What to expect when you're expecting...a mobile app

CMO’s GUIDE: What to Expect When You’re

Expecting...A Mobile AppEverything you never knew you needed to

about “Life After Launch”

It’s almost time! You’ve been working hard with your team, you are showing it to all your friends and you have a date in mind.

Finally, the day is here, and your app is born. Success! You can breathe a sigh of relief that you made it through the 9+ months of development, design and testing. Not to mention all of the whitepapers you read and conferences you attended to learn about the mobile space. But now what? For most CMOs, navigating this period brings unexpected stress and challenges. Your app is here—now you are responsible for keeping it alive and well. You also have to maintain a healthy app store presence, drive app retention, appease divergent opinions and manage suggested improvements.

Written By:Brittany Mills, Director of Digital Marketing Services, Mobiquity

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This whitepaper will serve as your guide for navigating Life After Launch, including:

a. Gaining success in the app store(s)

b. Driving post-launch loyalty through effective communication

c. Collecting the right type of data, building segments and learning from user behavior

First, you should know that a successful app launch demands a synchronized, collaborative effort between the marketing and IT/development teams. When you enter into the app space, these two worlds must and will collide whether you like it or not. The mobile experience has to be seamless for your consumer, and to achieve this, you will have to step out of your comfort zone and work together to make the ‘product’ a success.

“It costs more money to be

reactive rather than proactive.”

Within the retail space, for example, a CMO is typically very close to store operations and unique consumer experiences. Insights into these aspects of the business can help to determine marketing messages and campaigns as well as adjustments to loyalty programs and in-store POS creative to drive conversions. All of that data is extremely important to understand and have during design and development of your app—and after its launch to drive acquisition. If the decisions and changes made to your app in the succeeding post-launch update go against your consumer’s shopping preferences or information gathered during online marketing A/B testing, you are immediately taking a step back.

Gaining Success In The App Store(s)

Sure, every app publisher wants to be listed as Apple’s App of the Week or as one of the top 25 in her category immediately after launch—but this is not a reality. It is a common misconception that these highlighted apps are selected by Apple; they’re actually chosen

F A C T : 70% of marketers say marketing has become more challenging despite all of the technology solutions available.

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by an algorithm and based on the number of downloads in a certain period of time. Your app must get 50,000 US downloads within a 24-hour period to move onto a top 25 list. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this feat, or just increase your downloads in general, but you must first start with ensuring a user will find your app in a sea of a million others.

It is critical that as a CMO, your team is involved in building your app store presence. Whether in iTunes, Google Play or both, you must understand your target consumer and identify effective messaging and search behavior to create a successful presence.

Here are four factors to remember when maintaining a competitive app store presence:

1. Keywords: Just like your website, keywords will help to create visibility in app store searches among your target audience. It is often the case where harried developers on a tight launch deadline carelessly fill in app keywords and descriptions without putting any real thought behind them.

Doing your market research and understanding what your customer is searching for will help generate an initial list of keywords to use. This list will need to be managed and continually updated to capture new users.

So, in the iTunes store, your keywords may not directly rank your app, but they do provide the critical ability to be discovered during search. On the other hand, what most marketers don’t realize is that Google Play ranks your app with a different approach. Being a Google-owned product, it should come as no surprise that rankings are based entirely on keywords and

metadata. With Google Play, your keyword frequency in the app description is taken into consideration during app search by consumers (unlike in iTunes). Google Play also only counts the number of net installs instead of accounting for all installs as does Apple.

2. Images (Screenshots): Name them properly, again leveraging those keywords! You must also make sure that they are visually optimized so that they are clear and crisp when viewed on different devices in any setting (horizontal or vertical). To help, Apple clearly lists the design specs that are preferred for optimal viewing by your target audience. In the case of Google Play, you can add videos in addition to screenshots to your store presence, and videos will become the first thumbnail shown on your Google Play store. You can see Google Play’s specs for both images and videos here.

T I P :

Keywords for iTunes must be more than two characters and less than a total of 100 characters.

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3. Strong App Description: Your app description is just as important as your keywords. This is your chance to spark interest and explain (briefly) why you are different from the others. Here are a few tips from Apple’s Developer Resources:

• Include a brief opening paragraph or two and a short bulleted list of main features

• Localize for markets where appropriate

• Include user reviews, accolades or testimonials only at the end, if at all

• Use line breaks and bullets to enhance legibility. Don’t add extra white space between text or lengthen your description unnecessarily

• Be aware of how the app description displays in the App Store on each device type

• Don’t reference specific prices in your app description. Referencing a local currency can mislead customers in other App Store territories and cause confusion

4. Customer Reviews: Putting a plan in place to manage customer reviews is also often overlooked. You have the golden ticket—right in the reviews! Your customer is going to communicate exactly what she likes and/or doesn’t like and LOVE about your app’s latest version. As a marketer, you should pay very close attention to this feedback to better position your message, main differentiators, etc. into promotional materials. What your customer deems most valuable might be a differentiator you’ve overlooked.

Once launched, you must maintain your app page. ASO (App Store Optimization) takes time, and your keywords, images and feedback from reviews will change based on app trends and latest releases. You can find more information on how to maintain your metadata while live here.

Driving Post-Launch Loyalty Through Effective Communication

Post-launch messaging via in-app messaging and push notifications can be extremely successful in driving engagement and sales—provided they’re used correctly. Marketing teams can and should help to identify appropriate times and touch points (during app usage) for these messages to be transmitted and what they will look like.

What’s the difference?In-app messaging happens when the user is using

T I P : Google Play requires at least two screenshots to be added to your app’s store listing page and no more than eight.

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the application. It is a great way to share important information and updates while your brand is top-of-mind to drive further engagement.

Push messaging is often used in conjunction with an in-app messaging strategy to drive awareness and usage of your app, which is likely 1 of 50 on your users’ smartphones.

When to use one vs. the other?You should consider using both to effectively target your various segments. Each has a different purpose; sending the same message through both forms of notification will be annoying and counterproductive. You need to understand what motivates your segments and personalize based on those attributes.

Factors to consider when selecting a message and push tactic are:1. Be as personal as possible. In-app

messaging and push notifications can easily be recategorized as ‘spam.’ Ensure your messages are relevant to the user and context. Leverage in-app analytics for guidance.

2. Make sure it benefits the user. Offering a discount or creating awareness of new features are great examples.

3. Understand your segments. Certain segments might react differently to one type of messaging versus the other.

Collecting the right type of data and learning from user behavior

There is a huge disconnect between measurement and marketers when it comes to in-app engagement reporting and mobile marketing in general.

Data collection is arguably the most imperative component of a marketing campaign; yet, it is often the last considered when planning for an app’s post-launch lifetime. Implementing more than a mere session reporting app will tremendously benefit your marketing and IT teams. Sure, you can view downloads and session time from iOS and Android users, but what do your attribution models look like? How do you segment pre-, launch- and post-marketing activities to value your CPI (Cost Per Install)? Better yet, how do you value your CPLU (Cost Per Loyal User) once you have launched?

F A C T : According to Apple, 800 apps are downloaded every second from the App Store; however, nearly 22% are never used more than once!

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Here are three ways to lay the foundation when building your attribution models:

1. Define KPIsKey Performance Indicators (KPIs) are going to be your best friends. How do you know if your app or mobile solution is successful if you don’t know what success looks like? Keep in mind that you should have several sets of KPIs. What you want a user to do pre-launch is different than post-launch. Pre-launch will be focused around awareness and lead generation. Post-launch, you will want to build advocacy and loyalty. These need to be valued differently and tracked through different actions. Don’t just define your KPIs as awareness, downloads and engagement. You miss out on other data and user behaviors that can help generate revenue.

2. Understand how to value your usersThis cannot be done unless you have a clear understanding of your KPIs and what the desired action is at each app/solution lifecycle stage. It is important to understand the current value of a CPI or CPLU so that you can gauge spending and fluctuations throughout a campaign. The value of someone who downloads your app is different than a user who downloads your app and opens it more than three times in a week. Know the difference, and understand how to properly measure!

3. Tag correctly from the startMake sure you leverage all tools available for tracking. Don’t stop at SDK codes and mobile tracking codes. Track the social content that you hope generates awareness of the app. Use UTM codes and pixels for media buys and sponsored posts. Make sure you have a consistent naming convention and a way to put a value next to those outcomes.

Mobile measurement is an ongoing and ever-changing strategy that should be managed and optimized with a clear idea of what success looks like. You won’t know how to get there if you don’t know the destination.

There you have it: three marketing challenges you may or may not have anticipated in formulating the ever important post-launch strategy. Even if your team has successfully built, tested and introduced a top-of-the-line mobile experience, your app will be futile until it’s not—that is, until users find and engage with your product. The post-launch period is sure to include sleepless nights and possibly a few tantrums along the way, but your hard work is sure to pay off when you plan ahead. A strong app store presence, effective communication and data measurement tactics will nurture your bundle of joy—and now is the time to prepare for these challenges.

About MobiquityWe humanize digital. Our strategists, designers, and developers create everyday digital interactions and com-pelling moments for you and your customers. With a focus on data-driven innovation across all channels, we deliver impactful, personalized solutions that are improving lives each day.