Successfully launching an app on the Thinkific App Store takes more than just pushing code. To drive installations and revenue it's important to optimize every part of your app's marketing funnel. This article covers making app listings and techniques you can use to get your app noticed and installed. We'll focus on three key points:
Using benefits-based selling
FABs is a term in sales and marketing that stands for Features, Advantages, and Benefits:
- Features are things that your app can do.
- Advantages are things your app does better than others
- Benefits are how your features improve your customers' lives
Potential customers respond best to benefits-based statements that are backed up by your product's features. Consider these two sentences:
- Feature: "[My app] lets you create custom site pages and increase your sales"
- Benefit: "[My app] helps you easily create beautiful course pages that'll wow your potential students"
The first tells you what my app does, but the latter articulates emotionally why you should use it. A few examples of benefits-based arguments are:
- Ease of use: People like things that "just work"
- Looks good: People want to impress others
- Saves time: People don't like wasting their time
- Saves money: People want to control their costs
- Peace of mind: People don't want to worry or stress
If you can describe a customer pain point or hassle then describe how your product overcomes it, your message will be far more powerful than if you just list off everything it can do. The web is full of articles on benefits-based selling.
Showing your app in action
When a potential customer clicks on your app listing, you have only a moment to catch their attention. You can stand out in the Thinkific App Store by investing in creating compelling visuals. Efficiently display the value of your app with:
- A high quality, 60-90 second video
- Compelling images in the carousel (minimum 1324 x 844 pixels)
- A link to an external demo site that features your app
- User testimonials that provide social proof
The video thumbnail or banner image is the first thing that a potential customer will see on your app listing. Short videos can efficiently communicate what your app does and its key benefits far more comprehensively than a single, static image.
Carousel images supplement your video or banner, and more deeply show how your app works and can be customized across several use-cases. Images should be 1324 x 844 pixels or better with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Linking to an aesthetic external site to show off your app to potential customers is a great, under-utilized method to show off your app "in the wild". This might be a dedicated demo site, or a link to a customer actively using your app.
Lastly, testimonials show how your app affects your customers' lives. Using testimonials increases the authenticity of your listing and gets away from "salesy" language with your customers' own language.
Choosing your words purposefully
Your app's listing will be one of your primary marketing channels for your app. The more efficiently and effectively it communicates the value of your product, the better the listing will be at driving installations and sales.
All apps have a one sentence pitch, which appears above the banner image/video, on the app store's home, collections, and categories pages, as well as within Thinkific (if your app is selected to be featured). This sentence is the most visible and most important part of your listing, since it will receive the most impressions from potential customers.
Your app's pitch should concisely address the following:
- What does it do?
- What customer problem(s) does it solve?
- How does it stand out from the crowd?
- How does it invite the reader to click into it and learn more?
While we support up to 200 characters, a pitch with more than 99 is truncated on an app's preview card. To ensure you're getting your point across, front load your app's value (or just keep it short).
Your listing should supplement the pitch and break down your app's FABs. Each sentence should be an argument that reinforces your pitch. Each line of a bullet list should inform and persuade by meaningfully describing one of your benefits.
Write your app listing with search in mind. As the number of apps in the Thinkific App Store increases more customers will rely on search to find app solutions. Anticipate how your customers will search for your app and use synonyms to ensure that your app has the best chance of appearing in search results.
For more information on how to build out your app listing, please check out our free course on app development for Thinkific!