10 Steps To Launch Your App Successfully in 2024

Over 140 billion apps were downloaded in 2022. That is a lot of competition.

So how are you going to get users to download your app and engage with it every day?

In this article, I’ll talk you through ten must know strategies that’ll help you launch your app and make it stand out from the crowd.

Market Research

Step number one, conduct thorough market research.

I told you how many apps you’re up against. You also need to know who you’re up against.

Go through reviews and blogs on the most popular apps in your niche area and make notes on what they’re doing well, where they fall short, and how they position themselves in the market. You can also leverage ChatGPT’s AI to help you generate insights and trends that provide a birds eye view of your niche.

Use all this information to start working on the first part of your value proposition.

What sets your app apart from the competition?

Understand Your Audience

Step number two, understand your audience.

Ask yourself, who is my app for? This is the second part of your value proposition, which is going to inform your app’s marketing message. You’ll need to answer the questions, what problem is my app solving? Is it filling a specific gap in the market? Why should users choose my app over others? Use your answers to build an ideal user Persona and then research how they engage with content, branding and advertising platforms.

Bottom line, if you want to get your future users attention, you need to tell them exactly how your app will help them. That messaging becomes so much easier once you’ve had a clear idea of who you’re talking to.

Pricing Strategy

Step number three, choose your pricing strategy.

Your monetization model will affect your app’s marketing strategy, functionality and design, and ultimately drive your revenue. So where do you start when choosing a monetization model for your app? Apps commonly use in app purchases, in app advertising and subscription models, or a combination of a few of those. So you need to get testing and decide which model best suits your app.

For example, if you’re a gaming app, in app advertising usually works well because it can fit seamlessly into the games user design.

But if you’re offering regular content like news media or health and fitness videos, then a subscription model might work best.

Okay, so you’ve got an idea of who your app is for and how it’ll drive revenue.

Define Success

Next is step number four, define success. How will you know if your app launch is successful?

Retaining users is a major challenge for any app marketer, with Android retaining rates at just under 3% at day 30 and iOS at 4.3%.

Make sure to set clear goals and KPI’s so you can monitor what is and isn’t working and optimize accordingly.

For your campaigns, we’re talking mainly about monitoring click through rate, click to install rate and the number of installs for user engagement.

You can start by measuring retention and uninstall rates as well as the average sessions per user. And last but not least, you need to calculate your revenue metrics, including the average revenue per user, cost per install and ultimately return on ad spend.

Choose Launch Platforms

For step number five, you’ll want to choose your launch platforms.

The App Store and Google Play Store are by far the most popular marketplaces, but there are others like the Amazon App Store or Windows Phone apps that might work well for you. Focus on one store to begin with.

Why?

You want to get the highest possible concentration of users and ratings that’ll help your app rise up in the ranks faster.

Don’t forget, before you publish your app, make sure it meets the different rules and regulations of the specific app store you’ve chosen.

Pre-launch Marketing Strategy

The following tactics are going to help you generate awareness.

• Identify the social media networks that are popular with your audience and set up your accounts so you can start creating a buzz.
• Create a website or landing page to get across your app’s value to potential users and to provide a clear call to action to download your app from the app stores,
• Put together a press kit and get pitches out to relevant journalists and bloggers to get them talking about it.
• Make a demo or promo video that highlights your app’s values and draws users in.
• Build a content marketing strategy that’ll attract and engage users
• Work with micro influencers your users follow to boost brand awareness and build on that pre launch buzz.

Soft Launch

Now let’s look at step number seven, planning your app’s soft launch.

This is the process of releasing your app to a limited number of users before the bigger public launch, so you can test the waters for what works and what doesn’t.

When you’re thinking of downloading an Apple, what makes you press the install button?

I’ll bet you look at the reviews right? Start beta testing on a small, select audience that is as close to your ideal user Persona as possible. Check things like whether the user interface design is clear, how easily a user can navigate the app, and how long it takes to convert use your audience’s feedback to iron out any last minute issues and get those early reviews.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

Okay, next up step number eight, plan your app store optimization, or ASO strategy.

When it comes to discovering an app, most people rely on app store search results. ASO is about improving the visibility, reach and conversion rates of apps in the app stores. Use ASO like you would use SEO.

Focus on the keywords your audience would use. Choose a standout title and write an engaging app description that tells users why they should download your app. Create impactful visual assets like your icon app, screenshots and promo videos that showcase the value and entice users to your app.

App Launch Marketing Strategy

Step nine it’s crucial to create a strong app launch marketing strategy. You’ll have already covered some of the things in your pre launch strategy, but now it’s time to take it to the next level. The goal is to promote your app and create engagement.

You can do this through owned media, earned media and paid media owned media is your brand’s channels that you control, like your website, email list and social channels.

Earned Media is any material written about your brand that you haven’t paid for or written yourself. Things like mentions and shares on social media or through influencers.

Paid media is content that’s promoted through paid placements like social ads on Facebook, TikTok or LinkedIn, display ads or video ads. The key is to use all three types of media and generate as much awareness about your app as possible. I mentioned earlier that monitoring your app’s performance is one of the key things that will determine your app’s success.

Analytics Tools

So in the last step step number ten, make sure you use analytics tools and software to measure your marketing efforts. Otherwise you’ll be wasting time and money.

You want to be able to measure your app launch against your KPI’s so that you can improve your results.

Think about what tech stack may help you market and grow your app after you’ve launched it, like marketing automation software and a mobile measurement partner. Once you’ve got all that in place, go ahead and launch your app. Publish it on the App store and once you get the green light, tell your audience all about it.

Conclusion

Congratulations. You’ve launched your app. But hold up, no Pina coladas just yet.

Once you’ve launched your app, you’ll want to nail your post launch app marketing strategy.

One final tip before we wrap, keep an eye on your app’s reviews and ranking.

The more positive feedback, the more you’re going to boost your exposure and keep your app here for the long haul. So there you have it, your ten must know app launch strategies that are going to build an engaged audience of potential users.