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3 Moments of Truth — Mobile App Marketing

Keeping these 3 Moments of Truth in mind can help you tailor a coherent marketing strategy as well as user experience for your mobile app.

Gurinder Singh, Blogger

January 15, 2015

5 Min Read
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The mobile landscape is more competitive than ever and it’s only getting more competitive. This fact was reinforced by a new report by AppFigures showing the growth in terms of number of apps as well as developers on 3 of the biggest app stores. As a result, not only are there more options for users to download from, the competition has ensured that the CPIs continue to rise to insane levels as the biggest publishers try to get as many users as possible to their apps.

As a mobile marketer, this means that you must ensure you do everything you can to reach the right audience, with the right message and deliver the right experience to succeed in this cut-throat market. Like in traditional marketing, you must win over the users at these 3 Moments of Truth for mobile:-

1. Stimulus — Stimulus is specific to paid user acquisition and occurs when the user sees your app install ad on any of the advertising mediums. This is the first impression the user gets of your app and it’s critical to get this right. Taking Facebook app install ads for example, the following elements have to be tailored to appeal to your target audience:-

  • App Name — The name should be attractive to the target audience and tailored towards it. For example, we target older women for our casual games and having a sci-fi or techie name would not be the best option to catch their attention.

  • Banner — The graphics should also showcase what the target audience wants to see. Again for casual games, you would want the banner to be very colorful with possibly cute characters that look attractive to the audience along with a clear call to action button like maybe a “Play Now”.

  • App Icon — Needless to say, the Icon needs to be attractive and is important not only for ASO on the appstore page but also for user acquisition campaigns. Again, for casual games, you would probably like to have a cute character here with bright colors and gloss around.

  • Text — The text is something specific to Facebook Ads but also needs to be tailored with the audience in mind to maximize the chance of attracting the correct user for clicking on the Ad.

2. First Moment of Truth — The first moment of truth for the user is the app’s AppStore page. The AppStore page is where the user decides whether to install the app or not and certain factors are critical to affect the user’s decision:-

  • App Ratings — Higher app ratings instill confidence in the user of the app’s quality and also forms a positive image in the user’s mind even before playing the game which would also ensure the user would be willing to spend more time in the game before deciding whether he/she likes the game. Lower ratings would have the exact opposite psychological impact.

  • Screenshots/Game Trailer — The general behaviour, you would notice, while installing the app yourselves is also to look at the screenshots (or Trailer) of the game before reading the description. A lot of times you would skip the description itself if the screenshots are very good. Which is why it’s critical to showcase the best of the game in the screenshots with catchy taglines to give yourself the best chance of attracting the right user.

  • Description — The first 4–5 lines of the description are what are shown in the Appstore by default unless the user taps on ‘more’ to reveal the rest of the description. You need to make sure the user gets sold in the first 4–5 lines itself.

3. Second Moment of Truth — The second moment of truth for the user is when the user uses the app itself. And this is exactly why FTUE (First Time User Experience) is so critical, your app’s FTUE must ensure the UX lives up to the expectations the user had built up before installing the app. No matter how good your game is, if you can’t bed the users in with an awesome FTUE, you’re going to see a lot of churn in the early stages which would have a direct impact on your app’s Engagement, Retention, Monetization and Virality.

4. Third Moment of Truth — The third moment of truth is when the user becomes an engaged user of the app and adds value to your business through multiple means like:-

  • Making an in-app purchase

  • Inviting friends to the app

  • Leaving a high rating on the App Store

  • Spreading word-of-mouth about the app

As a Mobile Marketer, it is essential you keep these 3 moments of truth and mind and ensure that at each stage, you are tailoring the experience to your target audience. Everything has to tie together as a coherent marketing strategy to ensure the product is a winner amongst the crowd for the target audience.

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