How to attract users to your app and go platinum

Keep in mind that buying traffic to convert to users doesn't always add up. Developing for the mobile platform is vastly different from e-commerce, where the potential average revenue per user is considerably smaller, and in many cases non-existent. Together, there's a limited amount of advertising inventory, and discoverability remains poor.

The end of the day

At the end of the day, nothing beats great design and usability. There are over 1 million apps in the iTunes App Store and Android Marketplace for consumers to navigate, so how do you know when your app is ready to test the waters? To stand out you not only need to look great, however have an intuitive user interface and be responsive. Even the smallest user experience improvements can have an enormous impact on your download figures. Check out Pinterest, the hot virtual pinboard. It has a graphic-intense UI, easy log in procedure, and a great design. With 10 million unequalled users and a site that drives more traffic than LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ combined, it's a great case study on how to make a product stand out.

Social and viral are two much-touted words, and they are the keys for creating successful mobile applications. What better way to ensure you build up a large user base than to get your users to build it for you? Make it simple for people to invite and share with friends, position your application as a specialty product that allows for self-expression, and be sure to leverage existing social graphs for distribution. To illustrate, imagine where Instagram would be without the integration of existing social networks. Communication apps are as well great examples of this. See Voxer, or my own company Rebtel which has benefited tremendously from over 70 percent of our users coming from referral from current users and word of mouth.

The CEO at Rebtel

Andreas Bernstrom is the CEO at Rebtel, the largest mobile VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) provider afterwards Skype. Prior to Rebtel, the Goldman Sachs alum was COO of Taptu, a leading UK-based mobile search engine, and TradeDoubler, Europe’s leading performance based marketing company.

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and research challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants - 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers - will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.