The mobile apps industry is soaring. If you work in mobile advertising you’re likely thrilled by the surge in App Store spend, time spent on mobile and app downloads (which have increased by 35% in the last 2 years).
But something that’s not so thrilling is the challenge of engaging and retaining those users post-download. According to Leanplum:
the majority of mobile users will abandon an app in the first 30 seconds
1/3 of users will only open your app once
75% of users will stop using an app after 3 months
Though the stats look bleak, you shouldn’t have to worry about these issues if you have a full-cycle marketing strategy in place.
In this blog, we’re going to share our top full-cycle marketing tips for your mobile advertising.
Full-cycle marketing is a strategy that goes beyond app awareness and user acquisition. It considers the entire lifecycle of the app user (pictured below) from discovery to download to superfan. Rather than creating campaigns that focus solely on driving app downloads, a full-cycle strategy would include campaigns for existing users who haven’t engaged recently or encourage loyal users to share a review.
By targeting each stage of the user's journey, mobile marketers are able to send relevant and personalised messages to their audience, encouraging regular app usage and eventually referrals to other people. Using full-cycle marketing means that you increase the lifetime value of your customers and lower user acquisition costs by focusing on retaining current customers.
Best practices to get the most from your full-cycle app campaigns
Whether you already have a strategy in place or you’re just starting one now, here are our top tips for utilising full-cycle mobile advertising.
Know your audience
As with any marketing campaign, you can’t craft something truly effective without understanding your audience. With full-cycle marketing, you want to understand the user's journey with your app.
How do their needs change as they evolve from leads to customers?
How do they experience and engage with your brand?
What are the different touchpoints they encounter at each stage?
What would incentivise them to refer their friends?
By creating a user journey map, you make the most of your marketing spend by targeting your campaigns at the right point of the customer's lifecycle.
Segment your users
Use a CRM system to segment your users by similar attributes so that you can target each group accordingly. You could have segments that are divided by:
Users who have downloaded the app but haven’t used it yet
Users who regularly use your app
Dormant users who used to be active but haven’t engaged recently
By segmenting users, you can avoid generic ‘one-size-fits-all’ spam and engage users with appropriate campaigns, i.e., targeting a dormant user with a discount code. Customer segmentation allows you to identify the customer's stage within the user journey and the actions you need to take to get them to the next stage.
Personalised messaging
Personalisation is an integral part of full-cycle marketing, as you’re aiming to build relationships with long-term users. Make sure that the messaging in your campaigns are tailored to the user and their stage of the customer journey. Personalised campaigns could look like:
event-based triggers that send notifications, i.e. letting a customer know their favourite band will be touring their city
onboarding campaigns that welcome new users to the app
alternating ad CTA’s depending on whether they’re a potential customer or current customer (example below)
Have clear goals and KPIs
With full-cycle marketing, the goal is always to get the customer to the next stage of the user journey; once they know the brand, you want to get them to download. Once they’ve downloaded, you want them to become regular users and so forth. While the overall goal is always growth, you’ll need separate and measurable KPIs for each specific stage so that you can optimise your mobile advertising campaigns. The image below shares some great examples of the goals and KPIs you could have for varying segments.
To conclude, full-cycle marketing is a highly effective approach that should be a part of your mobile advertising strategy. Rather than adopting a mass marketing approach, mobile apps have the opportunity to continually touch base with their audience and build relationships with loyal customers.
Want to incorporate full-cycle marketing into your own business strategy? We’re here to help.
As London’s leading growth marketing agency, we’re experts in all aspects of PPC campaigns. We love combining innovative ad-tech with a thorough marketing strategy to create amazingly effective digital advertising campaigns for our clients. If you want to learn more about growing your business through digital advertising campaigns, get in touch.
