作者：Edith Yeung

iTunes App Store非常拥挤，现在的你更难去推动自己的应用安装了。

所以我想分享自己在过去几年里帮助我们Dolphin中的团队获得世界各地超过1亿多用户的一些策略。

这将作为基本的“发展指南”去帮助引导国际开发者更好地了解美国手机市场，并提供特别的策略帮你创建自己的品牌并推动人们去尝试你的应用。如果你能够穿越美国市场各种各样的应用，你便能够接触到许多高质量的用户——有人预测到2015年美国的ARPU（每用户平均收益）将到达51美元，并且这里的智能手机渗透率已经高达62%了。

对于那些还未从自己的应用中赚钱的人来说，你们应该先从较低成本的用户获取渠道开始。请注意较低成本意味着你不能花钱去雇佣一名专家，因此你必须计划亲自学习，而这往往需要花更多时间与精力。以下是一些能够给你带去帮助的小贴士！

注：在此我不想涉及到盈利话题，相反地我会只专注于用户获取。

American-Market(from machineryfromturkey)

1.宣传

你必须从一款高质量的应用开始。在Dolphin，我们专注于创造出色的产品并通过Google Play获得上百万的安装。

所以在产品发行的第一天，我们会看到迅速攀升的安装，并且能够追溯到一篇评论Dolphin Browser的定制功能的文章。本文的影响持续了超过1个月时间，我们的眼睛也始终瞄准着媒体报道的魔力。

关于外部帮助，我知道有一些非常棒的美国公司想要联系我进行相关介绍。

为了利用宣传的力量，你需要先研究如下内容：

谁在编写有关你的竞争者的内容？

谁在编写有关你的合作者的内容？

谁是编写有关你的应用类别的新闻记者？

他们可能发现你的应用的乐趣是什么？

独立的初创企业将亲自与新闻记者进行接触。当你在做这件事时，我会建议你：

发送一封较短的电子邮件（使用适当的英文语法！），并包含有关你的应用以及它如何适应当前发展趋势的相关描述。

理想的情况是使用Gmail或公司帐号。其它途径（@hotmail，@yahoo或已经国家特定域名，如.ru或.cn）过时或者会变成垃圾。

不要一直骚扰新闻记者。如果他们通过了你最初的新闻内容，就不要再继续纠缠了，之后带着不同的故事再去找他。

2.SEO

我们通过许多方面实现SEO（搜索引擎优化）。最容易控制的一种做法便是你通过哪个关键字与应用进行联系—-这些术语让搜索者能够更轻松地找到你。

例如，对于一款财政应用来说，与之相联系的一些关键字应该是：

财政

个人财政

金钱

记账

账单

确保你在应用描述，甚至是你的应用名字上能够包含这些关键字，从而能够有效地提高它的可发现性。你可以搜索并分析你的竞争者或合作伙伴的应用去帮助自己更好地识别与应用相关的关键字。SEO可以包含许多其它策略，但关键字优化是最佳起点。

3.与其他开发者合作

如果你拥有许多用户，你便可以靠近其他应用开发者并建议去推广另外一款应用。只与你知道并且想要与之交流的应用相合作——这还应该基于一定的研究！合作应用的质量和基于用户的重叠是非常重要的内容。

我发现推动安装的最有效的方法便是通过推送通知，内部消息或者首页广告和覆盖式广告等（游戏邦注：你通常都需要为这些花钱）。

在你理解了自己的盈利和业务模式后，你便可以开始花钱去推动更有预测性的安装。

4.哪些消费者会花钱

这里有许多DSP（需求方平台）和交易所，让你能够在此推动美国市场的主要安装。基于不同季节，你的每安装成本将在1美元至10美元不等。是的，这比世界上的其它地方更加昂贵，但是这些平台却非常有效。

关键在于你必须学习如何找到高质量的用户：也就是那些愿意花钱购买虚拟商品或货币的人，或者那些愿意升级到付费订阅的用户。除非你可以衡量或预测谁是高质量的付费用户，否则我并不会建议你基于这种方式去花钱推动安装量的增加。

一旦你清楚高质量用户的定义，你便可以开始创造图像和市场营销副本，并通过各种交易所和DSP进行A/B测试。

结论

有些方法适合其它城市，但却不适合美国。以下是一些你们需要避免的策略，或者至少应该好好考虑下：

将应用放到第三方应用商店：这并不能推动下载量的增加。应用销售是通过App Store和Google Play的驱动。相比之下第三方应用立马黯然失色了。

与智能手机制造商合作：与任何手机运营商和OEM合作真的很费时间并且没有价值——除非你在硅谷，中国或韩国拥有一个专门的业务开发团队。

我希望本文的内容能够帮助你了解美国的手机市场，并帮助你为自己的应用想出最适合的用户获取策略。

依靠创造性，韧性与才智，你将能够按照自己的方式去实现你的美国梦！

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

What 100 million downloads taught me about growth hacking in America

Edith Yeung

The iTunes App Store is crowded, and it’s harder than ever to drive new, quality installs of your app.

So I want to share a few strategies that I’ve learned over the years that helped propel our team at Dolphin to over 100 million users worldwide.

This should serve as a basic “growth hacker guide” to help bootstrapped international developers better understand the U.S. mobile market, and provide specific strategies that will help build your brand and drive people to your app. If you can cut through the clutter of apps in America you will have access to a lot of quality users — the ARPU (average revenue per user) for America is expected hit $51 by 2015 and smartphone penetration is already at 62 percent.

For those of you who are not making money from your app yet, you should start with lower cost user acquisition channels. Please note that lower cost means you cannot pay to hire an expert, and therefore you must plan to roll up your sleeves and learn it yourself, which will take time and hard work. Here are some tips to guide you!

Note: I don’t want to touch on monetization here, as that warrants its own full article — but instead I will focus on user acquisition only.

Editor’s note: If you like what Edith is talking about here, check out our upcoming Mobile Summit – a two-day, invitation-only event tackling the biggest issues in mobile: monetization, marketing, and growth strategies.

1. Publicity

You have to start with a quality app. With Dolphin, we focused on building a great product and hit one million installs purely through Google Play.

Then one day, we saw a HUGE spike in installs and were able to trace it back to an article that reviewed the customization features of Dolphin Browser. The impact of the article lasted for more than a week, and our eyes were opened to the magic of media coverage.

In terms of outside help, there are a few great firms in the U.S., and feel free to contact me for any introductions.

To tap into the power of publicity yourself, start by researching the following:

Who wrote about your competitors?

Who wrote about your partners?

Who are the journalists that write about your app category?

What are the benefits (not features) of your app they may find interesting?

Bootstrapped startups should get in touch with reporters themselves. When doing this, I recommend you:

Send a short email (using proper English grammar!), and include a relevant narrative about your app and how it taps into current trends.

Ideally use a Gmail or company account. Everything else (@hotmail, @yahoo, or country specific domains like .ru or .cn) comes off dated or spammy.

Don’t harass reporters. If they pass on your initial news, let it go and get in touch later with a different story.

2. SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) is informed by a lot of factors. The easiest factor to control is which keywords you associate with your app — these terms allow searchers to find you more easily.

For example, for a finance app, some keywords to associate would be:

Finance

Personal finance

Money

Bookkeeping

Accounting

Make sure you include these keywords in your app description or even your app title to improve discoverability. You can research and analyze your competitor or partner apps to help you better identify keywords that are relevant to your app. SEO can involve many other strategies, but keyword optimization is a great place to start.

3. Exchanges with other developers

If you have a lot of users, you can approach another app developer and propose that you promote one another. Only partner with apps that you know you want to be associated with — and this should be based on research! The quality of the partner app and the overlap in terms of audience are important considerations.

I’ve found the most effective way to drive installs is via push notification, internal messaging, or small banner and overlay ads (you usually have to pay for this).

After you understand your monetization and business model, it’s time to spend some money to drive more predictive installs.

4. Customers who will pay

There are plenty of DSPs (demand-side platforms) and exchanges you can work with to drive substantial installs in the U.S. Depending on the season, you’ll typically pay from $1 to $10 USD per install. Yes, it is a lot more expensive than other parts of the world, but these platforms really work.

The key is you have to learn how to find quality users: essentially, the ones who will pay to buy virtual goods or coins, or who will upgrade to premium subscriptions. Unless you can measure and predict who the high quality paying users are, I would not recommend paying to drive installs in this way.

Once you are clear on your definition of a high quality user, you can then start to develop images, marketing copy, and conduct A/B testing via various exchanges and DSPs.

In conclusion

Some things that work well in other countries just simply don’t work at all or are too laborious in America. The following are strategies that should be avoided, or at least carefully considered:

Putting apps in third-party app stores: This doesn’t drive downloads. App sales are driven through the App Store and Google Play. Third-party app stores pale in comparison.

Partnering with smartphone manufacturers: Working with any mobile carriers and OEMs is really time consuming and almost not worth it — unless you have a dedicated business development team in Silicon Valley, China or Korea.

I hope this cheat sheet helps clarify the U.S. mobile market, and helps you develop appropriate user acquisition strategies for your app.

With creativity, tenacity, and smarts, you will be well on your way to achieving your very own American dream!(source:venturebeat)