Less than 10 years ago, the first app stores came into being. Apple and Android both launched App Store and Google Play respectively. This was a turning point in the history of commercial technology. At the time, the internet boom was just beginning to reach mammoth proportions. Accessible services like Frontier Packages brought Wi-Fi into virtually every household in the United States. It was only a matter of time before smartphone manufacturers began offering built-in internet-based apps. From that point on, it was only a small jump for Apple and Android to launch their respective app stores or markets.
Both the Apple App Store and Google Play have mushroomed since its inception. There are thousands of apps now available on them. This presents new challenges to app marketers. Getting people to notice and download their apps became a more demanding task. Marketers began to put more effort into increasing app visibility and install. And so, with the shift in consumer-driven apps, App Store Optimization or ASO came into being. Fast forward to today, and ASO itself has evolved substantially, even though its still in its infancy. What was once just an ancillary marketing task has become a dedicated department. But since it’s still fairly new, there are not too many models to base your ASO strategy on. Regardless, this blog will attempt to give you some useful pointers.
7 Important Components for ASO Success
Take a look at a certain category of apps in any app store. Chances are you will come across hundreds, if not thousands, of similar apps. All these apps are vying for attention, visibility and ultimately getting people to install them. There are so many apps in fact, that separating the good ones from the usual low-quality jobs can be difficult. This is why having a good ASO strategy in place is important. You need to get your app the most visibility possible. This will, in turn, lead to more downloads. Here are some key components to consider when creating a solid ASO strategy:
- Know Your Audience
- Look Beyond Keyword Optimization
- Focused Experimentation
- Creatives – Visuals and Messaging
- Data-Driven Strategy
- Be Original
- Earn Reviews
Below follows a closer look at what each component entails and how it fits into your larger strategy. Let’s begin.
Know Your Audience
The first crucial component of ASO is knowing your audience. Too many app marketers make this one fundamental mistake. They don’t know what their target audience is or wants. A successful ASO strategy means you need to identify the groups you want to target and market your app to them accordingly. The first step is to choose the audience the app targets. Then you go on to create a target profile. This profile takes into account demographics like:
- Age
- Gender
- Culture
- Education
- Geographical location etc.
All these demographics make up important attributes of your target audience. You should also have a good idea of why people use your app. This means you need to know what their interests are. A person can download a dating app for a fling or a serious relationship, depending on their interest. This is not as straightforward as you might think. But it will still define how your app updates and matures over time. Once you have the target audience pinned down with a target profile, you can start to tailor an ASO strategy around them.
Look Beyond Keyword Optimization
You need to be strategic with your keyword optimization, that much is very true. But ASO goes far beyond simple keyword optimization. Keyword optimization is very important because it earns you more organic growth. But another point to focus on is the creatives corresponding to those keywords. Good quality creatives (like screenshots, trailers etc.) can appeal more to your target user than a simple keyword search. They can potentially boost your tap-through rate and ultimately your conversions. App stores rank your app based on tap-through and conversion rates. So for you to rank well for a specific keyword, you need to have high conversion rates and tap-throughs. This means you need to constantly test your creatives and optimize them. Which brings us to the next component.
Focused Experimentation
Your ASO strategy is built on experimentation with what creatives and messaging will work best. This is a constant process and is based on a hypothesis. You may think this is guesswork but it isn’t. You need to base your experimentation on a focused, solid hypothesis. This hypothesis serves as the starting point for you to carry out focused experiments with your ASO strategy. Testing your hypothesis is a crucial part of ASO success. A weak hypothesis does not lead to significant learnings about visitors. But a strong hypothesis will do just that. A good hypothesis is usually more precise and better framed than a weak one. It’s supposed to help you understand your app store visitors better.
Creatives – Visuals and Messaging
You can’t run successful ASO tests without high-quality creatives. Strong messaging and creatives are extremely important if you want to successful test your hypothesis. Store creatives are by far the most important app marketing assets. They can be a deal breaker or a deal maker, depending on how good they are. Consider the following when designing creatives and messaging:
- Average attention span between 3 to 6 seconds
- Smaller fonts for mobile screens
- Encourage opinions on creatives from your team before implementing
Data-Driven Strategy
The successful ASO strategy is one that is data-driven. First, you conduct research. Then you develop a hypothesis based on your research. Following this, you test your hypothesis and analyze the results. After that, you conduct more research. The cycle repeats itself endlessly. You ASO strategy depends on how you analyze the results of your hypothesis testing. Focus on the following points:
- Analyze engagement
- Determine any successful variations
- Quantify the increase in your conversion ratio, if any.
Be Original
There is no one winning ASO strategy, but experts agree that one rule of thumb is to be original. In ASO, this means staying away from reskinned apps. These types of apps are often infringing on copyrights and also create duplicate content. This makes the app store algorithm reduce your search rankings. A good rule of thumb is to use ASO tools to check the app store for any duplication of content.
Earn Reviews
The number of reviews and the type of information they offer are some of the most impactful factors for buying decisions. It’s just how human nature works. Person X buys FiOS Internet Service after hearing good reviews about it from persons Y and Z. Similarly, app store users put a lot of stock into honest reviews. But don’t be tempted to buy reviews! This is a strictly prohibited ASO practice which can be potentially harmful to your ASO efforts. Instead, focus on creating an app that adds value. This will earn you the reviews instead of you having to buy them.
Author Bio: This topic is contributed by Shira Winget. Shira is a passionate blogger and marketing manager. You can reach out Shira on continuecontent.com.
