Effective Mobile App Promotion Strategies On a Shoestring Budget: An Interview with Hanifa, Founder & CEO at Female Daily Network

A seasoned player in the digital media space, armed with the skills of understanding women and consumer behavior. Her track record in starting, building and running Female Daily Network since late 2009 has proven that she the vision, persistence, and capabilities to grow the business, create various monetization models, manage the community, and adapt well to the ever-changing dynamics of a rapidly growing Internet business. She is a passionate and determined entrepreneur with a mission to give meaningful impact and experience to the community and everyone linked in the digital ecosystem.

Here are our seven questions and her winning answers,

1. What kind of tactics do you recommend to app developers for pre-launch marketing?

• Female Daily is a bit different because we started with web first. So we already have our loyal users who become our app users. Making loyal users download the app is easier compared to finding new users and ask them to download. But even then, we still need to make sure that the app experience is way better than the web because if not there is no point of them downloading and using the app.
• Create a ‘coming soon’ page/campaign that kind of provoke their fear of missing out. We need to make them feel like they need to join the app/community so they want to leave their email address and be informed when it’s launched.
• Need to find a group of people/beta testers who really do love the app and would recommend it to their peers. Make sure it’s a niche group so we know who we are targeting to. Also, ask their feedback and improve upon it. Users LOVE it when they know they are being listened.

2. What kind of promotions do you recommend to app developers with a shoestring budget to acquire users?

• I think the answer will vary because a different app can use a different kind of promotion to acquire users. In FD event, we are giving away beauty products samples to people who are showing us our app and have posted something. We get the beauty products for free from brands who are happy to have a chance to expose their products to FD users because the users will eventually review the products in FD app.
• To acquire more users you need to take care of the existing users first. Once they feel belonged, they see how the app is relevant to their daily life and they find the experience meaningful..they will happily spread the news.
• Media exposure is free. Just make sure you have an interesting story to share
  Founders & Team has to be active in social media and become the face of the business. People like behind the scene story and people like to support people, not product. So make sure the people around you know about your company, product and what you’re trying to achieve.

3. What do you think is the biggest misconception that app developers have had when it comes to optimizing the apps?

• More features = better? It’s actually confusing for the users. Always launch with MVP and build it upon users feedback
• Launch when it’s perfect because if they are not happy with their first experience then they will never come back. In our case, we have always acknowledged that the first version still needs works and tell our users that we can only improve if they give us feedback. We have had many users delete the app and come back after a few months and tell us how the experience is much more wonderful this time around. Besides if are not embarrassed with your first version that means you are launching it too late.

4. Which would be the best monetization method for mobile app developers who looking to maximize revenues from their apps?

Depends on the app/business I guess? It has to be decided early on if the business is gonna be monetized through users or advertising business model. If it’s through users, I believe it’s hard to charge for something after they have used it for free. Unless it’s clear that it’s only free trial.

5. What new features or innovations are you bringing to the Female Daily app in the near future?

A Brand dashboard where a brand can log in, see the statistic of their page & reviews in FD, find out who is visiting, what product they are clicking, responding to all the reviews, doing targeted ads based on beauty profile, etc.

6. What’s your advice to app developers/marketers on handling negative reviews?

See it as an opportunity to improve. We send email to everyone who gives negative reviews, ask more about their experience, improve according to feedback and ask them again if they want to try and revise the review? After they do that we send them beauty products as a token of appreciation.

7. What gets you excited about the future of the mobile apps?

• Mobile payment
• Location-based advertising