One of the ways of reaching a wider audience with your app is to create an effective marketing campaign. Many people are keeping their eyes open for new convenient apps that help solve questions so you have to provide them with a complete information on your product even prior to the app release date. For larger companies, it is a way to gain a new audience; for startups, it can build a pool of first users. Through your campaign, you can tell users about features your app provides, even suggest them discounts, etc.
The important question for any business is how much does it cost to market an app. Indeed, it is not a simple one as many factors are to be considered. You have probably heard that planning is an important stage of almost any project. Planning of promotion and marketing is no exception.
To promote successfully you should estimate marketing budget for mobile app. This first step requires consideration of all the aspects that involve money to create a separate budget for marketing. Here are several tips that should be considered in your business plan with budgets.
Any marketing budget is better than no budget at all
To create a budget, start with analyzing the purposes of the application. Mobile app marketing budget depends on the market you want to enter and your target audience. The application can be serving as an extension of your brand identity or a place where you provide services and sell goods. While the goals are different, the price of promotion also varies quite a lot. More to that, your ROI depends on the materials of analysis. So, don’t let it pass unnoticed and spend time on some good thinking.
Answering on how to estimate a mobile app marketing budget, right down are the figures for gaining users so you will be able to predict how much money should be spent to reach your promotion goals. Try to be as precise as possible and don’t be scared if the figures are high. There is always a way to adjust a campaign if you consult someone with proper experience. Mobile app advertising cost may also vary significantly from country to country, and there are many different recipes for any amounts of money. Of course, the higher marketing budget you have the better. However, it doesn’t mean that startups with small budgets are doomed to fail.
Modest budget
If you have less than $1,000 to spend for a month, it is safer to try different methods of gaining customers and adjust the strategy along the way. The most important task here will be to acquire new customers and promote in-app purchases (in case you have those) as according to Statista, the revenue from this model grows fast.
For new business, getting first income is crucial, that is why you have to concentrate on essentials and spend about 20% time on marketing activities, including the analysis of what works better for your project. It will allow you to optimize app marketing costs and spend money smarty. For instance, starting to use Google Adwords don’t put your budget into a big campaign, instead of that break it into small tests to check the efficiency.
Being short on resources, think about the operating system your app will be built on in advance. To submit the application on iTunes you will have to pay about $99/year, though the returns are usually very high. To undergo registration for the Android app store you will only pay $25 as a one-time fee. Also, you will have more freedom there. Before submitting your app, make sure you become familiar with cost per install as well as all the terms and conditions to eliminate any troubles, blocks or losses. These costs might be also important once you calculate mobile app marketing budget.
Medium budget
Having $1,000 – $5,000 dedicated to marketing expenses you can actually shape quite a comprehensive budget for marketing a mobile app. It will help you to reach strong web presence that is especially important for a new brand. Start with a great website dedicated to the products or services represented in the app, so that people learn more about them before they see the app. It should look great on both iOSIos and Android and on a laptop screen too. You will be able to promote this website and convert visitors to leads through CTA’s and contact forms.
Another important marketing channel is social media. It can be:
- Facebook;
- Twitter;
- Instagram;
- Pinterest;
- Reddit;
- LinkedIn;
- Google+.
There are more, however, there is no need to use all of them. First of all, analyze what networks are more popular among your potential customers. Being in the fashion industry you might want to consider Instagram while presenting financial innovations suits better for LinkedIn. App advertising cost usually varies from one network to another, but simply being present is also valuable. Combine paid advertising with interesting content, and you might be surprised how fast social networks work for your benefit (especially in case your offer is really needed on the market).
Also, pay attention to your company blog. It is a great way to connect with customers and familiarize them with what you do. Through high-quality and useful content, you will be able to earn the trust of potential customers and get them to meet your custom app.
Higher budget
Once you have more than $5,000 to put into mobile app advertising budget, you can think about hiring marketing specialists who can work hard in this particular area. Larger budget means more channels, more advertisements, and more leads. Though it might seem that the strategy will be pretty much the same as with medium budget, it is not entirely so. With more resources, there can be more possibilities. For example, events and webinars can be organized, or you can create a YouTube channel and start shooting videos.
Marketing specialists work in tight connection with developers, designers, and strategists. There are also content marketing and social media marketing specialists. All of them add value to your project and do work that takes your business closer to success. That is why many companies prefer to hire digital agencies with a full cycle of services. Having a whole team working on your project might somewhat increase the cost to promote your app, but it also brings more visible results.
What can be included in your marketing budget
There are lots of promotion options that are used by marketing specialists. All of them require different amounts of dollars and provide you with new customers. Here are some of the examples:
- Social media ads – try boosting Facebook or Twitter and see how it goes;
- Videos – this format becomes more popular day by day;
- Blog presence – readers can become customers at any moment;
- SEO keywords – help people find you and increase the traffic;
- Great content – being useful works well for long-term relationships;
- Events – community and media attention always comes in handy.
All of this tricks can be used for different channels. Promote truly useful posts about your product full of keywords and see what audience reacts better – Facebook or Twitter. It is not only useful for your mobile app marketing budget as you get the chance to adjust it effectively but also very interesting and emotionally rewarding.
You can compare the marketing activity cost with the revenue resulted from this activity. Take the costs you pay to run a targeted advertisement, check how many people clicked on the ad and what income it brought you. Thus, you will be able to calculate the cost to revenue which is one of the most important metrics to understand before making serious marketing decisions.
Conclusion
Users buy goods and use services right through their iphones or smartphones increasingly more often. A couple of years ago most users would at least turn a laptop to buy an airplane ticket. Now it’s done on the way to work between checking email and answering friends in messenger.
To join the market of successful and loved applications, you need to make sure that your app is at least known. Remember that it is important to estimate marketing budget for mobile app, but it is equally important to follow this budget. Not like it’s carved in stone, but let’s pretend it is close. It is better to miss some minor aspects once in a while than to find yourself far beyond the planned calculations.
If you seek professional advice, we will be glad to hear from you in Lunapps. Our experienced team will make sure to understand your goals and provide you with a budget helping you take your goals to reality.