So, you’ve created an amazing app. Now it’s time for you to find people who will value and want to use it. It can be tricky to cut through the noise. There are currently about three million apps in the Google Play Store. It’s necessary to differentiate your product from the others if you want to make money from your app. One of the best ways of approaching this is through customer community building.
There are several ways marketers can boost customer communities, and build a strong user base around their app. Here are some of the most effective strategies.
Asking for Customer Feedback
This is something that many marketers already do to gauge user satisfaction. But it’s always worth mentioning this tried-and-true tactic. Your customers are the ones using your app day to day. If they’re having thoughts about it—positive or negative—you should want to know about them. Not everyone is going to give you feedback. However, many people will leave comments if you prompt them. Failing to ask these questions can leave you in the dark about a lot of important insights.
Facilitate Deeper Customer Conversations
It’s always great to get standardized customer feedback that can easily fit into data sets. This information can then be analyzed and interpreted to give unexpected insights. But there are also breakthroughs that require more nuanced, subjective input. These can only be found out through true customer dialogue. You will need to come up with some novel ways to engage users enough to take the time to provide you with in-depth commentary.
Here are a few potential strategies:
- Offer rewards or in-app credit for those who participate in giving you highly specific comments. This doesn’t need to be an extremely large reward. It can be a special item only available to those who complete a 30-minute survey. Or maybe even just a 50-percent off code for a future in-app purchase. Either way, doing this will help boost customer loyalty while also giving you marketing ideas.
- Put people on a special customer appreciation list if they participate in your in-depth discourse. This will make users feel special—like they are really a part of the team behind improving the app. You can even send special deals or content to their inboxes to reinforce this dynamic.
Retarget Users
You will almost certainly want to retarget users when building a customer community. Retargeting is the practice of reengaging people after they have used your product. This can be extremely effective because retargeting markets specifically to people who have already shown interest in your app. There are retargeting companies that have high levels of expertise in getting people back to your app. Consider using one of these services in order to facilitate user engagement and drive post-install conversions.
Utilize Social Media
Even if you don’t use social media personally, it’s imperative that you incorporate it into your app marketing strategy. Social media platforms are extremely useful to marketers for several reasons. First, they allow you the capability to communicate with all your most loyal customers and users in one place. This is a highly effective way of building customer communities and conversations.
Many people now head to social media as their first place for customer support—especially with apps, which sometimes experience technical issues. This is a growing trend, and now something that you need to consider as part of your social media presence. Additionally, social media can be a place for you to monitor what people are thinking about your app on a non-formal level. You should keep tabs on mentions and hashtags related to your app. Doing this can keep you one step ahead of customer desires.
It’s important to effectively market your app in today’s media landscape. There’s simply too much competition to slack off on this front. Building customer communities is one of the best strategies for boosting your app’s relevance and revenue.
