How Do I Grow My App In 2023? Here’s What We Think!

In today’s tech-focused age, everyone and their mother wants to build an app for their business. But getting your app into the eyes of your ideal customers can be a hassle. Adapting your app to today’s market to keep those ideal customers around is equally difficult. So, you might find yourself asking how do I grow my app?

Here are 8 mobile app marketing strategies that will be most effective in 2023. How many of these app growth strategies have you noticed being used by your favorite apps? And going a little further, which will you use for your own app?

But First, The App’s Design

Before beginning your mobile app marketing strategy, your app should be up to date. If your app is behind on the times, you won’t be able to retain those new users you’ve attracted with the killer marketing strategies you’ll learn about in the next section.

1: Mobile App Trends in UX/UI

Cluttered, over-whelming apps are out; minimalistic, simple layouts and aesthetics are in. When Instagram began, the UI featured multiple shades of blue and gray, large fonts, and larger icons. Over time, however, it limited its color palette to black and white, smaller icons, and smaller fonts to let the main intent of the app take center stage; the user’s pictures.

As time has gone on, many other apps have simplified their appearance and relied on their features to keep their users around. Another trend in UX/UI is adapting an app’s design around the iPhone’s screen’s notch. Controversial as the notch is, the past few iterations of the iPhone have proven it’s here to stay, so adapting the design to accommodate the notch is a win in your user’s eyes.

2: Gamification

Another design trend is less about aesthetics and more about the structure of your app. Many apps lately have turned to forms of gamification to motivate users to stay; in fact, MarketsandMarkets estimates the gamification market for apps will grow by 27.4%, reaching $30.7 billion by 2025.

Although some apps rely on gamification completely, such as Duolingo, other apps have a main feature aside from their gamification. A great example of this is Likewise, which is an app to track books, podcasts, movies, and shows you’ve liked to give smart recommendations based on your interests. The main feature is media tracking and rating, however, it also rewards you with rankings based on the number of books, movies, tv shows, and podcasts you’ve saved. Having rankings that users can ‘earn’ encourages them to come back every time they watch, read, or listen to something, boosting user retention each time they come back.

Now, Onto App Marketing Strategy

Your app will dazzle your ideal customer base… once they see it. Now it’s time to develop an effective marketing strategy to convince your future users to check out your app in the first place. Although you could go the traditional route, here are the mobile app marketing strategies we see performing well through 2023.

3: Connected TV Marketing

Connected TV is by far one of the most effective ways of advertising your app. Connected TV, often abbreviated as CTV, is a device that is connected to or embedded in a television for video streaming purposes. FireTV sticks, smart tv apps, and even video game consoles with streaming applications all fall under this category.

There are many platforms that will push your app into the ad segments of dozens of CTV streaming applications. They’re also adaptable; many of these platforms allow you to set a target audience and budget from within the platform to tailor your marketing to be seen by your target audience. Need to target a young female audience for your feminine care e-commerce app with a limited budget? That’s completely possible with CTV platforms.

4: Video-Driven App Store Listings

35% of viewers who watch a video in an app store listing are 3 times more likely to download the app. That is quite the conversion rate! Having a simple 30-second video showing off the purpose and features of your app can introduce your app more dynamically than static images can.

Although you could reuse an advertisement or UGC (more on that later), the best-performing app listing videos just show off the main features with very little explanatory text or voice-over to explain your app’s functions.

5: UGC Advertising

Social media is full of UGC, or user-generated content. Many businesses, and especially app developers, have begun to use UGC marketing strategies to push their apps out to the masses. Especially when marketing to younger audiences, using the trusted app users have for their favorite influencers is a powerful marketing tool.

There are many ways to go about this. There are agencies that manage larger influencers you can reach out to; they can disperse your app to influencers who will create ads in the style of their content. You can also reach out to influencers yourself if your budget is on the smaller side.

Integrations That Will Make Your App Stand Out

Regarding mobile app marketing strategies, it seems obvious to focus on what makes your app unique compared to the rest of the app store. Many app developers focus on the integrations of their apps; these can matter just as much, if not more, than the core features on their own.

6: IoT Integrations

IoT, or the internet of things, is a collection of physical objects with software, and other technology that can connect with other devices and networks. The most thought-of examples include smartwatches and QR codes. A popular example of an IoT integration is the health tracker Lifesum’s barcode scanner to log food automatically after scanning.

7: App Security Measures

Technology users are becoming more aware of personal security and where their data is going. Data breaches are happening every day, whether it’s private images being shared or passwords and financial accounts being stolen by anonymous strangers.

Including two-factor authentication, end-to-end encryption, and other security measures can bolster the credibility of your app. In fact, some apps make this their entire selling point; DuckDuckGo, WhatsApp, and Firefox all focus on security features when advertising their app.

8: Voice Assistant Integration

Multi-tasking: we all do it. Using voice assistants like Siri and Cortana are how many people operate their phones when they’re too busy to be swiping, typing, and tapping away. Integrating your app with the ability to be used by a voice assistant can make your app more convenient for your users to utilize.

Let’s imagine a scenario: you’re listening to music on Spotify while doing dishes. You want to skip the song, but your hands are wet. You could spend the time to stop washing, dry your hands, and then skip the song… or simply say “Siri, skip this song on Spotify” without having to stop scrubbing last night’s lasagna dish.

What Next?

Now it’s time to employ your mobile app marketing strategy. Your app is up to date, you’ve developed the strategy itself, and you even have a snazzy integration to highlight during that marketing campaign. The real question is, are you marketing yourself, or partnering up with an agency for your app growth strategy?

If you do decide to partner with advertising experts, we’d like to throw our hat into the ring. At Aragon Premium, we’re a brand-safe performance agency that partners with thoroughly vetted partners, for both startups and enterprises. If you’re interested in our services or have a few questions, contact us below. We look forward to helping your app succeed with our years of industry expertise.