As stated one of the most profitable project to develop nowadays in China, App (Mobile Application) and App industry have undergone a great boom. While to create an App is a technique work, to promote it among the public and gain a decent number of users is more crucial and skillful.

So, how to market your App in China?

First, develop your Branding for the App


Create a ‘Baike’is the Chinese word for E-Encyclopedia. To create a ‘Baike’ will bring the App to the searchers when they are searching it or related key words through search engine. It will also support the future E-Marketing campaigns via making the E-PRs and reports more convincing and easier to understand. Marketing wise ‘Baike’ doesn’t mean only the Baidu ‘Baike’ though it is the commonly used platform. A comprehensive marketer can also create the key information on various ‘Baike’ platforms; the few popular ones are Sogo Baike, MBA Lib, Wikipedia, etc. Importantly, ‘Baike’ information writing is a quite skillful job: although many believe it is simple to just put on the App’s introduction and description, it requires a great understanding of target customers’ behaviors, experience in App advertising and marketing, fluent but sense-making logic thinking and effective language applying and organizing. Good ‘Baike’ information should not be subjective, which is usually a common problem when the App’s creator is doing the ‘Baike’ himself. Therefore, an experience agency with a professional ‘Baike’ writer is commonly hired.


Application CHINA

Second, Target your community online

Create a Weibo for the App. wechat & Weibo are  daily used platforms with a huge numbers of public are using. Wherever people know the App, they could easily follow its Weibo, interact with the developers and marketers. A good Weibo account with decent content is able to not only introduce the App to the users but also potentially, if the content is good, to be spread via a large population.

While Sina Weibo is the most popular platform used in China, asking a Tecent Weibo user to find the App information on Sina Weibo is still impossible, therefore, an experienced App promoter will need to create Weibo accounts for the App on many different Weibo platforms.

Wechat is also a good way to promte your App, let the community know more about your new concept or game.

Wechat Marketing


Third, promote on the web

Posting articles on the high-weight forums can be benefic for your promotion. With the basic brand awareness the App promoters could start to think about posting good articles on various forums. A good article sometimes could be spread across thousands of webpages. Apart from good contents, where to post the articles is also important. Those high-weight forums are the top choices. These forums are highly valued by search engines while an article updated on them will be caught much faster comparing to others: within one to two minutes is quite common. Ideally, a new App’s article should be posted on 20 to 50 different forums in order to generate a good result.


Forth expending your communication

Different from the three steps mentioned above that are focusing on setting key words online to increase the exposure of the App, the step four is to open and expend the channels for downloading the App. Channels are in great numbers in China, apart from the main mobile App stores, you could find people downloading Apps through the free bus or cafe’s WIFI service. There are many good self-medias who are also valuable to promote the App through. These self-medias are usually influential among a certain group of people and acting the roles pretty much like the KOLs in some way. They are powerful but a good promoter should have experience in choosing the suitable ones who fit with the project and cost-effective.

Based on the downloading results through various channels, we are able to know the position of the App in the market, the response to the App, the weakness that requires improving as well as the quality of the channels. All of these help the promoters better understand the product and the market, and to select more suitable platforms in future for promotion investing.


Fifth, get the help of influencers

With a slightly bigger budget, an App is promotable through well-planed campaigns. These campaigns could be held online on various forums, App channels or with KOLs, and offline with attractive themes and modes. The form of the campaigns is better to be simple but playable. Choosing a suitable platform is quite important for hosting campaigns, for instance, an office lady-targeting App is ideal to be promoted through the campaigns in or around those branded cosmetic or clothes shops as well as the forums or media channels with these themes, while a youngsters-focusing App is good to be hosted in the collages or gaming websites online.

kol marketing


Further readings