What Is The Virality In Mobile Marketing
According to Statista the number of available apps is over 4.5 million only on Apple App Store cumulated with Google Play Store and it is growing daily.
Number of active apps in Apple App Store
In these overcrowded app markets where the competition is fierce, it is very hard for a mobile app to have success. It makes a considerable difference if the app is popular or viral. The Virality in Mobile Marketing is the number of new adepts invited by each user. We measure the Viral Coefficient by the formula:
Viral Coefficient = N X P1 X P2,
Where N is the average number of users invited by each active user, P1 is the proportion of invited users that become active users and P2 is the proportion of users who invite other people.
Of course, every growth of each of these parameters will lead to a greater viral coefficient. If the viral coefficient is bigger than 1, then the app has a significant chance to go viral. Otherwise, if the app has the viral coefficient smaller than 1, you should do something about that because this coefficient won’t grow by itself.
What Are The Best Practices To Make An App Go Viral
If you want your users to share your app, you have to convince them to do it. This is easy to say hard to do. But, there are some tactics that will make your users to spread the word about your app.
- Help users. Create a helpful app. Think about an app that will solve a problem and develop it. If your app will improve their way of doing things there is no reason for users not to like it.
- Share buttons. Make everything easier for users to express their excitement regarding your app. You can add share buttons after they completed some task or they won a battle in a game. Who doesn’t like to brag about his results?
- Offer Incentives. If you give your users rewards for sharing your app it is a sure fact that the number of downloads will increase. Although, in a game it is easier to offer bonuses for bringing friends in the app because it is inherited in this type of app, for other categories you can put some special features as a prize for more users. But don’t stop there. You can do more. Offer rewards for both, user and his friend for using and sharing your app.
- Test all the possibilities. You can’t know from the start the best method to ask your users to share the app. If you have more than 1 solution you can consider A/B testing to figure things out.
- Track everything. If you measure all the metrics including app retention and monetization, it will be easier to realize what type of users brings more value into your app.
What Kind Of Relationship Is Between Virality and App Downloads
As we stated in a previous article, Virality represents a loop. This way, if a user is happy with an app then he invites other friends to download the app, which attract other people into the app. They will create a recurring process called Growth Mechanism that will bring more downloads with every user that installs the app.
The 5 Ways to Increase App Downloads by Force of Virality In Company With the Real Examples
We will list some of top popular apps that increased its number of downloads by force of virality. Since there is no such thing as overnight success, maybe you are wondering what is their secret. Look at this chart from Statista with the most popular apps in the world in May, 2016.
- Give users what they want. Most of the apps showed before are social network apps. Nowadays, being connected with friends is the reason we wake up in the morning. There is no wonder that WhatsApp is the first.
- Of course, Facebook is at the top of tree viral apps because it is all about social sharing. Users are the best promoters of an app. If you implement the idea of sharing in your app and you give users the opportunity to share their achievements it will boost your downloads for sure.
- Besides the fact that Uber is so useful, it has an offer that is very hard to refuse. Offering users benefits after sharing an app with their friends sent Uber on 7th place among the most popular apps in the world.
- As we highlighted before testing is the key of success in mobile applications. Danielle Jabin, data engineer at Spotify shows some lessons learned at Spotify regarding A/B testing. Maybe this is the reason why Spotify is in the chart above.
- For all the apps above marketers created campaigns that managed to increase their app retention and to target the right audience that will bring more users and more value to their app.
Image Source: www.uber-codes.com
FINAL THOUGHTS
Using virality to increase your app downloads is a great solution even if you have a limited budget. It’s all about value. Give your app high value and make others see that. In the end, you will win more users and they will have an amazing app to share with their friends and family.
1 comment. Leave new
Great article! Thanks.