8 Tips To Increase Mobile App Downloads

The mobile revolution passed another milestone this year. According to Ericsson’s most recent Mobility Report, the number of mobile subscriptions now outnumbers the world’s population. That’s right, there are more mobile subscriptions than people living on this planet.

Businesses owners are now waking up to the huge marketing opportunity this presents by launching their own mobile app. According to an ABI Research survey of consumers, respondents who downloaded a retail branded app said they:

Businesses can now offer fully integrated mobile services that can have a profound impact on their business. This includes features such as reservation and booking systems, food ordering systems, mobile shopping carts, advanced loyalty features, social media integration, push messages and much more. However, building an app is just the first step for businesses leveraging mobile technology. The next step is ensuring that the app is downloaded and used by their customers. Businesses have to weave this promotional tool into the fabric of their business and below are 8 simple ways that they can do this:

1. Incentivise the download of the app – one of the best ways to encourage downloads is to offer something in return to the customer. This can be done by offering free loyalty stamps on installation of the app, free consultations or even a discount of the first bill.

2. Employee awareness and education – in most cases the first point of contact a customer has with an employee of the business. For this reason it makes perfect business sense for employees to promote the app and let customers know of the benefits they could enjoy and any potential offers for downloading the app.

3. In store visibility – businesses should distribute flyers in-store and also have posters in high traffic areas informing customers about their mobile app and the benefits of downloading it. They can also incorporate QR Codes that can be scanned by the customers mobile device to encourage downloads.

4. Website visibility – businesses should include download links on the homepage of their website and if they want to get really savvy, they can even allow visitors to their site to submit their mobile phone number to get an instant text message with download links.

5. Social media – a great way to encourage downloads is via the business Facebook and Twitter pages, especially if they have a lot of followers and likes. They can even run paid local campaigns with ads that display in their target audience news feeds to attract new customers.

6. Build app store reviews – it is easy for businesses to ask their customers to leave reviews of their app on the app store. This encourages further downloads and the reviews also push the app store search results higher up.

7. Promote through existing customer lists – most businesses have built a list of customers email addresses and/or phone numbers. They can run email campaigns to reach out to this database and even send a text message with download links.

8. On hold messages – if the business automatically plays on hold messages when someone is phoning in, this is a great opportunity to let the caller know about the app and some of the great benefits of downloading it.

These are just some of the ways businesses can ensure that their new app is a success. With Eazi-Apps, building and publishing the app to the app stores is only the first step in helping businesses engage their customers via their mobile devices. We take an active part in ensuring that the app is successful and delivers results with proven download strategies. The business can measure the performance of the app with detailed analytics and also benefit from professional consultation from our mobile experts.