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Educational Apps and Seasonal ASO: How to Gain Installs During the Summer Months
July 14th, 2018
by David Quinn
VP of Strategy & Partnerships at Gummicube, Inc.
Summer Loss of Knowledge and Downloads We’re well into summer, and children are enjoying having several months free from school. “Summer learning loss” begins as kids grow complacent over the summer and forget 25-30 percent of what they learned during the school year. Parents want to make sure that their kids don’t forget their studies, and developers of educational apps want to help. However, as Google Trends shows, searches for “Education” and similar terms tend to steadily decline during the summer before returning for the new school year.
So the question is: how do you keep the number of installs high when everyone is on summer vacation? The answer is through App Store Optimization (ASO). A good ASO strategy involves constant refinement and updates, and that includes seasonal updates. There are many ways that educational apps can maintain a high install rate throughout the summer, instead of dropping off when the school year ends. By allowing parents to find your educational app in the app store and demonstrate its value, you can gain an advantage over competitors. The tips below will help ensure that your app is visible to parents and kids.
Summer Style Metadata
During the school year, users may be searching for “school” or “education” apps. During the summer, they’ll see more searches for “summer school” and similar terms, so developers should be able to take advantage of seasonal search trends. As the seasons change, so do the terms users search for the most. Research the keywords that are trending for your demographic to gain visibility and monitor your keyword ranking movement over the season to determine what works. A strong ASO strategy requires keeping up with changes and finding ways to integrate them with your existing keyword bank. 
However, they must also remain relevant to the app. While it is possible to add “summer” to a keyword bank and remain relevant, “vacation” is less likely to be related to the app’s functions and would not be a good addition. It’s important to find keywords that are not only in high demand for the summer, but also relevant to the app’s features and functions. Failure to do so will only cause the app to fall behind its competitors.
Sell it With Descriptions
The description is where app developers have the most freedom to describe how their app can be beneficial at all times of the year. As such, updating the description for the summer is a valuable way to let potential users know why they’ll still need it outside of the school year. Think of ways to appeal to students, teachers and parents to let them know the benefits of downloading and using your app during the summer. Remind your audience that it’s important to learn all throughout the year and use a well-written description to increase summer conversions. Developers can also consider including concepts and pitches such as:
- Keep your brain sharp during summer vacation
- Beat summer learning loss with educational games
- Get ready for the next school year
- Learning doesn’t have to end when school does
These are a few examples of summer and vacation-focused ideas and pitches your description can include to demonstrate the app’s value during the summer. Each one includes education-based keywords, such as “brain,” “school” or “learning” while acknowledging the fact that school’s out for the summer. These terms and phrases can be used to emphasize how the app can help even during summer vacation. Additionally, including the updated keywords and metadata in the new description will help the app rank better for those terms. If used properly and frequently, they will help improve the app’s relevance and increase its ranking in searches for those terms. This is especially important for Google Play, where the terms used in the description become the keywords the app ranks for. In short, not only does updating the app’s description help pitch it to users as an educational app for the summer, but it can improve its relevant search rankings too. Updating the description is essential.
Creatives with a Summer Twist
As the seasons change, apps can remain relevant by updating their creatives while maintaining their core messages. Now that it’s summertime, your creatives can demonstrate how the app can help with learning during the summer and illustrate how it can be used outside of a school environment. 
You can include screenshots of the app’s features for teaching children about the world around them, or videos that talk about forest or aquatic life. By demonstrating the app’s value for providing lessons out of a classroom, you show the users how it’s useful even after the school year. Research competing apps and see which of their strategies are working, such as incorporating summer colors and iconography. If your app has any seasonal features, this is the place to showcase them, while conveying to parents how your app is an important educational resource.
In Summary
As educational keywords see lower volume during the summer, app developers have to try different strategies to continue appealing to users. By utilizing a strong ASO strategy and appealing to parents looking to fight off summer learning loss, educational apps can keep their download numbers high throughout the summer. It’s important to know which keywords and creatives are trending during a season in order to capitalize on them. DATACUBE is a perfect solution for finding which keywords are trending, comparing competitor creatives and tracking your keyword ranking movements. With proper ASO, you can stay on top of the store even during the off-season.
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