Employing Other Creative Marketing Strategies to Reach Your Audience

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to create a prerelease buzz for your Android application. But don’t be afraid to think outside the box as well.

Let me give you an example. Right now, I am in the process of working on an application. I don’t want to get into what it is exactly, for legal reasons that I discussed in Chapter 3, but I can tell you it is software that helps users prepare for tests.

My main target audience is going to be students, both at the high school and college levels. Fortunately, I happen to live in a college town, and I am less than eight miles away from another college.

My plan is to create colorful fliers that look similar to the web presence that I have previously shown in Figures 8-1 and 8-2 above. I could make these fliers 8×14 inches so I would have plenty of room to add more content if I saw fit. Even before the app is created, I could get the poster made, with a small space reading “Coming Soon.” I could then put the posters all over the college campuses so that students will know that there is an application to help them with their studies.

Once the application is made and out on the market, I could then make more of the same posters, but instead of “coming soon,” I would include a QR code showing where to get the application. I will explain more about QR codes in Chapter 10, but in essence, these allow users to download the application directly from the poster via the user’s bar code application.

As you can see, I figured out a marketing campaign that involves the use of nothing more than posters, and will reach the audience that needs it. I will have to figure out where to put the fliers so college students will see them. Not only is it important where I put the fliers up, but when. For example, if I put up these fliers at the beginning of the school year, they will be ignored, because students aren’t generally thinking about studying for tests at this time. However, as it gets toward finals week, an application that helps one study will look very good to the students.

This is what a marketing campaign is all about: reaching the right audience, in the right place, at the right time. When considering a grassroots marketing campaign such as the one just explained, try to think about the culture referred to in Chapter 3, figure out where they are, and meet them where they are at. For example, if there are conventions related to your application, then make plans to go there. (I will discuss conventions in more detail in Chapter 11.)