How To Promote Your Android App and Game – 10 Awesome Tips

Android phones currently rank first in terms of smartphone operating systems and cover more than half the smartphones numbers around the world. So building apps for the Android phones is a safe bet to make the profit. Although people do prefer free apps than paid ones in the android play market, if your app has the factor that makes it more productive and attractive than other competitors, then it will surely sell.
Now the major problem with Android developers are they are techies and not a marketer. In order to promote Android app and to find the people to talk about their product is not a piece of cake. Well, here I’m sharing some of the working tips which you can utilize and create a buzz about your latest app developed by you. Always remember, your app should be rock-solid, and best marketing of any product comes with the word to mouth marketing.

Tips for Developers to promote Android app:

I always recommend app developer to create a landing page for your app. Yes, your app will be listed in the app store but it’s always a good idea to have a custom landing page for your app. This will not only help you promote your company but will help you to get more work for Android app development. Take care of branding and on your page, add a section for screenshots and videos, which will help other bloggers and users to understand about your app. Developing such product landing page on WordPress doesn’t cost a lot, and you can grab My app theme from Elegant theme which is perfect for a mobile app landing page.

1) Offer App install using Facebook ads:

The best way to get a lot of installs is using paid medium such as Facebook ads. Facebook offers advertising for app (Both Android & iOS), and you can target users based on various factors such as age, location, mobile OS and many more. If you have an email list, you can use that to target your ad to a particular list.  Head over to Create Facebook Ads page & get started.

2) Finish and Optimize your App:

But before you submit your Android app to the market, keep in mind that the application has to be fully complete and should have a good interface. Never make a mistake of submitting a partial app. Submitting a partial app will lower your users ratings and will blow your plan permanently. Also it is known that google’s play market  algorithm will take your app higher if the users rate well in the initial stage. That’s one of the tricks to improve your download count.

3. Submit to Multiple store:

Do you know there are multiple store to submit your Android app. Google play store is the most popular, but there are many others such as Amazon app store, which is good too. Here I’m listing down some of the popular app stores where you can submit your Android app. You don’t have to build your app from scratch, just marketing graphics size to match to typical store.

• https://developer.amazon.com/welcome.html
• http://www.appbrain.com/info/addapp
• http://slideme.org/developers
• http://developer.getjar.mobi/
• http://developer.mobogenie.com/docs/submit.htm

4.Make a Freemium app

This has been the best way to get people to download premium apps. The free apps get the user base and then it will tend the user in buying add-ons or the full version if he likes it. Or you can simply launch a free app with ad and promote an add free with some advance feature in your premium version. You can also consider launching your app for free for first two weeks to increase the user base and later on you can upgrade the price. This marketing and promotion strategy works most of the time and for most of the apps I know of.

4.Promoting through Reviews

Nobody will buy your app unless you promote it. Hence marketing the Android app is as important as building one. The best method to market your app from my experience is through content and reviews. There are few review sites that offer paid reviews.For paid option If you’re targeting specific to android market, you can try few like androidtapp.com or pcworld.com or any service depending on your budget.
Few options:

• AndroidCentral(Free, But Difficult)
• AndroidPolice(Paid)
• Appbrain.com(Paid)
• MobileStartupz(Free)

5. Promoting through free content

But there are services that offer free publicity like MobileStartupz.com. It’s a startup voting community that ranks apps submitted every month end. If your app idea is good, then it might even be on the site front page for a month if it gets enough votes. The site is also a good option if you have the same app for different operating systems because they accept Windows,iPhone and Blackberry apps as well.You can try this if you want to get an initial boost of downloads.

6.Promote on YouTube

Make a couple of YouTube videos showing how the app can be useful to people or entertain them. Try to make the video using a better clarity and understanding which is also worth sharing. More over, when you are going to drop a Pitch Email to any bloggers for review of your app, make sure to send him your video link. This will help a blogger understand your product better and will help them to write better app reviews. More over, most of the time you will see your videos will be embedded along with review article, which will help in creating more awareness.

7.Get a gorgeous icon

Have you ever downloaded an app with no icon or no icon. Well according to the app market, people download apps on large based on their icons. Crappy icons blow your app to the bottom and will indicate an unfinished or poorly made app. Optimize and beautify your icons.

8. Use social media

Social media can be useful sometimes. Submit your app to social media like Stumble upon, Reddit, etc. and if your app deserves some attention, then you might be in for some better downloads. Don’t forget to submit to the Reddit Android section here Android Reddit.

9. Press-release:

I have very limited information regarding Press-release promotion. Though, if you manage to get into one of those PR agency, who sends out the newsletter to Techies and Bloggers about latest Android apps, getting into one such list is going to be very beneficial.

10. Advertise about your App:

If you have developed a paid app, it’s always a wise idea to keep a budget for advertising too. Create a landing page for your app and put advertisement banner on popular Android niche blogs. Though, if budget is a constraint, you can always go ahead and take the route of Guest blogging and do a soft promotion of your app. For buying advertisements, you can directly contact the bloggers and web masters or you can simply go to Buysellads marketplace and find niche blogs.
11. Submit to Product Hunt:

Producthunt is a social site where anyone can submit any interesting app, website and people will vote for it. If you developed an interesting Android app, you should submit it to Producthunt and if it’s a remarkable app and hits the homepage, not only you will get enough downloads; you will also be getting coverage everywhere due to popularity of this platform.
As I mentioned above, by the end it’s quality and usability of your app, which is going to grab more attention. Though, these are few of things that we as an Android developers can do to promote our app to the right audience.

• Read: Top free Android apps

Well these are the few points on putting you app on the rankings or getting more downloads, if you have something to share, let us know by your comments.