This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. Coming to you at the end of April, at least for those listening in real time, episode 1215, 1,215, oh my gosh. Today I'm taking a question from a listener, which by the way is one of my favorite things to do since we have switched to this new format at the beginning of 2020.
Getting so many questions and hearing what people in our community are up to, it's just so much fun. And it's always my goal to provide some value through this question and answer format, not just for the person asking the question, but perhaps for somebody else out there as well, right? Learning by proxy, that's what it's called. Now today's listener is wondering about where to go to promote a wellness app she's made. She got this cool app about eating paleo.
She wants to know how is promoting an app different from anything else or is it? So what are some ideas for her? Let's think about it. I'm gonna tell you exactly what her app is and her website. And what about you?
Do you have a plan for your marketing? How are you gonna get the word out about your idea, your product, your service? I wanna give a shout out at the top of the show here to a good friend of mine, Don Miller, author of a new book called "Marketing Made Simple." It's a book that delivers on its promise. I've actually known Don for years and spent two days at his house in Nashville a few weeks ago. So this is not an ad.
This is just like, hey, Don's a cool guy. This is a cool book. In addition to being a longtime best-selling author, he's also the founder of Story Brand. So that book is called "Marketing Made Simple." All right, now I've got a shout out for our real sponsor and then we'll dive into this question, where and how do I promote my new app? [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Gigi from Orange County, California.
I've been listening to your show and your books on Audible for a couple of years now. They've been absolutely inspiring. Because of your books and podcasts, I finally started my own side hustle, which is a meal planning app for people who love to eat mainly paleo or whole and natural foods. I combine my passion for software development, photography and cooking in this app. And I've really enjoyed working on it more than anything.
I finally had the courage to submit the app to the app store. It was approved early this week. My big question is where and how do I promote my app so that people find it among the millions of apps in the app store? I have some ideas, but not sure which would be the best use of my time or money. Should I use social media?
Should I use ads, YouTube, word of mouth, T-shirts? The app has short instructional videos for the recipes. So I thought about creating a YouTube channel and posting those and promote through YouTube. I also have Instagram account, but I probably am not using that correctly yet. I can't wait to hear back from you.
Thank you for all the inspiration. - Hey Gigi, what's up? Thank you so much for listening. And thank you for this great question. I mean, first of all, congratulations, it's amazing.
You're starting this project. You've actually figured out how to build the app, get it in the app store, get it approved. You've actually got some really good ideas for promotion, I think already. So speaking of promotion listeners, it's called MainlyPaleo. You can find it in the app store or go to mainlypaleo.com.
This is a little side note, by the way, listeners, when you send me a question, I would love to know what the actual project is. Like we have a little field in the form, which is on the website, sidehustleschool.com/questions. It will say like, what's your website? I would actually love to mention it to our global community of all kinds of other awesome people. So for Gigi, again, it is MainlyPaleo in the app store or mainlypaleo.com.
Let's talk about the question. In some ways, app promotion isn't that different from promoting any other digital product. And we'll be spending a lot of time on this question, broadly speaking, this overall topic in the second half of the year. I mean, it's gonna be like our main focus, basically. How do you get the word out about something that's important to you, your product, your service?
So I think actually some of the ideas that Gigi has she's already on the right track. I don't think she should do the t-shirts. I think that's probably the only thing that I would stay away from. And maybe not the ads as well just yet. But the idea about the short instructional videos going on YouTube, I think that's great.
Figuring out Instagram, just posting daily. Don't be overwhelmed, just try to post one photo a day. That's great. I mean, like all that kind of stuff is the right track. But for an app specifically, in addition, you really wanna stand out on the app store.
Like that's the whole point, right? So a couple of things there. SEO is critical, like choose the right keywords. Now she's choosing words like natural foods, whole foods, paleo, I mean, these are very popular keywords. So that's great.
I would just make sure you're really targeting those keywords, maybe a couple of others. Just make sure all those fields where you can input data, you're using that to the best of your ability. So choose the right keywords. You wanna get initial reviews ASAP. If I were Gigi, I'd be reaching out to people I know, friends asking them to download the app, try it out authentically, like legitimately try it out and then leave a review.
You wanna respond to all reviews, which you can now do. For years, developers were really frustrated because sometimes people would be doing something wrong or they would be looking for a feature that doesn't exist and they would leave a bad review. So now developers can go and respond. So engagement is good. You want to submit to directories, which may not have a huge impact, but it's something.
So just Google app directories. You'll find a bunch of places where you can go and submit your app. Then if the app is for sale, I would encourage you to make it free or very cheap in the beginning. You don't want to always discount, of course, but that kind of thing can help you get momentum because in the beginning, it's all about downloads, right? In the beginning, it's about downloads, exposure.
You want to get featured. That's the holy grail is to get featured in the app store, either in the category or the true holy grail is to be featured like on the homepage. So that's gonna happen if you have good reviews over time, if you have good engagement, if people are actually using the app. Ultimately, the best strategy is to make something that is truly genuinely helpful to people. So if you start with that, then everything else is just tactical, all right?
And it sounds like Gigi is on the right track. So congratulations, definitely let us know what happens. Again, that is mainlypaleo.com or mainlypaleo in the app store. And listeners, if you got a question for us, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners.
Thanks so much for listening. You are a rock star. My name is Chris Guillebeau. The program is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
