What is in the USA that is not in Russia (about marketing tools)

How many installations do you need to enter the Top 10 in the United States, what important tools for promoting mobile applications are not available in Russia, Galina Divakova, Madapp project manager at Clickky, told us about this and much more.

Galina Divakova

The scale of the markets

It is well known that users of iOS devices, in general, spend more money than owners of smart gadgets on Android. In addition, American users are considered to be more generous than, for example, Russian ones. That is why many of our developers often, first of all, try to conquer the US market, and not the local one. 

They can be understood. According to analysts, the number of iPhone users in the United States will reach 64 million this year. Last year there were 53 million of them. Also, 28 million iPad users are expected in the United States by the end of 2014.

Russia is noticeably lagging behind America in terms of quantitative indicators. About 6.5 million iPhone owners live in Russia (liveinternet.ru ). However, 2.5 million Apple smartphones (Svyaznoy) were sold in the country in 2013 alone. The number of iPad owners in Russia is also relatively small — 3.8 million. But in the fourth quarter of last year alone, 400,000 Apple tablets were sold in Russia. 

Tops

The difference in the size of the markets dictates the number of installations required to reach the Top 10.

You can get to the top of the chart in America by getting from 80 thousand installations in a very short period of time (up to one day).

There are no such crazy numbers in Russia – on the busiest days you will need 12-13 thousand installations.

Tools

Another consequence of the difference between the size of the American and Russian audiences is the lack of tools aimed at the Russian-speaking market.  

App Store Optimization

In the West, there are more than a dozen resources that help to gain a foothold in English-language search results (SensorTower, Appnique, MobiDevsHQ, and so on). There are no similar Russian-language services for the App Store yet.

Discovery apps

In the USA, there are a large number of different and popular discovery apps that significantly help in achieving high positions and gaining application recognition. Apps Gone Free, App-o-day and other analogues give a significant surge in installations, and a competent combination of this type of promotion with the rest can help conquer the top. 

There are actually no Discovery apps tailored specifically for our country. Our users either do not even know about the existence of such sources of free applications, discounts and a convenient way to get information about new products, or they use Western analogues.

The press

There are very few resources in Russia dedicated directly to mobile applications. Those that exist cannot boast of a large audience and, in most cases, work only on a paid basis. 

In the West, free PR plays a very important role. No publication with a relevant and huge readership charges money for publications, and the ability to reach a journalist is the main feature of a PR and marketer.

There are secrets and tricks here, thanks to which news about the application becomes available to millions of readers from all over the world: you need to be able to show the application in a favorable light, compose a letter correctly, choose the right time to send so that out of a couple hundred letters received per day, it is yours that is opened. Long—term cooperation with the editor or author of articles is the key to successful product promotion campaigns.

Sometimes reviews can help bring the app to the top, especially when it comes to a paid game. But, for example, if you support the advertising campaign of a free application with interesting publications, this can also work. 

Instead of a conclusion

We are sure that the absence of a number of tools designed for the Russian—speaking segment is a temporary phenomenon. To date, the market is still in a phase of active growth. It is possible that in a year or two we will have similar tools.