how your app works.
I hope that this guide helped you understand that it’s possible to promote an app for free.
Of course, it takes more time and effort, but you can reach success without spending a bunch of money.
Now it is over to you.
Have you ever developed an app?
Was it successful?
How do you promote your app?
Did you go the paid route or did you promote your app for free?
Let us know in the comments section below.
Make sure that you subscribe to the comments so that we are notified when you reply
Regards
Dexter
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