Now a days, It´s hard to talk about innovation and marketing without talking about Apps!!

Apps – Social, Games, Utilities, Purchase & Media Payment, News and many other categories – represent the most growing entrepreneurial area and of course they also need marketing.

This is a new field, where tools and trends have something new every day.  On the other hand, there are some basic things that are permanent…..and sometimes forgotten!!!

The very first thing we must have in consideration is the goal we have with our App.

There are apps with the only goal to engage consumers/customers in some way (Some brands & news). There are apps developed to be sold (Many utilities & some basic games). There are apps to sell through the App (more advanced games & services, social, subscriptions, shops, etc.).

In summary: What do we want to get from this App? What is its role in our business?

In a general view, an App can be the product itself (many utilities), a way to deliver the product (many services), a sales channel (every day more games & sport apps) or the way to reach and audience to be engaged with the App and sold to an Advertiser (social apps).

Once we have clear the role of our App in our business, we are ready for the marketing plan for the App that always have two key areas:

1. Marketing for the App.
   • We need people to download the app. There are many digital tools to use: from mobile SEM to social ads, from mobile banners to POS material….and many other sophisticated techniques I will not go now in detail.
   • In many cases we need partners &/or advertisers. This is a second group of actions to have in consideration and sometimes it´s the most important to detonate the growth.
2. Apps for marketing. The app is a marketing tool to sell more to the customer we just got or at least to preserve our customers. What are we going to sell through the App? Is a question we must have present since design stage.  If we are not going to sell more, at least we need the experience to keep engagement with the App.

For both of the tasks we must have very clear the target audience: massive or niche, working or personal use, teens or 30´s, single or married, techy or newcomer. We need to describe as uniquely as possible, in order to understand the way he behaves or will behave to use the app.  We can have 2, or even 3 different audiences, one for each group of actions.

Once we have clear the 3 kind of actions and our audiences, we can decide what marketing to do.  There is not a recipe fitting for everyone….maximize free downloads is very smart in some cases but a big mistake in others.