As consumers become choosier about which apps they download and regularly spend time with, app store marketing has become even more difficult. A new report from Business Insider, “User Behavior Trends, And Getting Apps To Stand Out,” offers tips to combat today’s current app environment, in which the number of apps people are downloading has stalled, while the cost of acquiring and retaining users has soared.
New-user acquisition tips offered in the article (note: the full report is accessible to Business Insider Intelligence Subscribers only) include using mobile app-install ads, offering push-messaging deals, using location-based targeting, and incorporating QR codes. Report author Tony Danova highlights Beeby Clark+Meyler’s Marriott mobile app launch, which used several of these aforementioned techniques, as an example of a successful app case study.
Marriott’s first-ever mobile app launched in a competitive and saturated hotel-and-travel-app market that includes rival apps from HotelTonight, Kayak, Expedia, and TripAdvisor. Beeby Clark + Meyer designed a campaign, promoted across various paid and owned mobile-marketing channels, that emphasized how the user (and the user’s smartphone) “needed a vacation.” The app included various print, social, and desktop display channels.
To reach people on smartphones, BCM used display ads on the mobile web and mobile-search retargeting. Additionally, ads with QR codes were used to initiate app downloads at Marriott hotel properties.
The Marriott app reached the top spot in the travel category in the iOS App Store on the campaign’s first day, and became the first travel app to break into the top five free apps overall.