What are your tips for promoting mobile apps on a shoestring budget?

Mobile app businesses tend to follow a quick life cycle. The reason behind this is driven by rapid consumer behavior empowered by the WOM "word of mouth" effects or in other words the power of p2p recommendation. Without  frequent social-marketing this "new" app would die very quickly as the risk of new dynamic entrants is high and they could easily dominate. 

so in order to succeed in promoting an app on a low budget an entrepreneur can try to:

 

1. Intensively ask family and extended family members as well as friends to download the app and leave a good testimonial/comment.

2. Have the app uploaded to both IOS system and Android.

3. Charge people for it! free apps are not respected.

4. Have a great attention to details with the user experience in mind.

5. List the values of your app and promote all of them together.

6. Record a simple How-to video and upload that to youtube.

7. Create a tripe for your app by throwing a fun launching event whereby food is free.

8. Make sure this tribe is always recommending your app and using your app.

9. Make some gorilla marketing! cause a scene if you well! if it hit the news you're done.

10. Don't be shy to ask people to star-rate high.

 

These are just tips, however the best promoting idea for an app is its core service idea and of course how easy it is for the customer to use. The more personal you are to your customer the more your customer is dependent on you!

Good Luck!

I am going to assume that the shoestring budget allows for the entrepreneur to spend a bear minimum of $100. That $100 should be spent on Facebook advertising alone. Now I do not agree with Abdullah that a free app is not respected. It is solely based on what you do with that app to make an income. Either way, FB advertising should double your investment immediately in the first month. At least if you take the right steps. Other online marketing can then be used to support the advertising you have done.

Focus on relationship-building marketing strategies.

find people who are prepared to help you with marketing on a commission basis or a uni student who’s studying marketing and might need some hands-on experience.

Develop a marketing mastermind group with other small-business owners for the purpose of sharing low-cost marketing ideas and referring each other business.

Promote your business on free online directories and publish your articles on other websites with links to your sites. Be consistent and tenacious.

"Double-check the demand"

Blogger Outreach Program

 

Who will basically do everything for you: back-links, community management, reviews, app testing and gorilla marketing.