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App Growth Strategies: 17 Powerful Ways to Acquire Users

What Are Growth Strategies

The term "app user growth" describes the rise in an app's active user base and, consequently, the revenue rates. App growth strategies are techniques for marketing and promoting your app. These tactics lay out a strategy for attracting new users, retaining existing ones, and more.

According to studies, 0.5% of all apps fail because of an insufficient user base. A mobile app needs to consistently increase its downloads to succeed. Once an app has a sufficient number of users, it must maintain those users through sufficient engagement and a steady growth strategy.

Now let's examine why some mobile applications fail to draw sufficient user interest.

4 Apps That Restrict App User Growth

1. Subpar User Experience

Ensuring a positive user experience is crucial for retaining current users and attracting new ones. When a mobile app becomes overly complex and challenging to navigate, it results in an unfavorable user experience. Such instances prompt users to share their dissatisfaction through reviews, leading to a decrease in app installations.

2. Inadequate User Support

When users encounter sluggish response times and delayed resolution of their inquiries or issues, their engagement with the app diminishes. This can result in multiple uninstalls, negative reviews, and a diminished rate of user retention.

3. Absence of Distinctive Features

With a constant influx of new apps entering the market, an app lacking unique features that set it apart is likely to be overlooked in favor of competitors' offerings. Users are more inclined to install a rival product that offers something different.

4. Insufficient Marketing

Even if a mobile app boasts a range of valuable features, effective mobile app advertising strategies are essential for reaching the intended audience. Raising awareness about an app is imperative for driving installations.

These challenges can be effectively addressed by implementing appropriate mobile app growth strategies.

Now, let's delve into some of the most effective approaches to enhance your user acquisition efforts and elevate your app's success.

Best App Growth Strategies To Acquire Users

1. Identifying your target audience

Recognizing your target demographic is crucial for app owners. This practice aids in both app expansion and user insight, facilitating informed decisions. Thorough user research and behavior analysis are essential to pinpoint the right audience. This forms the foundation for subsequent app growth strategies.

Comprehending your user base enables tailored content, focused growth campaigns, and effective promotional channels. This insight assists in crafting an app that aligns with user expectations, driving natural growth.

Enhancing user acquaintance also boosts app adoption. Identifying improvement areas refines functionality, propelling mobile app user growth.

2. Optimize App Store

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a strategy used to enhance the organic ranking of a mobile app in the App Store or Google Play Store. It aims to convert casual store visitors into active users, making it a valuable approach for app growth. ASO involves optimizing various aspects of an app, such as its search ranking, icons, and screenshots, leading to better visibility, increased downloads, and improved credibility. By presenting an appealing app listing, ASO contributes to higher user acquisition and growth.

3. Leverage social media

Popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter offer a potent approach to boost visibility and attract fresh users, just like other mobile app growth strategies.

According to Statista's projections, the ad spending on social media is set to reach $173 billion in 2023. This makes it an opportune moment for you to invest in social media to expand your user base. Utilizing social media for app promotion can enhance brand recognition, elevate app interaction, facilitate cross-promotion, and strengthen your overall app growth plan. Additionally, social media serves as a platform for customer support, allowing users to express feedback, concerns, and questions while demonstrating their responsiveness.

Moreover, social media proves valuable for effective A/B testing. This technique involves displaying users two versions of an ad page and leveraging statistics to identify the preferred version by experimenting with diverse ad creatives, messaging, and variables, you can optimize your social media ad campaigns and achieve optimal user acquisition results.

4. Email marketing 

In 2023, the majority of emails, around 81 percent, were accessed through mobile devices. This underscores the strategic value of utilizing email marketing as a practical approach to driving app growth.

Email serves as a direct means to connect with potential users on an individualized level. Through tailored email marketing, you can effectively onboard new users, encouraging them to engage with your app by clicking on Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons and seamlessly initiating their app experience. These personalized emails spotlight the advantages of your app and offer guidance on how to get started.

By delivering updates, showcasing app features, announcing new releases via email, and offering incentives for interaction, email marketing contributes to heightened user retention rates.

5. Content marketing 

Crafting content based on your audience's interests is a potent app growth strategy.

Content marketing encompasses generating and promoting videos, blogs, infographics, and more. Although not explicitly focused on app promotion, this content captivates your target audience by addressing their preferences.

Start by grasping the content that appeals to your demographic. Then, produce high-quality, pertinent material. Leverage Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to enhance content visibility in search results. Seamlessly lead users to your app using compelling calls-to-action (CTAs), optimized landing pages, and conversion-focused content.

Evaluate content performance using tools like Google Analytics. This reveals insights about resonating content, streamlining your approach for smoother user acquisition and refined content delivery.

6. Influencer marketing 

Influencer marketing stands out as a highly effective app growth strategy. This approach involves teaming up with influential individuals boasting sizable follower counts to endorse your product, expanding your reach to a broader audience, and heightening brand visibility.

Through influencer marketing, your app not only garners credibility but also cultivates a reliable user community due to the tangible endorsement from influencers. Establishing enduring partnerships with influencers further cements brand loyalty and sustains ongoing mobile app expansion.

While relatively novel in the realm of app growth strategies, influencer marketing has demonstrated its capability to yield exceptional outcomes.

7. App referral program

App referral programs involve offering rewards or incentives to users who refer your app to others, driving additional downloads. This strategy is geared towards boosting app installations.

Referral programs have demonstrated their effectiveness in driving app growth due to their potential to trigger a viral loop. Users who receive referrals tend to refer the app to others, leading to exponential growth.

Furthermore, this approach efficiently targets your desired audience, as existing users are inclined to recommend the app to those who share similar interests.

8. Push notifications 

Push notifications are alerts generated by an app when it is closed, prompting users to open it. These notifications offer updates, highlight new features, or remind users to engage with the app.

While push notifications come into play post-installation, they significantly contribute to engagement and retention, making them a crucial component of your app growth strategy.

Programmable push notifications can be timed to reach users when most relevant. Additionally, these notifications can be deep-linked to specific pages or features, enhancing users' app exploration.

9. Retargeting campaigns 

Retargeting involves re-engaging users who have installed the app but have not been active, utilizing methods like social media, emails, and push notifications.

Employing personalized messages is a potent approach to reconnecting, heightening conversions, and fostering app growth.

Monitoring retargeting campaign effectiveness allows for refinement and optimization, leading to improved growth outcomes. This strategy proves highly effective for enhancing your app's growth trajectory.

10. Free trials or demo

Implementing a "play before pay" approach stands out as a valuable app growth strategy, effectively attracting well-suited users. Free trials swiftly transform users into leads.

Demos and freemium access lower the entry hurdle for new users, fostering greater app exploration and driving mobile app growth. These offerings also serve as a gateway for upselling, motivating users to transition to a paid app version providing a demo version, you can trace users' interactions, comprehend their expectations, and make enhancements accordingly. This iterative refinement process holds the potential to appeal to a broader user base.

11. Video marketing 

Crafting videos encompassing ads, explainers, tutorials, and reels proves both accessible and impactful in optimizing user acquisition. This strategy holds the key to successful mobile app growth by capitalizing on the innate visual appeal that captures audiences swiftly.

Utilizing high-quality visuals in videos paves the way for targeting the right audience effectively.

By elucidating app features and functionality and offering educational content, you can raise awareness about your mobile app and motivate users to download and experiment with it.

Focus on producing concise videos that offer comprehensive insights and contribute value to users' understanding. This approach propels users to delve deeper into your app, transforming them from potential prospects into active app users.

12. Paid advertising 

Paid advertising emerges as a potent user acquisition strategy, magnifying app awareness across a wide-reaching audience.

Tactics Pay-per-click (PPC), programmatic ads, sponsored content, native ads, interstitial ads, and video ads effectively draw in users. Incorporating compelling Call-to-Action (CTA) elements ensures audience engagement and app installation.

Effective utilization hinges on budget planning, channel selection, and identifying optimal ad formats. Strategic planning fosters successful ad campaigns and deeper insights into their outcomes.

Beyond attracting new users and boosting visibility, these campaigns also encourage existing users to take actions like registration or subscription. Thus, paid advertising stands out as a highly impactful app growth strategy.

13. PR and Press coverage

Public Relations (PR) stands as a vital modern app growth strategy. It goes beyond app promotion, extending to user education and cultivating enduring media relationships.

Initiate by identifying and establishing connections with journalists and media outlets within your niche. Collaborating with freelancers, bloggers, influencers, and publishers offers a proven avenue to amplify your app's reach via media channels.

Channel your efforts towards attracting early adopters to your app, as their support can contribute significantly to app popularity. Assemble a comprehensive media kit detailing your app's features, strengths, and achievements. This resource empowers media professionals to generate impactful content about your app, ultimately driving user growth.

14. Webinars

Webinars emerge as a powerful addition to your user acquisition strategy, boosting brand visibility and delivering personalized interactions.

Physical webinars necessitate attendees' physical presence and offer opportunities for networking, app demonstrations, and user sign-ups. By incorporating personalized elements such as vouchers, goodie bags, and free trials, physical webinars prove impactful for app growth.

Virtual webinars, conducted online, demand only a stable internet connection. They facilitate virtual demos, online training, and presentations.

Webinars serve to educate, enhance brand awareness, and foster strategic partnerships. Additionally, they aid in data collection and gathering valuable user information for targeted app install ad campaigns, thus amplifying your overall app growth strategy.

15. Good user experience

User experience revolves around comprehending users, their needs, values, and constraints. This informs the creation of an app that aligns with their expectations, delivering value, usefulness, and navigational ease.

Elevated user satisfaction naturally encourages them to advocate for your app, driving enhanced user acquisition. A superior user experience effectively curtails acquisition expenses through heightened user retention and referral marketing.

Positive user experiences typically prompt users to leave favorable reviews and feedback, underscoring the significance of presenting a compelling user experience as a robust app growth strategy.

16. Customer support 

Customer support encompasses services that aid users in effectively utilizing a product, and it forms the foundational support for your app. Establishing a resilient customer support system is paramount.

Timely responses to customer feedback, inquiries, and concerns notably heighten user contentment and foster loyalty. Swiftly addressing user issues concurrently curbs churn rates, bolstering user engagement with your mobile app.

Moreover, a robust customer support framework contributes to improved app store ratings, translating to heightened app installations. Thus, prioritizing customer needs and addressing their concerns stands as a pivotal app growth strategy.

17. A/B testing

A/B testing entails comparing two versions of an app or webpage to discern which resonates better with users. This experiment employs statistical analysis to identify content performance.

A/B testing holds the potential to enhance the user experience by pinpointing the content preferences of the target audience. This optimization leads to heightened user engagement and retention, while simultaneously mitigating the inclusion of potentially detrimental content.

Moreover, A/B testing facilitates data-driven decision-making, utilizing concrete metrics to fine-tune user experience for optimal results.

Key takeaways 

Navigating the challenges of building an exceptional app requires careful consideration of an effective growth strategy.

Selecting the most fitting mobile app growth strategies enables you to unlock your app's potential optimally. While the techniques mentioned above offer distinct benefits, a universal approach toward user acquisition cannot be universally applied to every mobile application.

Hence, it remains crucial to experiment with various strategies and identify the most effective fit for your app. We trust this article has shed light on the significance of growth strategies for apps.

Stay tuned for more insightful content in the future!