How I got 6 million App downloads without investing in marketing.

The first challenge any App product manager would face after product launch is getting customers. 90% of any App downloads comes from App store search. That was enough revelation for me.

Product managers, CEO, COO of a startup or any company are in so much love with their product or the idea that they fail to see what’s the concern is or where the problem is. They think magically product will take off, will go Viral and will be downloaded by hundreds of customers if not millions. This doesn’t work, sometimes what we think doesn’t sell the product but it is usually what we are not thinking of. Sometimes product right but doesn’t reach the customer since the startup or the team never focuses on distribution. But once you get your product all right, the product manager will have to work on distribution and it is not just product manager but everyone in the company. As a rule, when you develop an App, focus 50% on product and 50% on distribution. 90% of the apps fail not because of the product but for the lack of distribution.

When we started with our apps on play store we knew we have to focus on getting the product right and focus on distribution at the same time, Since 90% of any App downloads comes from App store search I wasn’t worried too much about the App downloads. The experiments have to happen on play store or App store only. I knew ASO is by far the most important thing I will do for the app. This is true for anyone.

ASO (App store optimisation) happens with extensive experimentation. Any growth is the result of multiple experiments which should improve your results by 10%,20% or 30%. Not every experiment will succeed and you will have multiple failures but don’t stop experimenting. At one time for us, a small changed spelt a disaster and we had to roll back the change. It also took us some time to recover but we didn’t stop experimentation. The idea is to grow a little more than the last time. Keep improving and never stop.

The next most important thing is the speed of execution. In a few days, you will get to know how your consumers are behaving, how fast you bring the change in ASO is key to your success. We usually relied on 5 days of results, if something worked in 5 days we implemented it blindly, at times this is not a great method to rely on and one should wait for few more days however for us in numerous experiments we realized a 5 day behavior is a good window to judge how the customer is going to take the experiment and the results after the 5 day period more or less remained the same.

When focusing on the growth of app, list the persona of your target customer, know what the customer is looking for and what activities they will do to search the app. List the right keywords for the app. Never and never generalize your App for everyone, not everyone is going to download your App. Not everyone who downloads is going to use the app. No point selling to everyone, always sticks to your target segment. The App will grow faster.

Since we managed hosts of Apps on the App store. We had the opportunity to experiment more and target various consumer. We grew from 2k to 10k downloads/day in 8 months. Thereafter we kept it stable with numbers between 10k/day -16k/day. The downloads in the first year reach 2.5 million and in the second year, it kept the high momentum. From the extensive experiments that we did for various products on ASO and we learnt the following.

• Short description has to be a killer one. No one bothers to read the long descriptions. Long descriptions are for App store search and putting the right keywords. Remember discovery of the app depends on the long description and downloads will depend upon the short description. It is always at an instant you will decide you may need the app.
• Most of the users are wanderers about 40% of them, taking a stroll in the park and stumbling upon your app by various recommendations thrown automatically by the App store. They don’t know your app. They might like to use it with almost no expectations. Most of these will remove your app just after downloading it, however, if these people like you, congratulations you have won the virality game.
• First 3 lines in the long description are the most important lines that one has to write about the app. This will come on the Google search and will drive 10%-20% of your app downloads. This will also act as a great tool for ASO or App store search.
• Keep permissions minimum on the app. Permissions will kill the app before you think. Once you establish your brand you may go on and increase the number of user permissions. Till the time keep the user permissions to a minimum only what’s most important and necessary.
• Feature graphic is the most important graphic for your App. More important than your app icon. It is a must have and should contain a message highlighting the purpose of the app in a few words.
• The more downloads the app has the more it climb up the ladder of App store ranking. The user may not check the reviews & Ratings however they will look at the download numbers for sure. Download numbers are the single most important factor for ranking higher in your category of apps.
• Positive reviews help and you just cannot allow ratings to drop below 4. Below 4 it is a disaster for the app. Reviews are as important than ratings. If the app is new it will rely heavily on the reviews for the growth.
• You need to have a developer page, which should contain a powerful graphic with a few words about the app.
• What’s new is a very important field whenever you have a new app update coming up. The mobile app page lists it just below the short description.

Keep a note that ASO includes screenshots or your app and if you don’t excite here you might not entice the customer to download the App. You cannot have a great screenshot unless you have a great design. The design is the most important factor for your app retention but it is also a key factor in app downloads. The innovative design of your app will bring a good number of wanderers and also target users just by looking at screenshots.

Growth for App may include a host of other factors. However, All the other factors may cost your marketing dollar and may not bring the best results. ASO will not ask for investments in terms of money but it will bring the most of the returns for the company.