What is the best way to drive Android app installs ?

Spoiler: There is no best way.

But there are certain minimum standard quality checks and practices which can help in generating a decent number of downloads of your mobile app. I will try to compile the list of few of those for reference. Let’s Start.

User is King. Treat him like one.

Don’t make your users wait. According to survey by https://www.google.com/admob/businesskit/from-an-idea-to-an-app/#chapter-1 72% of users believe a good quality app is one which opens quickly.

UX is the key and design should be spot on. There are tons of music player apps in play store. Why some are more famous afterall all the apps just play music? If your user is not at ease navigating your app, you are going to have a little trouble there.It is always better to let a specialist handle stuff. Get a good designer and make sure you got those pixels right.

Go Material https://developer.android.com/design/material/index.html and Get inspired http://androidniceties.tumblr.com/

Follow the best practices as documented on the android developer site.

1. Best Practices for Performance
2. Best Practices for Background Jobs
3. Best Practices for Security & Privacy
4. Best Practices for User Interface
5. Preparing for Release

Play nice with the user’s device and gain bonus points from the user.

Add instructions for using your app or a friendly guided tour of the features in the app. A library to make your life easier — worker8/TourGuide

Add support option in your app. Help users in reaching out to you with bugs, feature requests and occasional than you notes :). This will help in reducing those one star reviews on play store. Implement in app chat or even a simple email to developer.

Going the extra mile — Giving user the power to customize the app. This can be update frequency, timing, update channel, theme, opt out of notification, customize notification frequency etc.

Bake in social — use social login, encourage users to share your app or build a feature where user can share their generated content. May be give a bonus feature to users who share your app or extend trial period for each share. When you look at the data here Mobile App Monetization, Analysis & Mediation, you will find that second most common way to find new apps is recommendation from friends and family. Sixth most common way to find new apps is spotting it on social network.

Write a blog, tell your story. Yes, your story. How you came across this idea? What was the motivation? What challenges you faced? Everyone loves a good story. How I got 2.3 million app downloads (without spending a cent on marketing).

Go to forums relevant to your app and tell them about your app. It would be lot better if you are an active user in the community. Give some love. Get some back. Add links to your apps or website to your email and forum signature.

Reach out to app review sites with a request to review your app. This is the difficult part, lot of similar mails are already flying in daily in the author’s mailbox. Fear not check out this great app from Google Learn : Primer: Marketing for Startups and learn how to write better request emails and how in general to market your product.

Get your play store stuff sorted out. This is the make or break page for app downloads

• Icons — First Impression
• Screen Shots — Second Impression
• Video — Feature, fun or plain simple guide
• Short Description
• Full Description

I wrote an article on it. You can read it here The Mythical World of Play Store — It’s An App World

Build a website for your app and connect with the play store page. Ask for email IDs and update users with relevant updates. DO NOT SPAM. There is a very thin line here between spamming and email marketing. For 2000 subscribers you can use Entrepreneur | MailChimp for free.

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