How to Successfully Use Influencer Marketing for Apps ?

The rise in the use of smartphones for communication and entertainment has had a rollover effect on the development of mobile apps. Businesses are increasingly turning to mobile applications as a way of connecting with their clients due to their simplicity and ease of use. Mobile users, therefore, have a lot of similar applications to choose from and this presents a huge problem for app developers. It is now more difficult for apps to stand out in the crowded field and developers have been forced to come up with better ways to market their applications.

Influencer marketing is one of those marketing strategies that have been gaining popularity lately. It basically involves having an influencer promote your application to his or her followers. It is quite an effective strategy since the influencer has the trust of his or her followers and as such, they take the product recommendations positively. The influencer’s followers believe that the influencer will not promote something that he or she doesn’t believe in and this makes influencers a valuable resource that app developers can use to get their applications before the right people.

To effectively use influencer marketing to promote their applications, there are a few things that developers need to know that we will cover in this article.

 

How would my application benefit from influencer marketing ?

Here are the benefits of using influencer marketing for apps : 

 

> 1. Increased app recognition

Influencer marketing helps developers reach new audiences with their applications. When a developer works with an influencer with thousands of followers, the application will be accessed by all of these followers. This will lead to increased app recognition and more of the influencer’s follower will head to the app store and download the application.

 2. Reach a relevant audience

App developers should only work with influencers that operate in the same niche or industry as the application that they have developed. If the app in question is a fitness app, then the developer should look for an influencer in the fitness and wellness niche. Working with such an influencer will ensure that your application gets before an audience that is likely to download the application.

 3. Builds trust and credibility

Before influencers recommend an app, they first try it out and then share their opinion with their followers. They don’t just share the positive aspects; they highlight the negatives as well and this is how they earn the trust of their followers. This is more relatable than celebrity endorsements where a celebrity just gives a shout out to a certain product. Developers that work with reputable influencers, therefore, gain some of this credibility and this makes it easy to get more people to download the application. The followers also see the influencer as one of them since they have the same interests and this way, they positively receive their app recommendations.

 

Running a successful influencer marketing campaign

To enjoy all the benefits highlighted above, this is what developers need to do to make their influencer marketing campaigns a success :

 

 1. Find the right influencer

The choice of an influencer has a huge bearing on the outcome of an influencer marketing campaign. Developers should make sure that the influencer’s followers are the target audience of their application. This is because it makes no sense to invest in an influencer whose followers have little or no interest in your application.  Developers should, therefore, analyze an influencer’s followers to determine that they are the target audience for their applications.

 2. Check the influencer’s stats

The success of an influencer marketing campaign is paged on the number of downloads following the conclusion of a campaign but sometimes this effect is not instant. It could take some time for you to witness an exponential growth in the number of downloads but there are a few things that you can analyze beforehand that will tell if an influencer is worth working with. Check the comment section to see how the influencer’s followers react to sponsored content. If it is positive, then you should expect your app to get similar reactions when the influencer promotes it. You also need to check the views and impressions per post as these stats are indicative of how far posts get on the influencer’s platform.

> 3. Let the influencer exercise creative freedom

The influencer knows what his or her audience like and as such, you should let the have creative freedom for the marketing campaign. Share with the influencers some of the marketing ideas that you have but let them have the final say on the approach that they campaign should take. The influencers understand what resonates well with their followers and this puts them in a great positive to decide the direction an influencer campaign should take.

 

Conclusion

Competition in the app industry calls for better marketing strategies and influencer marketing is a good option in this regard. It relies on the trust and credibility that influencers have gained over time to promote applications in a certain industry.

 

Authors’ Bio :

Kate Walker is an experienced marketing consultant. She has a deep knowledge of digital marketing and SEO. Currently, she is running Skin Answer website.