Evan Carmichael breaks down app marketing in three steps: build something excellent people will keep and talk about, start with your personal network without hard selling, then reach out to influencers in your target audience. Word-of-mouth beats paid ads when the app solves a real problem.
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How to advertise your app. Apps are everywhere, right? And it's great, it could be a great business to get into because it's so scalable, right? You put a lot of work in at the beginning, but then adding new customers doesn't cost you anything. The problem is there's so many apps on the market and most of them are crap. It's so easy to get in that it's hard to stand out against everybody else. So how do you do it? This comes from a question from one of my YouTube viewers, Herman. Who wrote in to say, "I have a question for you. I'm an app developer. I develop apps for iPhone. My question is, I'm looking for ways to advertise my app. Everything inside the app is ready. The only thing that is left is sending the app into the App Store. Do you have any tips for advertising it?" Here's how I would do it, okay? The first thing is make sure that the app is great, because nothing's gonna help you if you have a crappy product. You want something that people will talk about. I don't know what your model is. I tend to lean towards the freemium apps. It starts off free and then there's so much value in them that you end up paying for it. I've paid for a number of apps that have gone through that model and it's a great way to build a business. You want people talking about your app. I don't know how many times I've gone up to people, friends, family, and I've had my phone and I've talked about the apps that I use. People ask me and I've done videos. What are the apps? That you use, and you can— you get a sense of a person's life just by looking at the homepage of their phone, by seeing what apps that they use. Okay, people like to talk about this stuff. If I discover a new app, I'm making a video on it, I'm telling my friends about it. So the first step for you is making sure that your app is amazing. So hopefully that's built in, something I want to talk about because it's so great. The next thing is you have to start even with your own network of telling people about your app and what it does and what problem it solves. Why do people need to care about this thing, right? You wrote in to me, I'm making a video for you, this is going on my channel, you know, I'm coming up on a million views on my channel. I don't even know what your app does, right? I could be plugging you right now. Herman's got this app, it does this on the iPhone. Right? You gotta tell people what do you do. What does the app do and what major problem does it solve? In everything that you put out. Okay? If you're talking to people, your friends, business, you have to let people know. And it's not a sales pitch, it's not, "Here's why you need to go buy my app or download my app." People are genuinely curious in what other people are up to. Right? If I see a friend that I haven't seen for a while, what do I ask? "Hey, what's been going on? What are you up to?" I just developed this app! Here's what it does! Right? It doesn't have to be a sales pitch, but you gotta let people know what it is that you're doing. This is the start, okay? This is how you start building this. Even just through your friends and family and talking to people like me who are talking about your videos and your apps, okay? This is how you get it started, but it has to start with what it is that you do. The third thing I would do is start reaching out to people. Reach out to people who have your target audience. So if you're targeting entrepreneurs, if entrepreneurs are going to use your app, then I'm a great person to talk to. If you're targeting scientists, if you're targeting librarians, if you're targeting teenage girls, whatever it is, there are people who are influencers to your target market. Reach out to them. Let them know what you're doing. I like things that relate to entrepreneurs, right? I live and breathe entrepreneurship. Most of the stuff I do for entrepreneurship, I don't get paid to do. I'm not getting paid to make this video, as far as I know. Herman, you know, if you want to buy me something, that's good too. But, you know, I love this stuff because I live and breathe entrepreneurship. If there was an app for entrepreneurs and it was great, I would check it out. You wouldn't have to do a huge sales job on me because that's what I love doing Anyway, if the app is great, I'm gonna check it out, I'm gonna tell my friends, I'm gonna say, "Hey, you need to check this out," I'm gonna make a video, I'm gonna tweet about it. So that's my 3-step plan, okay? Number 1, the app has to be great. Don't release a crappy product. Release something that people will use, will put on the home page of their phone, and will want to tell their friends about. If it's not, keep tinkering and make it great, at least for a select target audience. Pick a group of people who you want to target, who you— who will live with your app. It's got to be that good for somebody. Then start telling people about it. Your friends, family, people who you're talking to. Let them know, here's the app, here's what I'm working on, here's the problem that it helps. And then start reaching out to people. Start reaching out to the influencers who control your audience, who can— if they say this is a good thing, they're gonna go do it. Believe. Thanks for watching. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up below. You have a comment, leave it below. You have a question, leave it below. You have an app you want to promote that helps entrepreneurs, put it in the comments. I might check it out, might do a video on it, you never know. Thank you everybody, I'll see you soon.
