Building an App: Do You Know How To Market? (Part Two)
Jump to the future, where you have already built the app. How will you get people to know about it?
It may not seem obvious, but as a seasoned developer this has become the toughest step for me.
This is the second part of a four part mini-series for non-technical advice in app development (i.e. not writing code). Part One can be found here.
How will people hear about your app?
❌ “Word of mouth” won’t be substantial enough.
❌ Relying on your social network of 1,000 followers each with varying interests won’t be enough.
✔️ You need to have an “in”. A way to tell people. It doesn’t have to be a lot of people, but do you have access to a niche network?
✔️ You could spend money on advertising. This is often not realistic nor desirable; all-the-more-reason to have some sort of niche network ready!
Failure Example #1: Lack of Connections
A friend said, “you should make an app where people can rate your clothing. I’d use it!” I was with a handful of friends, all whom said it was a good idea. The app was built. While there were a couple thousand downloads, there wasn’t enough traction to keep the app going and we eventually shut it down.
Maybe it’d turn out different if I had a connection with a clothing manufacturer or fashion magazine or a retail store.
Failure Example #2: Lack of Skills
I helped a friend create an app for restaurants. While we each had a handful of connections to people that owned restaurants, nothing panned out.
✔️ The team had a designer. The app looked beautiful.
✔️ The team had a developer. The app functioned efficiently.
❌ The team did not have a true salesperson. No one knew about the app.
We went door-to-door and was able to onboard some restaurants. Unfortunately continuous sales/marketing was not a strong suit of the team. Without proper means to promote the app, it’s worthless.
A Successful Example
In college I made a website that allowed students to give professors ratings in various categories. The people I was working with knew what they were doing in terms of getting people to know about it:
✔️ We printed out flyers (in the library, for free) and posted them in several dorm buildings.
✔️ We had a connection to the school newspaper and had (free) advertisements and an article written about us.
✔️ We’d make an announcement to our peers before each class started.
✔️ At night we went into empty classrooms putting our website on the board for students to see the following morning.
Come Back, From The Future
Unless you’re the only one who’s going to use the app (and I’ve made a few of those), you need to plan ahead for “how will people know about my app?”
Worst case scenario is that you’ll build the app, and no one uses it. Then you’ll get tired of supporting it and shut it down. That’s something you should avoid! And that’s the main reason why I have so many items listed in the Retired Projects section of my personal website.
Can you formulate a plan, ahead of time, to obtain users once the app is ready?
