How to increase your mobile app downloads like Santa’s craze on Christmas?

As the holiday season approaches, hundreds of mobile app developers are on a mission to increase their app’s installations and make a profit. This makes for a lot of competition among similar apps and a great opportunity if you capitalize on it.

Marketers might have different techniques on how to make your app stand out from the rest of the crowd, but the most important things that will matter at the end of the day are your creativity as a marketer and what consumers find most attractive.

So, today we bring you 30-holiday marketing tips for your mobile app that you can use to increase your app downloads like Santa’s craze on Christmas. With a good marketing plan, you can drive more downloads, improve user retention and lifetime value, and increase positive reviews from users.

1. You can’t ignore push notifications

Push notifications are pings sent to your app that let you connect with users in real-time. It’s much more engaging than email (or SMS), and when used correctly, can actually increase your conversion rate by three times. Think of it as a nudge in the right direction.

2. Use in-app messaging wisely

In-app messaging is one of the best ways to get in touch with users and remind them about your app. It acts like a personal, direct message from you to them, and it will make them remember you and your app when they need it.

Using in-app messaging allows you to showcase special deals in an easy-to-read space.

3. Use analytics to find out which marketing campaign is successful

Analytics helps you do pretty much anything in marketing. For example, you can A/B test different marketing campaign ideas to find which one works best, track how many new downloads your marketing drives, see if spending more on app store ads is worth it or not.

But here, what we mean by using analytics is that you have to do solid research on which marketing campaigns have been successful on a particular holiday.

For example, If you are a company that sells sports items, then pick some data on the Christmas campaigns of Nike. See how they managed to get the jolly good out of Christmas campaigns.

4. Do a big onboarding campaign

By doing a big onboarding campaign, you get more benefits, and why not the holiday season when your campaign can get extra reach.

1. It creates an attraction for your company.
2. More people are introduced to your product or service. 
3. During the process, you have more opportunities to show your brand’s advantage by using the medium of video 
4. By creating a video around what makes your app unique, you can create an engaging, memorable onboarding experience that will help your users genuinely understand why they should use your app instead of competitors.

5. Promote your app in local newspapers

“In newspapers...lol, who even reads that in the 21st century.” 2.5 billion people do it somewhat makes a better advertisement than social media. You can mindlessly scroll on social media but can you mindlessly read newspapers? Share on X

This will give you a better reach and promotion like crazy. Especially if you own an app that serves on a smaller scale than a local newspaper would be a party.

6. Building your app’s brand in the social media

Building your app’s brand on social media is as important as making your app. A successful app must have a proper architectural design, but it must also have a recognizable personality.

The personality of an app is reflected in its brand– how it looks and feels, what products and services it offers, and how it presents itself to a potential audience.

7. Give out mobile app discount codes

It is a well-known fact that people look for deals and discounts and yes…we get it. However, why not give out discount codes during the winter sale season? If you do this, you will not only create a great deal of hype around your app but may even get more downloads, and thus, your app revenue will rise.

Don’t worry about fewer profits initially. It’s like going fishing: you must fix a bait and wait for a response by the end of the hook. Once you succeed in hooking your customer and winning his trust, you can slowly cover rates.

8. Video contest

A video contest for marketing apps is an innovative way to get more people to learn about your app. It can be instrumental in getting the word out to all your prospective customers. They talk about the features, explain the benefits of using them, and engage them with animation or video.

9. Using SEO

For marketing your app, SEO is a big player. Not SEM but SEO, SEM often gets people suspicious of its image. Anyone can pay for a keyword and get themselves ranking #1 on google. But with an ’ad’ tag by its side.

SEO in the long term is the best for marketing unless you wish to pay for every keyword your potential customer is likely to search. 

List out the keywords, do excellent keyword research. Include keywords in your content that have high searches during holidays.

10. Battle bad reviews with a response!

There is no excellent app in the world without a couple of bad reviews. Sometimes, there is no telling what will piss people off? But what you can do is that you can give a timely response.

You can respond to the bad reviews you have got when people start to visit your website or app page on Play Store or App Store. The thing they will notice is how responsible you are towards your customer’s opinions. 

Frankly, that’ll make the difference.

11. Generate more app installs by providing value

Generate more app installs by providing value to your app users. You want your app on their phone. Great! Give them a reason to do so. Tell them what they can get in return for their time and money or how much money and time they can save by opting to use your app.

12. Promote your app on your website

Do you have a website, blog, or page? If so, you could be promoting the iOS apps you have available for download by embedding a banner. This will allow you to promote your apps all year long and increase your revenue.

13. Offer a free demo for your app

Offering a free demo is a great way to win the trust of your potential customers. Here is how you can do it.

1. Make a landing page
2. Get email and phone numbers for leads
3. Ask for social media and share the link to your social media pages with them
4. Send cold emails with an introduction and a quick blurb of why they should download your app

14. Look at your competitors to see what they’re doing

We won’t ask you to copy your competitors. But you should be aware of any of them are coming up with an excellent strategy. If they are then they will steal the spotlight.

Pretty much like if Samsung is planning to launch a phone at Christmas and Apple plans to do the same thing. Then the way they do it becomes a fight for the spotlight.

List out your competitions and see what they’re up to for the holiday season.

15. Have ‘Celebrity’ app store reviews

When you have an app, you can increase your app’s revenue by creating publicity through the media coverage of ‘celebrities’ reviewing your app.

You can also benefit from the effect caused by celebrity, which will partially cause each media’s audience to pay more attention to your promotion.

16. Create shareable visuals for social media

Have you ever caught yourself scrolling social media at a fast speed, just skimming through everything, but suddenly there is a great Instagram post, perhaps a sunset or a painting?

That’s it! That’s why you need a great visual to capture people’s attention. You can add quotes from some CEO that is relevant to your business. This will make people share it more.

17. Get a loyalty program for your app

Get a loyalty program for your apps to engage customers. How can you retain customers who have already downloaded your app? The answer is a loyalty program for your app.

Are you taking care of those who trusted your services before you lured many people with the right marketing? Reward them, give them a feeling of home.

18. Ensure quick access to content

Imagine being invited to a party, and you said yes because the host told you that a celebrity would be joining it. But upon reaching there and spending 1-2 hours, still, there was no sign of him. How would you feel?

Not pleasant, right?

That’s what you are doing with the holiday market campaigns for your app; you are inviting people to a party, telling them that, yes, we have something so extraordinary that it will make your day. Please don’t make them wait too much when they enter your app. 

Building surprise is pleasing as long as it doesn’t give the user a chance to consider whether it’s a waste of time.

19. Make it viral

Here are some tips that can help in making viral content.

1. Presentation video: Start with creating an excellent presentation video of your app. This video needs to showcase all its unique features excitingly. You can use different kinds of media for it like song lyrics, short poems, music, etc.

• Showcase teasers: Release a few teasers on YouTube or other sites related to app marketing that will help people know about the features of your app before they download it.
• Create blog posts: Start creating blog posts about the app’s new features so that people are aware of them when they are released.

20. Gather feedback with surveys

We all know the main reason for growth and increase in productivity is regular feedback and continuous improvement. This is about how we can get the input from the users of the app so we can understand what works and what doesn’t with our app marketing campaign.

One great way to do this is by surveys. Don’t make your users work too hard.

21. Have a chatbot in your app

In the highly competitive world of apps, it’s important to be just a little bit different from your competitors. One way you can achieve this is by introducing chatbots into your app. With the excitement surrounding this new technology, just about every major business is keen to incorporate it into their apps.

Why? Because bots offer a very easy and cost-effective way of customer service.

22. Make good use of email marketing

Did you know? That over 2 billion people use email. Well, now you know which brings us to this fantastic app marketing strategy for the holiday.

Here is how you can nail the email marketing game for apps.

1. Use push notifications
2. Make your email visually appealing
3. Add social buttons to every email
4. Integrate with Facebook
5. Interact with subscribers regularly
6. Interact with other social media channels
7. Keep emails short but compelling

23. Use influencers

Social media influencers are the people with the largest number of followers on different social networking sites. They have something you need.-‘Reach’. They have the power to reach the masses and change their mindset about brands.

Use them for good.

24. Run a retargeting campaign for users who left 

The priority would be not to lose the first, But you can get them back. Show them that their absence makes a difference even though losing one or two customers is acceptable. 

You can approach them kindly, with the survey of what they find wrong due to which they had to leave. Email them, get in touch but attempt at least one or two times to get them back.

In the process, maybe you will discover a new competition in town that you don’t know about, perhaps, they are offering some god-level service. Find out and improve.

25. Make sure to be secured and private

Users leave when they are suspicious of their privacy. Facebook lost billions in a day when Whatsapp got on the radar of suspicion. You don’t want that. Be sure that the user’s privacy is on top of your priority list.

26. Add new features to expand your innovation portfolio

Let’s take the example of two similar apps.

Both the apps offer the same services like food delivery apps. Identical ratings, excellent service, but the one app provides a feature of recommending the food to others looking for something to eat at that price. 

So, in terms of popularity, which app do you think will be most downloaded upon hearing the features? Is it the one that does what is expected? Or the one which has the surprise element.

27. Referral programs

“Hey! Do you mind bringing people to my app?”

That’s not the way you do it. You can develop a program that countless successful apps use, refer & earn.

Decide the thing you can give in return for the internal promotion the people will provide you with. You can provide discount coupons, cash, etc. 

28. Play with icons

Play with icons, or at least let your users play with them. Whether it’s Christmas, Halloween, or Black Friday. Are your app icons suitable for the theme? Do they remind users of the joyful experience? You know what to do.

29. The A-players

Most companies make the mistake of not promoting their most popular product in the holiday season. They should, as the popular products drive more sales and become a weapon of branding.

What is Apple known for? iPhone, What is Microsoft known for? Windows.

30. Don’t forget offline campaigns

Warm up your sales this winter by creating offline marketing campaigns. Create attractive flyers to hand out, print competitions on company letterhead, and send out by post.

Even though online marketing is amazing, going offline too is walking that extra mile which holds the power of making a huge difference.

Takeaway

As an app development company, we come across many good ideas regularly. But we generally ask them what their marketing strategy is because we believe that marketing is crucial when you have an idea, but it is incredibly vital when you have a good idea. 

\We live in a world where you can ignore an idea that first popped in your mind, only to see months later that same idea is executed by someone else miles apart.

I should have been that guy, you say. We do that! We ensure that whatever your idea is, it should get recognition, and people should know about it. Not only to nail the profits but to build a brand that has run for decades.

With Idea Usher, you can get expert help in increasing your mobile app downloads not just during Christmas or festive seasons, but during regular days too. Idea Usher, with a decade’s worth of experience in digital marketing, would be an ideal choice to improve your app outreach drastically. Get on a free consultation call with our experts. 

FAQ

1. What is app marketing?

The process of engaging your app users throughout their entire experience with your app is known as mobile app marketing. It consists of the incentives provided to encourage engagement as well as the overall visibility of your app in the app store. This article distinguishes between mobile app marketing and mobile marketing.

2. How much does app marketing cost?

Taking into consideration all types of marketing costs associated with app marketing, the minimum amount can vary from $1000 to $25k that is needed to prepare an ideal app marketing strategy. Although it depends on the discretion of individual agencies.