How Do I Integrate My App Into My Marketing Ecosystem?

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Is your app a well-integrated part of your marketing family? Or, is it sitting by itself on a lonely little island, disconnected from your other strategies?

Unless you’re a mobile-first company, your app probably wasn’t the first thing you built, nor is it the sole focus of your business, and maybe it wasn’t even created by your in-house marketing team (and that’s okay!).

Naturally, it can feel like your app exists out there in the wild. But your app is an extension of your brand so you can’t leave it to fend for itself.

In this blog post series, we’ll show you how to build a bridge between your app and your other marketing channels. Let’s start by changing the way you think about your app.

Think Of Your App As A Channel (Not Just An Asset)

There’s a common misconception in larger organizations that having a mobile app is merely an additional “asset.” It’s a nice-to-have promotional tool. It’s another soapbox to stand on to share your marketing message.

Leave this one-dimensional view behind. Your app is so much more than just a marketing medium.

Your mobile app has the potential to be a whole new channel. It can be a vehicle for higher sales, improved customer relationships, increased brand awareness, etc.

Wondering how? Take your app out of its silo and get the right people involved as early as possible.

Big Takeaway: Your app is a means to an end, not the end itself. Understand and embrace its position as a channel through which you can grow your business.

How To Solve The Great “Who Owns Our App?” Debate

Assigning ownership of your company’s app is a tricky thing. Which department do you hold responsible for bringing your app to life? Is it the product or development team? Or is it marketing’s job?

Spoiler alert: The answer is both. Right from the start.

Although it may seem easier to first task your design team with creating a beautiful app, and then hand it off to marketing to launch, you actually need to get these two powers working together from the get-go.

Alone, your product team will build a powerful app that’s chock full of features (but these might not be what your customers want). Alone, they will deliver a bulletproof mobile experience that renders well on any smartphone or tablet (but they might not know how to get people to actually use your app).

With marketing’s early involvement, you can be sure that:

• Every feature built into your app is in line with user expectations, needs, and wants.
• There is a go-to-market strategy in place to drum up hype and excitement around your app’s debut.
• Your app’s unique qualities are identified and promoted.
• Your app’s user data is funneled to the marketing team for additional insight, and then distilled back to the product team for app updates.

Big Takeaway: It takes a village to build a truly incredible app. Avoid a tug of war between product and marketing departments by giving responsibility of your app to a bipartisan team right at the beginning. This way, you’ll get an app that is both well designed and aligned with your business goals. You’ll get an app with cool conversion funnels with thought given to what’s going to kick off that funnel.

Going From New Mindsets To New (Integrated) Marketing

Changing your company’s mindset on mobile is only the first step to finding a place for your app in the big picture of your marketing. Now, it’s time to execute on the compelling idea that your app is a vehicle for long-term success.