A practical guide to building your ongoing app marketing strategy.
Getting your app launched is a real achievement. But the work that matters most happens after launch — building the habits, strategies, and routines that turn your app from a novelty into a genuine communication channel for your audiences.
This guide is designed for the person on your team who owns the app day-to-day. The good news is that you don't need to build a new workstream from scratch. Instead, we've designed this to help you weave app thinking into work you're already doing — your email campaigns, your social posts, your seasonal marketing pushes.
The core principle behind everything in this guide is that your app should never be an afterthought. Every time you write an email, plan a social post, or announce a new season, there's an app dimension to consider. This guide helps you find it.
NOTE: A note on resourcing
Effective app marketing requires a dedicated owner — someone spending at least a few focused hours per week on it, especially in your first year. This doesn't have to be one person's entire job, but it does need to be one person's consistent responsibility. If your team is small, we recommend identifying one primary owner and one backup, so app marketing doesn't stall when someone is out.
Before you can build a marketing rhythm, you need to answer one fundamental question: what is your app actually for? The answer shapes every decision that follows — which audiences you target, what messages you send, how you measure success.
Below are the four most common app strategies. Most organizations combine two of them, with one as primary. Being honest about which describes your goals is more valuable than aspirationally picking the most ambitious one.
Drive ticket sales: Every push notification, deep link, and campaign is oriented toward getting users to purchase. In-app content supports discovery and conversion. Primary metric: Revenue through app / tickets sold.
Serve specific audiences: The app is a dedicated tool for particular segments — subscribers, special program members, students. Marketing focuses on getting those people using the app effectively. Primary metric: Active users in target segment / retention rate.
Deepen engagement: The app is a content and relationship channel — podcasts, artist profiles, program notes. Success is measured in return visits and time spent. Primary metric: Monthly active users / session frequency.
Expand reach: The app is an acquisition tool, bringing in new audiences through store ads, social campaigns, and referral programs. Primary metric: New downloads / first-time buyers through app.
Once you've identified your primary strategy, let's discuss! It changes the guidance we give you — and it's the first question we'll ask in any strategy conversation.
One of the most common mistakes in app marketing is using the wrong communication tool for the job — and one we see most often is sending push notifications for things that should be emails.
Before sending any push notification, ask yourself three questions:
Can the action I'm asking users to take be completed inside the app?
Is this genuinely time-sensitive — would it lose its relevance in 24 hours?
Would an email serve this purpose just as well?
If the answer to the first two is no, or the answer to the third is yes — use email. A push notification is an interruption of someone's day. It earns that interruption by giving the patron information that is immediately useful and completable right now, inside the app.
New season announcement — Email + deep links. Season packages are a considered purchase. Drive them to browse the new season's events in the app with a deep link, but the primary channel is email.
Subscription / package renewal — Email. Renewals can't be completed in the app. Sending a push notification to an action users can't take in-app breaks trust.
Flash sale or last-minute availability — Push notification. Time-sensitive, completable in-app, and genuinely useful right now. This is the ideal push notification use case.
New content available (podcast, video, artist profile) — Push or in-app message. If it's new and you want users to know immediately, push. If it's contextual, use in-app messaging.
Re-engaging lapsed users — Push notification. A well-targeted, low-friction message can bring back dormant users. Keep it light and specific.
Announcing a social media campaign — Social + deep links. All social posts promoting events or app content should include a deep link.
Promoting a specific upcoming performance — Email + deep link + social. Multi-channel. Deep links in the email go directly to the event page in the app.
Welcoming new app users — In-app message. First-time users in the app should be greeted in the app.
The biggest risk in app marketing is inconsistency — a burst of activity at launch, then silence. The monthly rhythm below is designed to give you a sustainable, low-burden routine that keeps your app active and your strategy improving over time.
Each week has a clear focus. The total time commitment across the month should be 3-5 hours for a well-organized team.
NOTE: The core principle
Every task below is designed to attach to work you're already doing. When you're writing next month's email campaigns, that's when you create the deep links. When you're scheduling social posts, that's when you check for app integration. App marketing isn't a separate workstream — it's a layer on top of the marketing you're already doing.
Push notification performance: Review open rates, click-throughs, and unsubscribes from last month's push notifications.
Deep link performance: Check branch.io for last month's link performance. Which links drove clicks and conversions?
App store reviews: Read any new reviews. Do any need a response? Are there recurring complaints?
Social media audit: Review last month's social posts. Which promoted events or content that lives in the app? Did they include deep links?
Top-line app metrics: A quick look at active users, session frequency, and any significant spikes or drops.
Integrate the app into your communications calendar: Go through every email campaign, social post, and digital ad planned for the next 4-6 weeks. For each one, ask: does this need a deep link?
Social content calendar review: Look specifically at upcoming social posts. Build deep links into the copy before it goes to scheduling.
Plan your push notifications: Identify moments where a push notification would add value. Draft any planned notifications now.
Refresh in-app content: Is the events calendar current? Are there expired promotions or outdated pages?
Coordinate with your team: Make sure everyone has what they need. Deep links should be in the hands of whoever is creating the content.
Send your planned push notification(s): Review one more time before sending: does it pass the three-question test? Is the deep link working?
Publish social content with deep links: Check them on mobile before publishing — click the link and confirm it lands in the right place.
Respond to app store reviews: A timely, thoughtful response to a negative review is visible to every future user.
In-app messaging check: Review any active triggered or scheduled messages. Are they still relevant?
Spot-check the app: Open it on your phone. Go through the main user journey as if you were a first-time attendee. Five minutes of honest review catches most issues.
Plan and draft next month's push notification(s): Having it written in advance means you can review it with fresh eyes.
Flag social posts needing deep links: Mark any posts that will need app deep links. This is a 10-minute task.
Identify upcoming season moments: Are there major moments in the next 6-8 weeks that need special app treatment?
Prepare your monthly check-in agenda: Your Week 1 review notes are your agenda. Bring the questions that the data raised.
Arts organizations don't operate at a steady pace year-round — and your app marketing shouldn't either. The monthly rhythm above is your baseline, but it should flex significantly depending on where you are in your season arc.
Increase push notification frequency — but only for genuinely time-sensitive moments.
Coordinate app campaigns tightly with email and social. Every promotional email should have a deep link.
Use your segments aggressively. Subscribers get different messages than general audiences.
Monitor your metrics more closely during peak periods — daily if running active push campaigns.
Shift your content focus to engagement-first messaging — artist profiles, behind-the-scenes content, program notes.
Use in-app messaging to surface content users might not discover on their own.
Review and improve. Quiet periods are when you have headspace to look at analytics properly.
Keep social posts linking to the app even when there's no transaction at the end.
NOTE: The summer engagement problem
Your audience doesn't disappear in summer — they just have less reason to open the app. The organizations that maintain the strongest app engagement year-round are the ones that give users a reason to come back even when there's nothing to buy.
Plan a summer content series in advance. Even one new content item per month gives users a reason to return.
Use the summer to grow your subscriber base for push notifications.
Prepare your autumn campaign now. The first push notification of the new season should be planned before summer ends.
Keep social media linking to the app even in quiet months.
Review and rebuild. Summer is the best time to do a full app audit.
The most common reason app marketing stalls isn't lack of knowledge — it's lack of clarity about who owns what.
Creating deep links for emails → Email marketing specialist. They're already creating the email content — the deep link is just the destination URL.
Creating deep links for social → Social media manager. Every post that mentions a show or event needs a deep link.
Planning & sending push notifications → CRM / lifecycle marketing. They already own audience segmentation and direct communication.
Monitoring app store reviews → Social media or customer care. Same skill as managing social comments.
Reviewing app metrics → Digital marketing or data specialist. Add app to the regular report.
Updating in-app content → Web/digital content team. Whoever manages your website content is best placed to keep app content current.
Establish a short internal app meeting — monthly, 30-45 minutes. A simple agenda:
5 min: Quick metrics review — what happened last month?
10 min: Upcoming season moments — what needs app integration?
10 min: Content and campaigns — are all planned emails and social posts covered?
10 min: Open questions — anything broken, confusing, or worth trying differently?
If this meeting doesn't exist yet, starting it is the single highest-value action you can take.
Every three months, step back from the monthly rhythm and ask whether the strategy is working.
Are we using the app in service of our stated strategy?
What's working and what isn't?
Are the right people doing the right things?
What do we want to try next quarter that we haven't done yet?
Monthly active users: Steady growth or stability. Flag sharp unexplained drops outside of dark season.
Push notification opt-out rate: Should stay low (under 5% per campaign). Flag spikes after specific campaigns.
Deep link click-to-purchase rate: Growing over time. Flag consistently low despite high click volume.
App store rating: 4.0 or above. Read the comments, not just the number.
Session frequency: Users opening the app 2+ times per month is healthy. Flag high downloads but very low return visits.
Revenue through app: Watch the trend line, not the absolute number.
TIP: We're here to help.
You don't need to figure this out on your own! The easy-connect team is available to review your strategy, help you plan campaigns, and work through any of the frameworks in this guide with your team. The monthly rhythm, the quarterly review, the internal app meeting — we can be part of all of these if that's useful. The goal is your success with this app, not just its launch.
