How To Promote News Apps

Happy Pi Day! That’s right! Pi, the famous mathematical constant is celebrated every year on March 14th. For example, Google creates a new doodle, NASA challenges participants with a “Pi in the Sky” and retail stores offer all kinds of promotions. How can we know? It appears on all news channels! That is how people discover new things. And with news apps, it’s even more interesting. Let’s show you how to prove that your app is better than any news website.

Business Model

We will spy a little your competitors for understanding which is the best way to monetize your app. We will start with the Apple App Store and we will check the News category for the users in the United States. Most free apps don’t offer in-app purchases and in the paid section, you can find products that provide casts and other special features. On Google Play Store, in the News and Magazines category, it is almost the same situation found on iOS devices for the free and paid apps with the observation that some apps that cost money on Apple App Store are free here. In the same time, on both markets in top grossing apps, we can find the most popular publications which provide free solutions and in-app purchases. In order to reach a wider audience, you can also offer them your app for free and to provide subscriptions for extra facilities.

Top News Apps on Google Play Store

Top News Apps on iOS App Store

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How To Promote News Apps

If you struggle to convince people to download your app and further, to maintain it as a go-to source for discovering the most important news then keep reading because we have a few ideas for you!

Personalized UX – Offline News

What you need to do from the beginning is to give your users relevant reasons for downloading your app. Let’s see! Why should they download your app and not using their mobile browsers? First of all, because of personalization features! Inside your app, they receive news specially selected according to their preferences. It is very hard to access this type of customization with a website. Going further, it is also difficult to read everything at once and people often prefer to bookmark some articles and to save them for later. When you are always on the run and never have time to read all the information published, it is a stress reliever to know that you can create a list of articles for the moment when you take a little break. That’s the reason why Pocket (previously named Read It Later) was created. And more important is that users can read the news even if they don’t have an internet connection. Follow this example and allow customers to explore their favorite news when they get the chance.

Push Notifications – Breaking News

People want to see the news related to their favorite topics but at the same time, they would prefer to hear about a story at the moment it happens. Breaking news attracts all groups of users but you have to make sure that you handle the process properly. Attacking users with all kinds of notifications about each and every little thing is not a good solution. You have to focus on relevant events and to alert them only when something really important is about to happen. Remember that users downloaded your app in the first place for the content you promised to offer. Help them to select the types of news with a bigger impact and when you send them messages related to those topics give them as many details as possible. Information is the most powerful feature your app can provide. A good example here is CNN official mobile app which is focused on videos and its correspondents’ report from all over the world.

Localization Services – Local News

Discovering what happens in the world is useful but sometimes you just want to learn new things about your city. Maybe you want to see if it is going to rain in your area and if there is a major event in your neighborhood at the same time, using the same app. When you are located in a small village and you live a simple life it is essential to discover the stories that matter to you. The secret here is to balance the effects provided by breaking news with pleasant stories about the people around you. Somehow checking the latest news is associated with coffee breaks because that is the best moment of the day when people get the chance to catch the most important novelties. And News Break app does a great job of attracting users and offering them a few relaxing minutes. It gathers news from 10,000 trusted sources right in their personalized feed.

Press Coverage – Niche News

And now, let’s get closer to our domain and make you understand that not everything is about politics and scandals and celebrities. As we said, it is also important what happens in your area but for users, it is vital to discover the news related to their interests. Moms and dads want to know how to raise their babies and which are the latest trends in education. Pet lovers prefer to read about cats and dogs. And us… well, we love to check the news from the tech world. The point is that general topics don’t always satisfy your users’ demands. Bright titles are great but sometimes your app should make the difference between offering captivating headlines and being a handy companion for those who want to discover more. This offers you the possibility to share the app on specialized blogs and forums. Think about that because your app will be more appreciated if it provides the content required by your customers with all the details that come with that story. Just like The Economist app offers a lot of features and it brings in front of users all the news related to business and finance.

Final Thoughts

That’s it for today! We talked about news apps and some useful methods available for you to make your product more popular. Focus on what is important for your readers and try to understand their preferences! And speaking of news, don’t miss our special posts with the most important events from the mobile world delivered every weekend!