Easy (and free!) ways of promoting your mobile app

Let's face it, if you have an app in the app store there are a lot of things you probably know you should be doing, but aren't. Getting your app out was only the first step, now you'll need to refine your marketing and narrow in on your target audience. An easy way to start is to work on refining your app store listings. Here we're calling out a few good ways you can start to improve your page, at the cost of a little of your time.

Update more frequently

New users browsing on the app stores will notice if your app was "Last Updated Forever Ago", and existing users are likely to check out your app again when the update indicator shows up. If nothing else, fixing small issues and refining things is always good. As is looking ahead and making sure you'll be ready for new screen sizes, notches coming to Android, and other potential changes coming in the next year.

Make your app name snappier

Users are scanning app names to decide if they even want to look at your product page, so try to make your app name descriptive. Here's some examples from the top paid apps today: 

Amazon – Shopping Made Easy
Wish - Shopping Made Fun
Peak - Brain Training
SoundCloud - Music & Audio

Tag your sources 

You should know where users are finding your app from as much as possible. Make sure you've added campaigns to the various links on your website (and landing pages). For iOS apps, you'll need to log in to iTunes Connect and then visit the campaign link builder. For Android apps (on Google Play) you'll want to look at their link builder.

Update your screenshots and videos

Apple recently added room for up to 10 screenshots. Make sure you're taking advantage and showing off as many of your best features as possible, and consider a refresh as well.

Update your app store description

There is a lot that can be said here, so let's focus on smaller fixes for now. Make your copy scannable, put in headers that relate to your app's value, and tell a good story first.

Consider a layout that looks something like this:

The Story (Why/How does this app help your user?)
Value Prop 1(Expand on your story)
Value Prop 2 (Expand on your story)
Social Proof (Call out reviews from users or big-name publications)
Features Listing (List out all the major features users might want)
Other Notes (Anything else that doesn't fit)

1Password does this pretty well (though they go a bit beyond). 

Ask your network for feedback (again)

Hopefully, you've reached out to your friends and connections and gotten their feedback, but if not... check in and ask what you can do better.