Friday 28 November 2014

Twitter Will Track The Mobile Apps Users Have Downloaded

marketingland.com

The social network will collect lists of apps on people's phones, but not track app activity, to improve ad and content targeting

twitter-mobile-app-ss-1920
Twitter is about to get more up close and personal with your mobile device.
The social network signaled today that it will start collecting data on the mobile apps that its users have downloaded.  The move, first reported today by Re/Code and laid out on a new support page, is meant to help the company “build a more personal Twitter experience” for users. Twitter will be collecting the list of apps a user has downloaded, but nothing about the activity within the apps.
Twitter will use the information about what apps people have on their phones to better target advertising, the company’s main revenue source.
Twitter also says it will use the data to improve its “who to follow” suggestions and unearth more relevant tweets, accounts and other content to serve in users’ timelines. That would play nicely with Twitter’s “instant timeline” plan – an effort to improve the experience for new users by giving them more engaging content as soon as they sign up — that CEO Dick Costolo shared this month. Such initiatives are seen as crucial for the company as it tries to shake the perception by Wall Street analysts that it isn’t adding and retaining enough users.
The new app tracking feature is opt-out, meaning users who don’t want to be left out will have to adjust their settings. However, users who have previously opted out of ad tracking in their iOS or Android apps won’t be included.
Twitter is starting to roll out the new feature today on iOS devices; Android will follow in the next weeks. Users will receive this prompt — “To help tailor your experience, Twitter uses the apps on your device” and be presented a button to take them to their settings when the feature has been activated.

Why Are Great Apps Shying Away From Push Messages? (When They Shouldn’t Be)

business2community.com
Why Are Great Apps Shying Away From Push Messages? (When They Shouldn’t Be) image zack morris phone.jpg 300x225
Zack Morris. What a hunk.
In the early 90’s, his picture was plastered on teenage girls’ walls throughout the country. Besides his dashing looks and ability to sweet talk his way out of anything, he owned a cellular phone (a big deal back then). But phones were much simpler in the past. There were no apps. There was no caller ID. He actually had to answer it to find out Principal Belding was calling to tell him to get back to class.
These old “brick” phones wouldn’t even fit in a purse without half of it sticking out. The antennas on those things could pierce someone from five feet away. They were useful, but not the least bit practical.
Now, we can book hotel rooms, apply for jobs and get directions from point A to point B all on a phone the size of our hand. How cool do you feel now, Zack?
*Sound of posters everywhere being torn off of bedroom walls*
More important, is the ability for businesses to create a personalized dialogue with each and every one of their customers. Not through an email that a user reads on their mobile device, nor a banner ad while browsing the web, but actual messages that get sent directly to the user’s home screen: push messages.
If we went back in time and told this triumphant tale, companies would’ve jumped at the opportunity to create such an intimate conversation with their customers. So why now, are great apps shying away from push messages?
There is no black-and-white answer, but we’ve collected some common misconceptions about push messages, and break down why modern brands should utilize (and not scrutinize) this app marketing tool.

“Push messages are just modern-day email spam.”

Why Are Great Apps Shying Away From Push Messages? (When They Shouldn’t Be) image spam kid.png 300x300We’ve been trained to smell spam from a mile away. No, not the slimy stuff in a can. The kind that tells us we just won the Australian lottery. And the kind from our distant Uncle David who’s stuck in Myanmar and needs money to get out of jail. Yeah, that kind of spam. We’ve been subjected to it for so long that we’ve developed a sixth sense that can detect it long before it even arrives in our inbox.
But email and push messages are fundamentally different. All it takes is for someone to get a hold of your email address, and they can send you as many emails as they want (there are laws, but the real spammers ignore these).
With push messages however, business can only send them to people who actually have their app installed on their phone. This means they’re already interested in your app and their spam sense is no longer heightened.
So why do some people still consider push messaging a form of spam? Because a few rotten apps have spoiled the barrel (see what I did there?). There are thousands of app marketers who respect the valuable real estate on their users’ phones. But a select few have abused this privilege, constantly sending impersonal, uninteresting messages about how much they miss them. They’re doing it all wrong. We’ve found time and time again, that when app marketers spend time developing a strong push messaging strategy, it works.

“We’re just going to scare our users away.”

Why Are Great Apps Shying Away From Push Messages? (When They Shouldn’t Be) image Z q8DcdmXu Yh K5PZJ7n3dFzK3K5Qr2nq UCrmBjniEp3zpSw88tcrXbgWyg2CVOUVC0L5VNy9vgCfSXBbHgjdwsjtowsfu1TrB3r ha0zT7boy0BpND8cF1HgBpuMGmA 300x200
Does this image come to mind when you imagine users receiving your push notifications? Well then, you have quite the imagination! Here’s the real story: If you’re not sending push messages to your users, you’re missing out a huge opportunity to draw their attention and re-engage them. In fact, we’ve found that abandonment rate actually drops from 21% to 11% when users have push enabled.
But if you’re just sending blanket messages, you could be squandering this opportunity. Segmenting is a way to group your users by specific profile or behavioral data. For example, you may want to highlight a certain Alex Rodriguez steroids story to only those users who have viewed the baseball category in the past. Rather than try to craft a generic message that caters to your entire audience, this allows you to hone in on the messaging that you know will resonate with different personas.

“Only big brands can get away with sending push messages.”

It can be daunting knowing that your messages are potentially going against the likes of Tinder, Pinterest and Facebook. And true, you may have to work harder to prove your value, but you have just as much right to be on your users’ screens as they do. Don’t sell yourself short! They downloaded your app for a reason. If you can identify what they find so valuable, you can capitalize on this by sending them push messages you know they’ll respond to. Remember, your users have the chance to opt out of push messages for specific apps. If you’re doing it better than the big guys, then guess what? You’ll stay on their screen. They won’t.

“We would try it, but we have no clue what to write.”

Why Are Great Apps Shying Away From Push Messages? (When They Shouldn’t Be) image X0u xxZ1YXVNv50ko4PzCNKqMq v 79chtAiGBNHGzwceB6R3OKm4K0ZcSf43JDcES2 nFcRxyUQEUnMpuJX0WKnHfDlXnwXw5oUm4dwDzwiz8esOQrl5Uj9 G2BSNUFcw 300x209
Not everyone was born to be a copywriter. And if you’ve never done it before, it can be a bit overwhelming coming up with your first push message. Which stories do your customers care about? What types of sales would grab their attention? Both are valid questions. But you have to start somewhere. While it’s impossible to read your users’ minds, there are techniques to better understand what resonates with them. Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. A/B test
Also known as split-testing, this allows you to run one single marketing campaign with two alternate messages. Once you determine the winning copy, you can then use that as the control to test even more messages against. Think of it like a science experiment for push messages. How does this help you write your copy? It gives you a place to start.  If something doesn’t work, you can change it and then have a benchmark to measure all future campaigns against.
2. Keep your messages clear and concise
It can be pretty tempting to be as detailed as possible with your push messages. Afterall, you don’t want to leave out the one nugget of info that triggers your users to click. But in fact, we’ve found that shorter is better. If your message is between 11 and 20 words, you’re on the right track. But if you keep it to 10 words or fewer, you can more than double your click-through-rate compared to long messages with more than 20 words long.
3. Use templates
Templates are one of the easiest ways to get those gears going when you can’t seem to think of anything. If you find yourself in this boat, try using one of our 8 push notification formulas to get that mojo flowing.

“No one has push messages enabled anymore.”

There’s been an ugly rumor going around lately – that no one enables push messages on their phones anymore. As much as SMS companies would love you to believe this, it’s simply not true. We’ve actually found that more people have them enabled than don’t! We sampled over 400 million devices and saw that 52% of users have push enabled. That’s a big chunk of your user base that you could be missing out on if you’re not using push.

“People don’t even pay attention to push messages.”

Why Are Great Apps Shying Away From Push Messages? (When They Shouldn’t Be) image EWV K G DM3cJ Ck4ASTX0oDc l8QknbgDMLtFk3aUs4 EZVQrb xF5Rggn68OonF35iWa DZdqNHidNqI04xaO88WtDkHkD2zJWgj IfhFgpVz jfY56flLLku46J3 og 300x225
You’ve been there before. Waiting on an important phone call from your new crush or potential new job offer (or in my case, the pizza delivery guy). You feel a slight vibration in your left pocket. “Is this it? Is this the one?!” you ask yourself. You pull out the phone with butterflies in your stomach, eyes wide, only to see that it’s a push notification from your Hipster Music app with the phrase, “Hipster? But I barely even know her!” As confusion, rage and disappointment simultaneously set in, you begin to question the very existence of modern technology, knowing that anything, even the infamous phantom vibrate, would’ve been better than that push notification.
You’d been had.
It’s apps like Hipster Music that have left a sour taste in people’s mouths. But the reality is this: It’s not that people don’t pay attention to push messages, it’s that people don’t pay attention to bad push messages. Which means that if you do it right, your users will listen and possibly even act. In fact, we’ve found that app launches increase by 88% for users who have push enabled on their phones. And on average, it results in a retention rate that’s 3 times higher.

Engagement: From Download to Conversion

Maybe you’ve found yourself voicing one or all of these objections in the past. But now you know the facts. Push messaging is a unique opportunity to engage (and re-engage) your users from download to conversion. Equipped with the right tools, you can establish powerful conversations with your users that they’ll be sure to remember. (Oh, and don’t be alarmed if they start referring to you as the Zack Morris of apps.)

iPhone 6 Leads To Highest Ever App Downloads: Study

valuewalk.com
Apple Inc.´s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have done extremely well in terms of sales. And now data from Boston-based app marketing firm Fiksu show that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have triggered massive app downloads. Total downloads for the top 200 free iOS apps surged 42% from 5.5 million in September to a record-breaking 7.8 million in October.
Apple iPhone 6 Plus

iPhone 6, iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 helped app downloads

The App Store Competitive Index suggests that app downloads increased 39% from October last year. Besides the iPhone 6 debut, October’s growth was also helped by the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3, which hit the stores the same month. Fiksu monitors more than 3.5 billion app installs and 5.4 trillion marketing events on more than 1.7 billion devices worldwide.
iPhone 6 7.8 Million Download
It is a good sign for app and game developers. The cost of acquiring users also declined in October compared to the previous month. With the beginning of the holiday shopping season, marketers expect a lot more downloads. The cost per loyal user index declined from $2.25  in September to $2.16 in October. The cost per loyal user is the cost of acquiring  users who open an app at least three times.
iPhone 6 Loyal User

Users download favorite apps quickly after buying the iPhone 6

Fiksu CEO Micah Adler said that the decline in the cost of acquiring users was because of users’ tendency to quickly download their favorite apps after upgrading their devices. Apps downloaded immediately after buying the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are most like the ones a user can’t live without. Meanwhile, the cost per launch index rose 24% to 26 cents from September to October. It tracks the cost of driving engagement from mobile devices.
Cost per launch
The iOS cost per install jumped 59% YoY in October to $1.46. It shows the growth in competition as ad dollars keep flowing into mobile. There were more than 1.3 million apps available in the App Store in 155 countries at the end of September. Apple has revealed that its App Store gets more than 300 million visitors per week.
iPhone 6 CPI

Thursday 27 November 2014

4 Ways to Get More Out of Mobile App Marketing

huffingtonpost.com
Marketing begins the day you put your mobile app idea into production. When growing or scaling your mobile startup, you have to look at a much broader spectrum of marketing effort, instead of just customer acquisition.
But of course, not everyone has an extensive budget for marketing. But that shouldn't deter you, as most marketing efforts don't really require money. Instead, what you need is a great product, some amount of creativity and huge amount of time to invest.
I've chalked out these strategies for those of you who have got all it takes to grow their business, but lack the knowledge or insights on the tools. You must have a great product (mobile app) that solves a problem for your customer segment and you should have the time to invest in marketing to make your mobile startup grow.
App Store Optimization or ASO
ASO can give your app a push in discoverability and, therefore, downloads. Understanding the below components will make sure your app stands out from the rest and also help people discover your app when they're searching through the app stores.
  • App Name - make it easy for people searching within the category of your app to get to your app quickly by including those key search words in the name of your app.
  • Keywords - Just like on the web, focus on relevancy and search volume. Do an exhaustive research on your keywords using the Keyword Tool.
  • App Icon - Trainz Driver sold 20 times as many units after an icon change. Don't use words (especially the app's name) in the icon and keep the design simple with solid colors. Use the Icon Gallery as a reference if you need to.
  • App Description - In two lines, you must be able to effectively communicate your app's value to the potential customer. Khan Academy's app is a great example.
  • App Screenshots - Customize the screenshots to show the user how the app actually works. This is your ad or sales poster. The Evernote app best illustrates this.
  • App Ratings - Get your family and friends to download your app and give you an 'honest' rating. Prompt users within the app to rate and review and place social-media connection options in your app.
Landing Pages
When searching for apps, the natural go-to medium is the web, apart from the app store itself. The conversions can be direct in nature (downloads) or indirect (email subscribers). Here are ways to make sure you optimize your landing page for increased conversions.
  • Headline - The most effective headlines are short (no more than seven to nine words), communicate the message in simple English and at the same time, generate enough curiosity for the audience to read further.
  • Sub-Text - The idea behind the sub-text is to seal the deal. Your sub-text should lead your audience to a call to action that will lead to conversions.
  • Picture or Video - A picture should showcase the benefit or the result of using your app. Similarly, a video should focus on how your app can help your potential customer, rather than an explainer video on your app's features.
  • Download Link - ensure you have the link to download your apps included on the landing page.
  • Lead Capture - Offer additional value to the visitor over and above the direct benefit of the mobile app. Such as an email course, a whitepaper, a guide, etc.
  • Social Validation - people like to know who else is using your app. So either integrate Facebook's social API or add testimonials.
Gamification
Gamification is more about human psychology than it is about technology or methodology. In fact, many feel gamification is best linked to Maslow's hierarchy of needs: physiological, security or safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. Make sure you have the following addressed:
  • Objectives - What do you hope to achieve by implementing these techniques? Do you want your retention levels or engagement to increase or do you want to build a viral loop?
  • Add Value - Make people feel they've accomplished something special or difficult, they outdid themselves or others or they learned something really awesome.
  • Build Into Ecosystem - Depending on the type of app and current user behavior, gamify those parts that allows for user acquisition, engagement, behavior modification and management, commerce or loyalty.
  • Sharing Loops - Build loops into your implementation that enables your users to share their achievements on their social-media networks.
  • Quick Rewards - Users are engaged far more if you break that one big reward into smaller bits offered frequently at certain milestones.
Word of Mouth
The only thing that causes a viral effect is word of mouth, which is best spread by those that have used your product. Your best marketing channel is your existing customer. Let's look at a few strategies that will get your users to market your mobile app for you.
  • Aid Referrals - Find a way to incentivize your users to spread the word just as Dropbox awards both the person spreading the word and the one that signups as a result of it. PayPal paid cash to each new customer and the ones who referred.
  • Drive Marketing - by giving additional storage space to users who share about Dropbox on their social media, it drives its users to market the product for them. Give users a reason to do so.
  • Vanity Content - Users proudly enable social share option for Runkeeper app because the distance ran makes them look good among their friends and peers. People love to show off, give them a reason to.
  • Shareable Content - create content that is so compelling that users want to share it among their network. This is how Neil Patel does with QuickSprout and here's how I do it with Mobile App Growth Hacks.
  • Customer Service - if you can connect with your customers at an emotional level with outstanding customer service, just like Buffer App, you can be rest assured that happy customers help spread the word.
All you need is time and a bit of creativity and you can see what a huge difference you can make in the success of your mobile app. All the examples stated in this guide have proved these strategies to be effective, over and over again.

WatchKit Now Available: How to Jumpstart Your App Marketing With Apple Watch

blog.sensortower.com
Apple Watch and WatchKit app marketing tips

Smartwatches have been around for awhile, in one form or another. But nobody has been able to create a watch that the average person really wants.
Although Android Wear has been out for a few months, it hasn’t succeeded in capturing the hearts and wallets of the general public. So when Apple Watch launches early next year, we will find out if they have what it takes to finally make smartwatches universally appealing. Based on their previous track record, there is a very good chance that it will be a hit.
So if you are going to make your apps Watch compatible, you should take advantage of the marketing opportunities that will be available. If you have not decided if you will create apps that work with the Apple Watch, then this post might help you make that decision.
We will show you how to take advantage of this new platform to increase engagement with your app, make a better app and optimize for new keyword opportunities. Since this post is primarily focused on the marketing aspects of Apple Watch, we will also provide some technical resources at the end so you can catch up on the latest information about how to design and code for Apple’s newest device.

Increase App Engagement

One of the biggest benefits of having access to a user’s wrist is the ability to increase engagement with your app. Better engagement can lead to better search rankings, more positive reviews and word-of-mouth advertising.
Things Apple Watch can do

There are three ways that you can use a Watch to increase app engagement. First, just the presence of your app icon on the home screen will make users more aware of your app and more likely to use it.
Second, there are Glances. These are bite-sized views of your app that can give your users the information they want, without the clutter of a full blown app. When people have convenient access to your app, they will probably use it more often.
Finally, Actionable Notifications provide alerts that users can act upon, without taking their phone out of their pocket or bag. It is possible to overdo notifications, but when implemented correctly, it is a great way to keep users informed and engaged with your app.
So even if you haven’t thought about creating a compatible app, consider how you can extend the functions of your app to an Apple Watch. Even just being able to change the settings of your app from a Watch can increase the visibility of your app and encourage users to open it more often.

“Watch” Keywords For App Store Optimization

Just like with App Bundles, targeting watch related keywords, could give your app an advantage when Apple Watch apps first become available. As more publishers create Watch compatible apps, the competition will increase.
If you are going to extend your app to Apple Watch, be sure to do some brainstorming on long-tail keywords that people may search for. Use our Keyword Research module to assess the Difficulty and Traffic Scores of each of your ideas.
You may be able to get away with just adding “watch” to your keyword list in the beginning. But be sure to stay ahead of your competition and have some long-tail keywords ready.

Figure Out The Most Popular Use Cases

Health and Fitness use case

I used to have a Fitbit Flex. After using it for a few months, I ended up selling it.
The tracker and the app worked perfectly however. It is a fantastic product. I sold it was because I felt that the benefits didn’t outweigh the drawbacks.
Until that point, I had not worn a watch in years and wearing something that was like a watch, but didn’t tell time, annoyed me. This must have been a common complaint because they came out with the Force, followed by the Charge and the Surge soon after I sold my Flex…all of which have clocks.
The point is that no matter how good your Watch app is, it may not be addressing use cases that are in demand. So be sure to survey your users and examine reviews of your app and other similar apps, to find out what people are really looking for.
You may even consider creating different versions of your app to suit specific needs. Happy users usually means positive ratings, more downloads and higher engagement.

Developer Resources

Here are some excellent resources if you want to find out more about the technical aspects of developing apps for Apple Watch.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that this is just the beginning. Apple will be rolling out more WatchKit features after the initial launch. so make sure to stay up to date on the latest Apple Watch developer information.

Mobile is no longer an alternative channel for banks

mobilepaymentstoday.com

Banks are trying to finds ways to integrate mobile capabilities at the ATM
With the GSMA predicting that the world will have over 1.75 billion smartphones by the end of the year, mobility has become the hub of computing and connectivity. As smartphone adoption rates grow year after year, and broadband penetration becomes a norm in daily life, banking, commerce and payment sectors are also transitioning through the mobile channel. If the banks don’t realize this tectonic shift, they risk remaining behind in the wake of mobile innovators serving consumers anywhere, anytime. 
Today, banking apps enable us to log-in without a password, withdraw money from ATMs, send money, and pay anyone anywhere, all without a bank card. A measure of how investment in customer service is moving to digital, SNL Financial reported that U.S. banks closed 1,487 branches last year, the highest number of net closures since it began tracking the statistic in 2002. Across our own business, we see customers click on their mobile banking apps an average 30 times a month. The success of mobile banking in particular means that consumers are even rejecting traditional online banking in favor of mobile, and banks are seeing massive waves of adoption. 
Smartphones are poised to take over the user experience of paying and buying. For example, more than half of Amazon customers used mobile devices to make purchases during last year’s holiday season. Banks must follow this trend to satisfy their consumer base, track their customers and understand their spending behaviors by delivering innovative services to their customers that deliver real dividends: attracting new users, increasing relevant offers and loyalty programs and driving customer retention. 
Today we work with some banks whose transactions via mobile are passing the 20 percent threshold of their all transactions via all channels. At the end of 2015, mobile will become a "main channel" for the banks that have a powerful mobile strategy.
In extending a key pillar of the bank-customer relationship, mobile payments solutions, including mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, increase the frequency of consumer interactions with banks, and drive new revenue opportunities. It’s therefore an area ripe for banks to add value and differentiation through user experience. Turkey is a good example of a market where banks, driven by regulatory requirements around user security and authentication, have transformed into technology-first financial institutions and demonstrated this in the payments experience they offer.
Yapı Kredi Bank, one of the country’s largest private banks, integrated a "bump-to-send" feature into its award-winning mobile banking app which was a market-first for this type of technology. It allows customers in the same location to initiate P2P payments to each other by logging into their mobile banking service and shaking their phones simultaneously. The system was developed using features such as GPS and an accelerometer, transferring data by establishing a communication channel between the devices. Once the phones recognize each other, both parties simply confirm the secure transaction. This is a great example of optimizing user experience, in this case by providing mobile gamification to better serve its customers wherever they are.
CEPTETEB, the mobile banking service from Turkey’s TEB (a BNP Paribas affiliate), successfully integrated digital innovation into its brick-and-mortar service when in 2013 when it launched Turkey’s first cardless cash ATM withdrawal function via a QR code through its mobile banking service. With this feature, a customer who has lost or forgotten their card can walk up to an ATM, set up the withdrawal on their phone, and scan the resulting on-screen QR code to dispense cash instantly. This ease-of-use drove customers out of branches and to ATMs, decreasing the burden on customer service representatives and giving CEPTETEB acompetitive advantage. 
Retail banking is changing as the evolution of technology is transforming the interaction between consumers and their service providers. Connected customers demand not only seamless experiences, but also innovative solutions for their ever-changing needs. Banks need to stay competitive as the guardian of people's finances in an increasingly digital world, success in which will not only preserve their relevance, but open new doors to revenue.

Wednesday 26 November 2014

7 Secrets to Google Play App Success

blog.sensortower.com
How to create a successful Android app

Google recently released a new 81 page guide to help Android app publishers maximize their reach, make more money and retain more users. A lot of the tips in the beginning are pretty basic and you are probably already familiar with them.
But as we read deeper into the guide, we realized that there are a few tips that you may not be aware of. So in this post, we will highlight the tips and techniques that we feel are lesser known and most beneficial to app publishers.
We will also give you a link to the page where you download the guide for free. You can get it in PDF format or download it on Google Play.

1. Drive App Engagement Through Google Search With App Indexing

We wrote a blog post earlier this year on how deep linking can help Android developers, but it is worth mentioning again. Deep links allow Google to return your app’s content to people who do web searches on Google or on your website.
This increases engagement with your app, even if someone didn’t think to open your app first. If you use the App Inexding API, it helps users discover even more relevant information in your app by providing autocomplete suggestions.

2. Offer Over-The-Air Installs To Users Who Use Google Sign-In On Your Website

When you implement Google sign-in on your website, you can also offer one click over-the-air app installs. Since a user is already logged into your site, it makes them more likely to be interested in downloading your app. In fact, some app publishers have seen app installation conversion rates as high as 40%, when using this feature.

3. Personalize Your App With Google+

You can utilize the information stored in a user’s Google+ account to create a more user friendly experience. This can be as simple as displaying the user’s picture and name.
If you want to create an even more customized experience, you can utilize the user’s settings, history, most used features and more. Allowing users to sign into your app with an existing Google+ account also makes it more likely that people will use your app. Having to create a separate login is one reason that people may not use your app.

4. Utilize Three Other Android Platforms

When you launch an app, many times you only think about how it will perform on a phone or tablet. But there are three other platforms that you may want to extend your app to. Doing this may give your app more exposure and allow you to provide more value to your users.
You have to opt-in to these services and get approval. Your apps will continue to be available for phones and tablets during this process.

Android Wear

Making your app available to Android Wear users can be a great way to expose more people to your app. It also gives you the opportunity to provide additional functionality that cannot be accomplished on a phone or tablet. Once your app is approved for Android Wear, you can display the Wear badge and it will be included in Android Wear collections.

Android TV

Android TV

If your app can be played on a big screen, targeting Android TV can be a great way to get more users. Your Android TV listing also allows you to add TV specific screenshots.

Google Play For Education

In order to get your app published on the Education platform, it has to be reviewed by a third party network of teachers. Once your app is approved, it will be available for students, teachers and education users.

5. Use Android Intents

Android intents allow your app to be the default app for certain functions that a user wants to complete. For example, you can offer your image editing capabilities to other apps that may need it, but don’t want to crete it themselves.
Likewise, you can identify other apps that you want to be the default apps for functions that you don’t want to include in your app. This allows you to outsource things that other apps do well, while focusing on your core capabilities.
Using intents can give your users access to more capabilities, by leveraging other apps. When you make your app’s services available to other apps, your app will open automatically to complete certain tasks.

6. Reply To User Reviews

This is perhaps the biggest advantage that the Google Play review system has over the Apple App Store. You can personally respond to comments that users leave for your app.
Simply sign into the Developer Console to respond. Some users can leave unfair feedback about your app and this is an opportunity for you to clarify the situation and prevent bad publicity. It also gives you the opportunity to thank your loyal users for their kind words.

7. Monitor Google’s Developer Channels

Android help center

This is something that can be overlooked, but is important to stay on top of any education and support material that Google releases. These resources will help you stay up-to-date on the latest technology and get help when you need it.

Conclusion

Those are just a few of the many tips that are provided in Google’s new guide. If you are new to Android app development, we recommend that you download the whole guide and read all of the tips. To download the complete guide in PDF format or from Google Play, visit this blog post on the Android Developers blog.