Mobile gaming has become so popular that games are taking over 80% of the market. Hardcore gamers spend over 40% of all their time in games. Due to this mobile gaming is the most prolific and challenging business model for app developers and marketers. It’s becoming harder and harder to get discovered your app by consumers among the millions of already existing apps. Hence, the most successful companies in the new mobile economy have changed their marketing strategy. Now they deeply understand consumer behavior differences by game genre.  This level of understanding greatly informs a company’s app acquisition, retention and monetization strategies, which includes a marketing plan.

As nowdays marketing involves time, money, and lots of preparation. One of the best ways to prepare yourself is to develop a good marketing plan. A well-planned marketing plan will include new effective ways of marketing, as you’re not only changing your old marketing trends, but you’re adapting new and successful ways by spending your marketing funds wisely and appropriately.

Developing a marketing plan, doesn’t mean that you need to write a document which every marketing member have to follow in your team. Marketing plan varies for different apps and you have to plan wisely which marketing strategy best suits to your app. In this article, I have discussed about mobile app marketing in three simple steps:

  • Basic Marketing
  • Intermediate Marketing
  • Advance Marketing

To make it more clear and succinct I have explained each step by considering four factors:

  1. App
  2. Business Model
  3. Distribution
  4. Promotion

Basic Marketing: If our app lies in this category then you can follow below mentioned steps:

1. App:

  1. What problem is the app solving
  2. Map the user experience from your previous apps
  3. Understand and note key points
  4. Test the app  by checking whether its covering variety of device, aiming to many countries or Geo and of course its OS Coverage
  5. Product naming
  6. Product description, Icon, screen shots and videos
  7. Product testing, initial review and ratings

2. Business Model:

  1. Paid, in-app, ads, subscription, hybrid
  2. Understand willingness to pay: Track your previous app records or success rate of your current app
  3. Map lifetime value and likelihood to pay
  4. Test different business models
  5. Implement tracking through various tools and analytics
3. Promotion:
  1. Segment/Target/Position
  2. Build a framework
  3. Creative/Media Planning
  4. Basics: Social pages, blog, YouTube, Email
  5. SEO/PR and social outreach, Engage users and community
4. Distribution:
  1. Identify and prioritize channels
  2. Build relationship with right contacts. Pitch your app

Intermediate: This marketing technique includes following steps:

1. App:

  1. Product fact sheet
2. Business model:
  1. Track and optimize
  2. Experiment by trying different business models
3. Promotion
  1. Ad Neworks, Search Ads, Banner Ads, Mobile Ads
  2. Video Ads, Cost per Install, In-app advertisement
  3. Track and optimize
4. Distribution:
  1. Featured placement on app stores/Marketplaces
  2. Co-marketing deals: pre installs

Advance Marketing:  As you are planning to choose for advance marketing, this implies that you have a wow factor in your app.

1. App: Once you and your users are satisfied with your app icon, screenshots, and description, then only you choose for advance marketing. So, this step doesn’t involves any work.

2. Business Model:

  1. Iterate and make changes/Setup promotion experiment

3. Promotion

  1. Large media campaigns including radio, tvcs
4.Distribution:
  1. Gift Cards/Pre paid cards
  2. Co-marketing with 3rd parties
  3. Retail in-store presence
  4. Licensing deals to enhance brand: TV, movies, toys etc
  5. 118n partnership to reach other markets

Hope this article will make your mobile app marketing task easier. Each of the steps above will contribute to successful mobile app marketing, but none of them are silver bullets.
For earning high downloads you have to create a great app with error free coding and astonishing graphics and consistently promote it before and after launch through as many ways as possible in the app store ecosystem or outside it. With a lot of hard work, and a little luck, you can build a massively successful mobile app that will drive your business towards success.