The Secret to Food & Drink App Success: Optimizing Your Owned Media

TLDR

You’ve built an amazing food and drink app and want to share your culinary creation with the world. But with over 3 million apps across iOS and Android, just launching isn’t enough. How do you cut through the noise and gain the traction your app deserves?The secret lies in optimizing your owned media.

Your app store listing, website, social profiles, email marketing, and push notifications are powerful tools at your disposal. Use them to engage your audience, drive downloads, boost usage, and keep people coming back. Benchmark data shows that food and drink apps that actively maintain their owned media see up to 3x higher download rates and 2x higher retention.

Whether you offer recipes, reviews, meal kits, or food delivery, putting owned media at the heart of your marketing strategy is key to success. In this article, we’ll explore app marketing benchmarks for the food and drink category and actionable tips to optimize your owned media. Get ready to take your app to the next level and leave the competition in the dust. Appetite for success? Let’s dig in!

Mobile App Campaign Benchmarks: How Does Your Food & Drink App Measure Up?

So how does your food and drink app measure up to the competition? Mobile app benchmarks show that the average food and drink app has:

• 78% five-star ratings and 7% one-star ratings on iOS. If your ratings are lower, focus on improving user experience and customer service. Respond to all reviews, positive and negative.
• A Day 1 retention rate of 12-15%, lower than e-commerce and travel apps. Boost yours by sending personalized push notifications to re-engage users, offering discounts and promotions, and highlighting your most popular menu items.

To improve your mobile app engagement rates:

1. Optimize your onboarding process. Welcome new users and show them your app’s key features and benefits right away. Make it easy for them to start exploring your menu or make a purchase.
2. Incentivize repeat use. Offer rewards like free items or shipping after a certain number of orders. Loyalty programs are a great way to keep customers coming back.
3. Focus on high-quality visuals. Professional food photos, an intuitive interface, and appealing graphics make a huge difference. Ensure all images load quickly, even on slower connections.
4. Personalize the experience. Use data like purchase history and location to tailor content to each user. Send personalized recommendations, location-based deals, and push alerts about their favorite products.
5. Stay up-to-date with trends. Keep an eye on innovations in food delivery and mobile payments. Consider adding features like group ordering, voice search, or mobile wallet options as they become more mainstream.

Your food and drink app’s success depends on optimized owned media and a great user experience. Meet or beat the benchmarks, follow these tips, and keep improving - your ratings, retention, and revenue will rise in no time.

The Key Performance Indicators That Matter: Retention Rate, Customer Acquisition Costs & Conversion Rate

When it comes to app success, it's all about keeping your customers happy and coming back for more. The key metrics that really matter for food and drink apps are retention rate, customer acquisition cost, and conversion rate.

Your retention rate measures how many customers continue to use your app over time. A higher rate means more loyal customers who love what you offer. Track this by looking at how many users are still active 30, 60 and 90 days after downloading your app. A good benchmark is over 30% after 90 days.

Your customer acquisition cost tells you how much you're spending to get each new customer. Calculate it by dividing your total marketing costs by the number of new customers. Lower is better, under $5 per customer is a good target. Look for ways to optimize your marketing to reduce this cost over time.

Finally, your conversion rate shows how well your app turns interest into action. It's the percentage of users who take a desired action like making a purchase or subscription. A rate of at least 3% is decent, 5-10% is even better. Test different calls-to-action and offers to raise your conversion rate.

Focus on these key metrics and you'll gain valuable insights into how well your app is performing. Then make improvements to boost retention, lower costs, and increase conversions. Keep optimizing and watch as more foodies discover your delicious app!

Optimizing Your Owned Media Channel: Drive App Downloads & Engagement

Optimizing your owned media channels like your app, website and social profiles is key to driving more downloads and engagement. Here are a few tips to get started:

App Store Optimization

Make sure your app store listing is compelling and optimized. Choose an app name, icon and screenshots that capture attention. The app description should highlight key features and benefits. Use relevant keywords in your listing to rank higher in search. Offer promotions like discounts or coupons to increase downloads.

Landing Page Optimization

Create a dedicated landing page for your app on your website. Include eye-catching images, a video demo, and a clear call-to-action to download the app. Optimize the page for search engines and your target keywords. Drive traffic to the landing page through social media, email marketing and search engine optimization.

Personalized Marketing

Use tools to target users with personalized banners and messages. Place banners for your app on websites frequently visited by your target customers. Send personalized emails with deep links that open your app. Tailor messages based on location, purchase history and more. Personalized marketing significantly increases click-through and conversion rates.

Social Media Promotion

Promote your app on all your social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Post updates, behind-the-scenes content and user-generated stories. Run social media contests and giveaways. Collaborate with social media influencers in your industry to reach new audiences. Make sure your social profiles are optimized with links to your app store listing and landing page.

• Track key metrics like impressions, clicks, downloads, and in-app events to see what's working.
• Continuously test and optimize your marketing efforts.
• Provide value to users through regular app updates, special offers and personalized experiences.

Keeping users engaged with your app is just as important as driving new downloads. Optimizing your owned media and marketing to existing customers will maximize the lifetime value of your app.

Case Study: How Hidden Grounds Coffee Increased Installs by 200% By Offering Incentivized Store Credit

The Power of Incentivized Credits

Who doesn’t love getting free stuff? Hidden Grounds Coffee tapped into customers’ desires for deals and rewards with their incentivized store credit program. By offering new their app users a pay $25 get $35 deal for store credit for downloading and using their app, Hidden Grounds saw installs increase by 200% in just 3 months.

• The program was easy to understand and access. New app users simply had to download the app, sign up for an account, and they could purchase the store credit via Apple Pay in the app.
• The credit could be used on anything in the app and in-store, so customers felt like they were getting a good value. Whether you wanted a latte, scone, or bag of coffee beans, that $10 bonus went a long way.
• It brought new customers into the store who may not have visited otherwise. Some downloaded the app just for the credit but ended up becoming loyal customers after experiencing their amazing chai and service.
• The more people downloaded and used the app, the more valuable it became to all customers. Features like mobile ordering, payment, and rewards tracking were enhanced based on user feedback.

Continued Success

Hidden Grounds Coffee’s successful incentivized store credit program accomplished several goals at once:

1. Increased new app installs and drove more first-time customers into their stores.
2. Grew their app’s user base so they could make improvements based on user data and feedback.
3. Built goodwill by giving customers something of value ($10 credit) in exchange for their business and time (downloading the app).
4. Laid the groundwork for long-term customer loyalty by giving people an easy, rewarding first experience with their brand.

The takeaway for other food and drink brands is clear: a well-designed incentivized store credit program can be an incredibly powerful way to drive app installs, increase customer engagement, and build loyalty. Offering customers a reward they actually want, even if small, shows you value their time and business.

Owned Media Best Practices: Tips to Boost Your App's Success

Develop a Content Strategy

To effectively use your owned media channels like your website and social media profiles, start with a plan. Figure out your goals and objectives, your target audience, and the types of content that will resonate most. A content calendar can help keep you organized and consistent.

Repurpose and Recycle

Don’t reinvent the wheel with every social media post or blog article. Repackage evergreen content in different formats to give it new life, such as turning a blog post into an infographic or podcast episode. This saves time and provides value to your audience in different ways.

Optimize for Search Engines

Use keywords in your page titles, content, image alt text, and metadata to help people find your content in search engines. Think about what terms your target audience may use to search for your app or related topics. Place important keywords in headings and toward the front of content.

Drop the Hard Sell

Owned media should focus on providing value to users, not constant promotion of your app. Share helpful tips, industry news, insights, and entertainment. Subtly mention your app where relevant, but don’t make it the centerpiece of every post. Audiences will appreciate the useful content and see you as a trusted resource.

Stay Consistent

To build an audience and following, you need to consistently publish content on your owned media channels. Aim for a regular posting schedule so followers know when to expect new content from you. It may help to create a content calendar to plan and schedule social media posts and blog content in advance. Consistency is key to success.

Keeping these best practices in mind will help you craft an effective owned media strategy to boost downloads, engage your audience, and establish your brand as an authority. With valuable, optimized content distributed on a consistent schedule, you'll be well on your way to food and drink app success.

Final Thoughts

That's the secret sauce to success for your food and drink app. Own your media, optimize your content, build your brand. Don't just rely on the app stores and social platforms to do the work for you. Take control of your destiny and give potential users a reason to find and download your app. With some TLC put into your owned media, you'll be well on your way to hitting growth and revenue benchmarks in no time. What are you waiting for? Fire up your blog, start posting on social, build that email list. Your app's success depends on it. Now get out there and spread the word about your awesome new app! The users and downloads will follow.