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By Alyse Speyer, Web Success Team

Marketing an iPhone app can be both overwhelming and complicated. Once you have an idea for an app, you’ll want to begin thinking about positioning your product within the marketplace. Remember, Apple is extremely picky about what iPhone applications they accept. Take a good look at the iPhone Development agreement when building your application.

Websites Are Key

When marketing your application, you must have a website, not just your App store page. A website will allow you to have control over the promotion of your iPhone app. Having a website with plenty of focused and engaging content will allow you to provide your viewers with enough information about your product to make an informed decision. With a website, you can develop a better message to your audience, track and measure the activity on your site, test your calls to action and increase your search engine page rankings with proper search engine optimization. Don’t forget to make your website mobile friendly. You are, after all, trying to get iPhone users to download your mobile application.

Content, Content and Content

On your iTunes App Store page, you will only be allowed a few pieces of content for your site, such as your icon, a plain text description and a few screenshots. That’s not a lot of information. Therefore, your website will be your information hub, including rich text, links to your site and subpages that provide further detail,   and more.

Create a content calendar with your target audience in mind. Think about the type of demographic that wants to download your app. Developing customer personae might be very useful. Once you have an idea of your audience, determine what type of content to deliver to that audience. Make sure all your articles and content are optimized for search and have social share buttons easily accessible.

Drive Traffic to Your Site

Use social networks and link building tactics to drive traffic to your site. Video content has grown to be one of the top methods for searching. YouTube is now the second most used search engine next to Google. This means that not having video content is a huge missed opportunity.

Participate on relevant blogs and join online communities that are related to your application. That is not to say you should spam on comments, only promoting your app. Write something useful or ask questions to increase engagement. Social networks are more of a soft-sell approach. You want to build a community and carry a conversation about related topics. People will be more interested in your product, if they trust you and don’t think that you are only pushing a sale.

Marketing Is Marketing

Always keep in mind that marketing is marketing and has an end goal, whether it’s a sale or a download. Because you are marketing an iPhone app should not change the basic core of how you market online. Develop a plan with your target audience in mind and market your app as you would any other product. Make sure that your site and all your content are mobile-friendly. Maintain your analytics and see which keywords and phrases users are searching to find you as well as which pieces of content they prefer.

About the Author: Alyse Speyer is an online marketer, social media strategist and works for the  Web Success Team. You can follow them @websuccess or join the Web Success Team Facebook Page

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