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How to get to 1000 app downloads within one month without paid marketing?
by App My Site DIY App Builder
When building an app, the thought of crossing a 1000 downloads rarely enters one’s mind. Most entrepreneurs and companies start with dreams of having one million and ten million app downloads one day.
A thousand downloads? Most consider it a lay up, a simple milestone that requires little to no effort.
And then comes reality. If you’re an influencer with a huge social media following or a brand with a lot of pull in the market, a thousand downloads is easy.
If not, you’re in for the long haul.
Reaching the 1000-downloads mark is a challenge. To do it without any paid marketing backing the effort makes the task even more tedious. Finally, to do all this in a month truly sets the stage for a precipitous ordeal.
Let’s say you have a blog. You first create a solid stream of traffic with the help of organic search. Then, you decide to enter the mobile market and use a WordPress to mobile app plugin to create an app.
Can you get app downloads organically just as you got website traffic earlier?
This piece discusses how you can reach 1000 mobile app downloads within one month without paid marketing.
#1 - Get App Store Optimization right
A Forrester study shows that roughly 63% downloads come from app store search results. In other words, people are more likely to download your app through search than any other medium.
How does one optimize app store search? The answer is app store optimization.
App marketers are probably tired of listening to lessons on ASO. It is generally the first topic they learn in app marketing.
The 63%-mark only underlines the importance of getting high app store rankings.
There are some obvious ASO factors that help in growing an app’s organic presence. These include optimizing meta fields like app title and description along with creating an appealing icon and a batch of screenshots.
Such improvements are easy to implement, but they alone won’t get you high rankings. There are other ASO factors that also make a difference. These include -
App updates - Try to roll out new app updates every week at the very least. App store algorithms prefer apps that are continually updated.
Work on app KPIs - App stores have certain performance benchmarks that apps need to meet to enhance organic visibility. These include churn rate, session time, and so on.
Conversion rate optimization - How many people arrive on your app store page and actually download your app? A higher conversion rate can increase visibility on relevant keywords
Volume of conversions from a keyword - Your app store ranking for a particular keyword depends on the number of people you’re able to convert. If you keep increasing your download volume for a particular keyword, your ranking will pick up
Reviews and ratings - Apps with more reviews tend to get preference over those who don’t have many. The nature of the overall reviews also plays a crucial role. Bad reviews are likely to cause a drop in conversions and a subsequent decrease in rankings.
#2 - Direct organic web traffic to app landing page
Your website can also become a great platform for app promotion. If you already have a working SEO strategy in place, this tactic has a big pay-off.
Essentially, you have to direct your organic traffic towards your app store listings. You can either directly promote your app on some of your popular content pages or create an entirely new landing page.
If you don’t have a working SEO strategy, you should start building one. While you may not see a lot of downloads within one month or even two, the long term benefits are very real. Web search traffic can be a great source of app downloads and should be part of your overall app strategy. The challenge lies in creating a system that funnels users in a given direction.
#3 - Get tows from niche influencers
Influencers doesn’t necessarily refer to film stars or online celebrities with millions of followers. If you have a hundred followers and another account has five hundred followers, the latter is an influencer for you in relative terms.
The current definition of influencer marketing is rooted in going after big names influencers. This generally costs a lot of investment.
A better strategy is to use the influence of lesser known accounts. Social media promotion is typically a practice that raises awareness. If someone with more followers than your account engages with your content, your app will naturally get more visibility.
When you have fifty followers, try to reach people with 150 followers. When you reach 150, try and go after accounts with 250 followers. Always try to leverage the reach and influence of accounts just a rung above you.
This is a more scalable way of using influencer marketing to get app downloads. This model can be replicated on any social media platform. The key lies in establishing connections and networking with mini-influencers within your niche.
#4 - Create traffic funnel from Pinterest
Pinterest is not viable for every niche. If your app covers sports new stores, you are unlikely to get a lot of traction.
So what gets people interested in Pinterest? Topics related to fashion, arts & crafts, famous quotes, travel, fitness, and health tend to perform very well on Pinterest.
Let’s say you have an ecommerce app for iPhone users. You built it using a WooCommerce iOS app builder without coding. You can create a traffic funnel and get downloads for such an app from Pinterest.
Pinterest works like a search engine. It is a very good platform to get traffic from provided your content belongs to some specific categories.
#5 - Offer real value in referral programs
Most apps have referral programs. However, most of these programs don’t offer much in terms of value to those who are meant to refer the app to a friend
Let’s take an example. How many times have you come across such a CTA - ‘Refer our app to your friends and get 25% cashback when they make their first purchase’.
Sounds familiar? Very rarely do users pursue these schemes. Why? Because the value they get from such schemes comes way down the road. There is no immediate benefit a user is getting.
A more direct value proposition would be - ‘Refer our app to a friend and get 25% discount on your next purchase’
This offer is significantly better because a user now doesn’t have to wait for the other person to make a purchase. In other words, users get their rewards immediately after they refer someone.
This is generally how referral programs must work. It is possible that you may lose money on some referral schemes. It works out in the end if you manage to reach a critical mass of users.
In conclusion
The digital marketing space makes it possible for companies today to promote websites and apps organically.
Note the word possible here. It doesn’t make things easy. Marketers still have to create the necessary mechanism to drive organic visibility.
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About App My Site 
DIY App Builder
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Created on Oct 15th 2020 04:26. Viewed 505 times.
