The day has finally come that your brand new shiny mobile app has finally been developed. Blood sweat and thousands has been spent to finally create the perfect application that you know everyone is going to love! So why has hardly anyone been downloading it? A global study by Deloitte reveals 80% of branded apps struggle to achieve 1,000 downloads. Gulp.
A shocking 68% of smartphone users open only five or fewer apps at least once a week. So, how can a marketer drive smartphone users to download their app?
Text messaging is one of the most effective direct marketing channels to attract new users as well as to increase engagement with existing customers. With the average click through rate of 32% it becomes no surprise that this is the best channel for marketers to use to encourage app downloads. Engagement is critical for app’s who use a freemium model to monetise their apps. Their core business model survives on making money via in-app purchases, which relies on how well they can keep customers coming back to purchase more features, levels or other functionality they find valuable. According to SmartInsights, text message marketing has eight times the engagement rate of email marketing. Combine that with an impressive 98% open rate and the fact average person read texts within 3 minutes (or even seconds) of receiving them, and you’ve got a recipe for success. So how exactly can you use text messaging to help generate app downloads and sales?
Create a mobile landing page
Some of the world’s largest brands have created mobile app landing pages on their websites to increase the amount of people that download their app. When creating a landing page a useful tactic is to implement text messaging. Getting people to either enter their mobile number or texting a shortcode/keyword makes it quick and easy to send the app download link to any mobile phone. Need some inspiration? Here are 7 interesting mobile landing pages:
Groupon
Paypal
Starbucks
Foursqaure
Vonage
Twilio
How to prevent un-instalments and retaining your users….
Great, your app downloads have been increasing! But when digging into the data you’ve noticed the majority have dropped off? The Average App Loses More Than 75% Of Its Users After One Day. That means you have 24 hours to grab their attention and impress. App push notifications can be easily disabled by the meaning how else do you get the users attention? By collecting users mobile numbers through an SMS download form this means that you can send SMS notifications. When creating and drafting SMS notification here are 6 key tips you must consider:
- Clear and relevant message: It may seem obvious but when sending any text message you need to make sure your message is clear and relevant. Adding value to your user is crucial, sending a text message for the sake of it will not add any value. Think carefully about what the user will want to hear from you and make sure it is relevant.
- Timing: Timing is crucial when scheduling your SMS notifications With an average of 24hours to impress your user you need to make sure you are sending relevant notifications at the right time. No one wants a text message whilst they are asleep. Going global? Make sure your campaigns are scheduled to different time zones. Also consider those “mirco-moments” throughout the day that maybe relevant for you. For example is it lunchtime? Send a notification to reserve lunch for 2 via your app.
- Spam: Nobody likes to be spammed, especially with text messages. Ensuring that you not coming across as spam is highly important in order to be effective. More than 175,000 complaints about spam text messages and cold calls were made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in 2014. The ICO has powers to prosecute successfully those who are guilty of sending spam text messages. Making sure that you allow users to opt out of your messages is one of the tips you should do. Read our full guide on how to stay compliant with SMS marketing.
- Personalise: around 75% of people noticed a positive uplift when personalising their text messages. Try personalising your content on various factors, it could be simply using their name or maybe as far as segmenting your audience. The more data you can gather from your app the more you can tailor content and increase engagement.
- Call to action: Make sure you have a call to action in every message. Your call to action maybe to ensure they have installed the new update or maybe to go visit the app for something in particular. You can
- Interactive: Get interactive with your users when sending your text messages! Include relevant shortened URLS so users can automatically go to your app. Being interactive can be part of your call to action.
For further information on SMS marketing or information on our services please feel free to contact our experienced SMS customer care team on 0845 112 1302 or email [email protected].