Marketing Tips: Competitor Analysis and Making Your No Code Mobile App Stand Out

You’ve spent hours learning Thunkable, tinkering, and building your no code mobile app. Now you’re ready to go live with your end product. That’s fantastic! But, you may be wondering, “What now?”

If you’d like to acquire new users for your no code app outside of your friends, family, and professional network, it’s time to get marketing!

If marketing isn’t normally in your wheelhouse, that’s OK! The Thunkable team is here to share some marketing best practices and tips for success. First up: competitor analysis! 

What is Competitor Analysis? 

Simply put, competitor analysis is what you need to do to ensure you stand out from the crowd, because, chances are, there’s at least one other app out there similar to yours in one way or another.

Oftentimes, competitor analysis is done before or during app development, but if that doesn’t apply to you, that’s totally fine. But, to be successful in your marketing efforts, you need to do some competitor analysis now. What you find in your analysis efforts will inform your marketing tactics.

How Do You Perform a Competitor Analysis?

If you’re still reading, it’s safe to assume you’re on board with the idea of competitor analysis. Excellent! So, how exactly do you do competitor analysis? Well, the good news is that there are countless free ways to get intel on others with similar apps to yours. 

Google

That’s right…Google. This might seem like the most obvious statement in the world, but there’s a bit of a marketing science behind it, we promise.

You see, Google is fueled by keywords. People and businesses utilize keywords in their marketing efforts to be found by prospective users or customers. (We’ll discuss how you can do this in a future blog!)

To get started using keywords to your advantage from a searching perspective, think of what you want your app to be known or searched for. Let’s think about this using an example. Maybe you created an app that helps you learn how to grow and cook with produce from your own garden. What would you hope people search for to find your app? “How to grow blueberries,” maybe? “Vegetable growth tracking app,” might be a good one. Google them! By doing so, you may find other apps or businesses that you should consider as your competitors. (Remember, if someone might go to that other app or business for a service you want to provide, that app or business should be considered your competitor.)

Keyword Research Tools

If you’re not sure what keywords to search to find your competitors, there are tools for that! Tools like UberSuggest or KWFinder have limited free plans (meaning you can search for a limited number of keywords before being prompted to create or upgrade your account). To use these tools, type in your first idea of a keyword (such as “how to grow blueberries”, from our previous example). These tools will then suggest other similar keywords you might want to then search on Google. (Don’t worry about the rest of the tools’ features; they’re used for SEO purposes, but you won’t need them for your competitor analysis.)

Buzzsumo 

Now that you have an idea of what you might want to search to find your competitors, there’s another tool you might want to use, in addition to Google: Buzzsumo.

Buzzsumo’s Content Analyzer allows you to search keywords, just like Google, but it takes things a step further. Here’s a look at the tool, using our blueberry example.

What makes this tool useful and different from Google is that it shows the engagement these other pieces of content are receiving. If a piece of content is highly engaged with, that means people are going to that source often, interacting with it, and making it come across as an authority. So, clearly, that means the app or business associated with that content may be a competitor of yours!

What to Look For When You Find Your Competitors

Now that you’ve identified some potential competitors, what’s next? Where do you look from there, and what do you look for? Well, if marketing is all about getting the name of your business out there, that means you need to look to see how your competitors are doing just that.

Check for and read through the following marketing and content channels from your competitors:

• Website
• Blog
• Social media channels

If they have any or all of these marketing channels in place, make note (like, really, write it down!) of how often they update them about their app or business. Where do they post? Do they post often? What do they post? (Tips? News articles? Irrelevant content?) Do they post anything you like and wish you could share about your own app or business? Do they do anything you would not want to do yourself? These are all key things to keep in mind when you start your own marketing efforts.

How to Make Your No Code App Stand Out Through Marketing

Ready for some good news? Now that you’ve identified your competitors and know how they’re getting the word out there about their app or business, you’ve already done the heavy lifting! All you have to do now is stand out. (Don’t worry; we’ll ease you in!)

The easiest way to stand out from your competitors is to know what they’re doing and to do it better. 

Does your competitor state the ideal weather or climate conditions for your blueberries to thrive? Well, if your app can track weather or rainfall and help you track that information for your blueberries, tell everyone! Write a short blog about it, post about it on social media, email your current app users with that helpful trick.

Did your competitor post on social media but only use text? Post about your app with similar information (about how your app does it better!) but post it alongside an image you designed for free using a tool like Canva. 

Remind yourself that your goal is to match and then outdo your competitors’ marketing efforts.

Marketing Never Stops

Hopefully you’ve found some joy in getting the word out about your no code app! If you did, this next point will be one you enjoy. If not, let it serve as a gentle reminder instead.

If you hope to have lasting success, you aren’t done marketing. 

Marketing does not stop. You should always be watching what your competitors are doing, and you should always be finding ways to optimize your own marketing efforts to outperform everyone else!

To that end, as stated at the top of this blog, we’ll have additional marketing tips to come, so be sure to check back!

Key Takeaways 

Now, go forth, and get started on your competitor analysis. Here’s a quick summary checklist to get started:

• Google your competition
• Use tools like UberSuggest, KWFinder, and Buzzsumo for further research
• Do it better!

Need More Help?

We appreciate your interest in Thunkable (and hopefully your time spent utilizing our drag and drop app builder!). But our appreciation doesn’t stop with that acknowledgement. Remember that you can always turn to our Docs for support or leverage our Community for any other support you may need!

(And don’t forget to check back from additional marketing best practices to come!)