There is a good post over at the Creately Blog today which outlines the strategy they use to drive traffic to their website. Even though its very web centric I believe the same applies to mobile applications, even more so as mobile apps are not yet as mature as web apps resulting in less noise in which to compete for user attention. Where web and mobile differ is the distribution method. Web apps are simply sites, one click away from a story whereas mobile apps require a download. So how do you solve this scenario?

Very first step is to look at the App Stores as distribution only, not marketing. Unless your app is featured by the app store, your not going to get marketing assistance from the stores. They are all pretty much the same nowadays, it was different when the stores only had 1000 apps in total so you could feature highly in your category. Once you accept the stores are only distribution, you can move on to the specific marketing steps that best suit you. The Creately article addresses this pretty well, and is certainly a good starting point for startups. To tailor it to mobile, the key thing you want to aim for is a reasonably top spot in your category of the relevant stores your using for distribution. To that end, spreading the word online will certainly get people aware of your brand/product. Therefore its a critical task to undertake even during the development phase so your name is known in the relevant communities when it comes time to engage the community with your product. On mobile I often notice a successful approach to launching your product is to first engage beta testers across a range of devices/networks. Its gives your community something to play with early and provides you with hugely valuable feedback both on features and quality of your product across a potentially diverse set of supported handsets. This is also key to the app store distribution strategy, as you want to ensure you have a top quality application when you release it via the store. In BlackBerry App World, RIMs approval process is pretty simple, so don’t rely on that for quality assurance! The key reason you *NEED* a quality app in the store is because your new users will rate/review your product pretty quickly and an average star rating less than 3 out of 5 will send your app to an early grave.

Ensure to promote the web links for your appropriate mobile app store’s online site. So if you use App World to distribute your BlackBerry app, use the link to their App World web site for your app, so it gives users an easy option to send the app to their device. This removes a step which is often seen as a disconnect where users have to open their device resident App World instance and find your app. This is a lot to ask for a user who briefly engages with a comment about your app on a website. To illustrate the web link for App World, see this example which points to the Bloomberg BlackBerry app.

In conclusion, the ingredients to a popular mobile app are quality and downloads. To achieve those goals, engage with your target audience wherever they hangout and use your credibility to firstly acquire valuable beta testers and later spread the word by evangelizing your product.