Apps – Social, Games, Utilities, Purchase & Media Payment, News and many other categories – are now integral part of consumer life, even more if you talk about young people with medium to high income.

However, this is a new field, where tools and trends have a something new every day.  On the other hand, there are some basic things that are permanent…..and sometimes are forgotten!!!

1. The very first thing we must have in consideration is the goal we have with our App.

There are apps with the only goal to engage consumers/customers in some way (banks, some brands & news). There are apps developed to be sold (Many utilities & some basic games).  There are apps to sell through the App (some games & services, social, subscriptions, shops, etc.).

We need to know is: What do we want to get from this App? What is its role in our business?

In a general view, an App can be the product itself (many utilities), a way to deliver the product (many services), a sales channel (every day more games & sport apps) or the way to reach and audience to be engaged and sold (social of course).

2. Once we have clear the role of our App in our business, we are ready for the marketing plan for the App that always have two key areas:
   1. Marketing for the App.  We need to make people to download the app in all of the cases and for this there are many digital tools.  From mobile SEM to social and banners.

1. Apps for marketing.  The app is a marketing tool to sell more to the customer we just got (or engage the customer we just got).  In order to do this we need to start from the design: what are we going to sell through the App?  Even if you sold the utility, you want to be sure you can retain your customers.

3. The audience: For both of the tasks we must have very clear the target audience: massive or niche, working or personal use, teens or 30´s, single or married, techy or newcomer. We need to describe as uniquely as possible, in order to understand the way he behaves or will behave to use the app.  We can have 2, or even 3 different audiences, one for each group of actions.

Once we have clear the 3 kind of actions and our audiences, we can decide what marketing to do.  There is not a recipe fitting for everyone….maximize free downloads is very smart in some cases but a big mistake in others.