5 Common Myths About Mobile App Marketing

With more than three billion people, out of which 345 million are in India, using smartphones to access the internet, it is quite evident that mobile app marketing has tremendous potential.  It makes sense for all businesses to craft and implement a mobile app development strategy. That being stated, there are quite a few myths floating around in the market about what exactly this entails. Let us look at the five most prominent ones:

Mobile App Development Costs a Bomb

This is a very commonly held belief and stops a lot of small and medium-sized businesses from developing mobile apps that could do their business a world of good. What is ironic is that this does not hold true at all these days. Gone are the days when a business might have had to hire specialists who charged them a ton of money to create and market the apps. 

One is no longer required to start from the very beginning to design and develop a functional app. One can, instead, use one of the many mobile app development services available in the market to create a great app without having to pay a fortune. These services offer one a number of extremely efficient app marketing solutions that are just right for one’s business.

You should zero in on the kind of service that is able to leverage the features and content available on your website and make those part of your app so that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on designing the app from scratch. Besides, this will help create synergy across your communication platforms. Ultimately, the cost of an app will depend upon the kind of functionality one wants to be built into it. 

Mobile Apps Need Heavy Duty Maintenance

One would be not very wrong in imagining that it is not exactly very easy to design a mobile app that works equally well across multiple platforms like Windows, Blackberry, iPhone, and Android. At least that was the way it was in the past. But the way that technology has advanced, one can take the help of one of the many mobile app development services that help one easily develop mobile apps that are well integrated across platforms and gadgets and take care of providing updates and the maintenance of the apps.

This means that any business regardless of scale and size can offer its prospects and customers top-rated apps that are a joy to run without having to overly worry about the maintenance part. Getting their very own mobile apps is quite feasible for any kind of business nowadays. There really is no sense in delaying the adoption of mobile apps as part of one’s marketing arsenal. 

A Mobile App Takes a Long Time to Develop

Many businesses assume that a mobile app takes a very long time to develop and that often puts them off the idea of investing in one. This is quite unfortunate as leveraging mobile app marketing is really something that can bring a paradigm change in the fortunes of a business.

If you are one of those who imagine that it takes at least six months to develop a mobile app, by which time it will already become obsolete, nothing could be farther from the truth. A mobile app development service that is adept at its job will take no longer than two months to build an app that is out of the top drawer. In an era where modular programming and cloud computing are the order of the day, it should be quite evident that the mobile app development process has evolved to become the process of a nimble and quick-off block. 

Of course, it does help if one takes care of a few things to smoothen the app development process. These are-

• Writing a comprehensive brief for the developer.
• Discussing the vision for the app thoroughly with the developer.
• Quick development and prototyping.
• Quick deployment to the app store.

Mobile App Marketing Does Not Require Any Strategic Planning

Imagining that not much strategic thinking is required when developing a mobile app is the biggest mistake any business can make. There is no point in getting a mobile app created just because everyone has it or banking only on the immense popularity of the Android and iOS platforms. One cannot feel that one’s business has arrived simply because one’s app has made it to these coveted pedestals.

One has got to take a professional approach towards mobile app marketing which entails having a well-thought-out release date, carrying out the right kind of market research to understand one’s customers, and studying what the competition is doing. That apart, it makes eminent sense to create a website or a landing page, as these are a very popular source of app installs.

Other than that, it makes great sense to put in place outreach initiatives like using influencers or bloggers to provide backlinks and even their reviews. Leveraging the social media platforms popular with the target audience for one’s app is also a great way to pitch one’s app. The user acquisition strategy in particular has to be paid great attention to. From using paid ads to optimizing one’s app store page to rank higher to enable higher ranking both in search results and downloads is important. One’s engagement with one’s app target audience continues after the app has been downloaded so that one retains them over a long period of time.

Also Read: Top 10 Amazing Face Recognition Apps of 2020 You Should Use

People Don’t Install Mobile Apps All That Much Now

This is a belief that has grown in currency lately but is hardly borne out by facts. On the contrary, app installs continue to grow at a fair clip. The global app downloads in 2017 were a whopping $170 billion 2017, which was a 60% increase over the 2015 figure. Instead of losing interest in mobile apps, people are spending more time using them. Globally the average smartphone owner has an astounding 80 apps installed on their gadgets. They not only install them but also use 50% of them every month.

What is great about using mobile apps for marketing is that these can be leveraged by just about any industry in the world. Everything from media, retail, gaming, and real estate to education, grocery stores, healthcare, and education use apps to connect with their target audience. One can have a fair idea about the potential of the global mobile app market from the fact that it was valued at a healthy $106.27 billion in 2018 and is slated to grow to a size of $407.31 billion by 2026.

Going forward one can expect a rise in the use of multiple portable devices and an exponential increase in eCommerce to fuel the adoption of mobile apps as a very viable marketing tool by industries across the board. Therefore, to not take mobile app marketing with the seriousness that it deserves, could be very detrimental to the prospects of any business in the times to come.

Conclusion

With billions of people around the world using mobile apps to help them go about the business of living, it is quite evident that mobile app marketing has got to be part of any viable business strategy. However, there does seem to be a rather surprising lack of real insight and information about what mobile app marketing is all about.

There are also a number of myths about mobile app marketing that stops many small and medium businesses from leveraging the undoubted advantages that accrue from using these. The very first one pertains to the fact that it is exorbitantly expensive. That clearly is not the case now, what with many mobile app services making it possible to create one’s very own apps at a very reasonable and affordable price.

The second myth that has been busted is the fact that mobile apps require heavy maintenance. That is really not the case now, with many mobile app development services helping one create apps that are well integrated across platforms and gadgets. The third myth about mobile app development taking inordinately long to develop also no longer holds true.

A very important myth to debunk is the belief that one does not need to strategically plan mobile app marketing. As has been very clearly explained here mobile app planning is a very serious business and has to be conducted accordingly. The last myth to be debunked in this article is the belief that mobile apps are no longer being downloaded the way that they used to. With the global mobile app market valued at as much as $106.27 billion in 2018 and slated to grow to a size of $407.31 billion by 2026, there clearly is no substance to that myth. 

If anything, the growth in the digital way of doing business has only expanded in the wake of the global pandemic. Any business worth its name regardless of scale and size would do well to come up with a well thought out app marketing strategy to make its presence felt in the new scenario.