Last updated on January 17th, 2021 at 08:42 pm
Between 2016 and 2019, global app downloads increased from just over 104 billion to more than 200 billion.
That number is expected to rise exponentially. Business leaders are turning to mobile app development in an effort to increase engagement and provide better service.
With billions of apps on the market—and more being released daily—how can you make yours stand out?
If you ask us, the clear winner is content marketing. Why?
This is because content marketing offers multiple benefits.
What Is Content Marketing?
Simply put, content marketing is the art of using images, stories, videos, and other types of content to provide information and engage your audience.
You can employ content marketing to educate your audience. As a result, you can win your audience’s trust.
Also, you can use content marketing to increase your company’s understanding and value while providing benefits in and of itself.
So it makes sense to promote your business app with content.
Businesses create apps to add value to their services. Apps make using their services more convenient (as is the case with banking and food service apps) and to create more efficient service delivery models.
In this guide’s context, content marketing is used to inform users of the existence of your app, increase interest, and educate consumers about the ways to use it.
How Content Marketing Influences Your Audience
Whether you’re telling a story in words or images, content marketing seeks to create an emotional connection between a business and its core audience.
You identify a problem and describe how your product will solve it or otherwise alleviate a common pain point to your constituents.
Ideally, marketers will create a highly-detailed ideal buyer persona that entails your audience’s:
- Age range
- Gender identity
- Interests
- Education
- Any other significant factors that can identify your audience
Such information will allow them to create content that’s meant to resonate with that persona in meaningful ways.
The idea is to raise awareness and generate interest in your product line or services in a particular population.
That’s a tall order when there is an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each and every day.
You have to make your content stand out, not just among your competitors, but in the sheer volume of information that gets thrown at consumers every waking minute.
There are numerous benefits to content marketing. It bolsters your authority, improves engagement, and supports customer loyalty.
However, not all content marketing platforms perform in the same way or serve the same purpose equally.
Before marketing your app, you should have a handle on your app’s purpose, the ideal persona who would use it, and how your app will be distributed and used.
Once you have those details nailed down, it’s time to promote your app.
FIve Best Content Marketing Strategies for Your App
Let’s take a look at the best content marketing strategies for mobile apps.
1- Create a Landing Page
Landing pages improve brand awareness, but their usefulness goes beyond that.
They drive traffic to your website, increase conversion/click-through rates, and provide a convenient means of selling products.
They’re often deployed to sell a specific product or introduce an offer by providing a description and call to action.
For example, you would use landing pages when releasing a new book or introducing a course to encourage sales or sign-ups.
Creating a detailed, engaging landing page for your business app will provide information about your app’s usefulness, tell customers how it works, and give them a method to download or purchase your app.
Best of all, this information is collected on the same page.
2- Write an Engaging Description
Have you ever come across an app and wondered what it does?
Few people will take a chance on downloading something to their phone or PC if they’re unsure of its benefits or safety.
Creating an engaging description tells your audience what’s in it for them in just a few words.
After all, that’s the essence of marketing.
Not only should you tell your audience about the benefits of using your app, but you should also be specific about how and when it should be used.
The description should be optimized for SEO using relevant keywords and placed where your audience is most likely to see your content.
It’s also important to tag the app download page with the correct category descriptions. Adding user testimonials and reviews from actual customers will further boost trust and authority.
Improve the description by using a relevant icon. And name your app something catchy but straightforward that captures your app’s essence.
If users are aware of the value provided by your app, they’ll be more likely to keep using it.
3- Create a Video Tutorial
One of the easiest ways to add value is to create a video guide that details how to use your app.
If words can influence customers, and a picture is worth a thousand words, how much more value would your audience gain from watching a video?
I would even go so far as to suggest that creating a video guide should be part of your app development strategy.
Images or screenshots are fine. But your app’s video demonstration helps build trust.
It provides potential users with the opportunity to see how easy your app is to use and how it will improve their lives.
Creating a 30-second tutorial helps showcase your app and complements other content.
4- Write a Case Study
Re-purposing content allows you to derive multiple benefits from the existing content and extend its effectiveness over time.
Case studies are a great way to provide meaningful context to your app’s usefulness. You can use case studies to bolster authority in conjunction with other pieces of content and platforms, such as social media and your website itself.
A case study demonstrates the real-world effectiveness of a product or service by showing potential users how using the app improved other users’ lives.
For example, you could include a case study for B2B customers that shows actual before and after stats of a company using an inventory control app.
For a case study to be practical, it should include two things.
It should provide an overview of data before the app was deployed and demonstrable, measurable data that showed improvement after it being incorporated into the business model.
An example of that might be how a restaurant could preserve the business and increase revenues during COVID lockdowns by introducing an app that enabled curbside or at-home deliveries.
Make sure to use examples from actual customers and real data.
And speaking of data – mobile apps are one of the easiest ways to collect a vast amount of data on user habits. You can then use that data to fine-tune your content strategy to attract even more customers to download your app.
5- Test and Test Again
To gauge the effectiveness of any content marketing strategy, it’s crucial to conduct meaningful A/B testing.
Alpha/Beta testing allows you to try several different elements to determine which works best to increase conversions or attract and engage potential customers.
For example, one of my clients tried using images on their website to show visitors before and after photos of various treatments. The only problem is that they used stock photos, which tend to be somewhat generic.
By switching to actual images of patients who received treatment at her practice, she substantially increased inquiries and consultation appointments.
Curious about the best places to begin your A/B testing?
These are the changes that tend to elicit the most significant results:
- Split testing images
- Split testing headlines
- Testing content lengths
- Testing various opt-in forms
- Trying gripping CTA
For A/B testing to be effective and meaningful, you should change only one element at a time.
Use an equal number of control and test participants from similar demographic pools, and conduct the test for several weeks.
In conclusion,
Smart marketers know the power of content marketing. We can’t guarantee that the above methods will put your app on the trending list.
However, if you want to ensure that more people see and use your app, put our suggestions to the test. You might just love the results! If you have any other tips to boost app downloads, please share them in the comment section. I’d love to know about them.
