MOO WebTech
Networks & Securitytheory-practicebeginner

L30 — Digital Marketing & Promotion

How do apps and products get found online? We learn SEO, social media promotion, and create a real promotional poster for our app using Canva — in the browser, free.

80 min24.03.2026L30

🎯Learning Objectives

  • Explain what digital marketing is and how it differs from traditional advertising
  • Name three ways an app or product gets discovered online
  • Understand the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
  • Create a promotional poster for their app in Canva — free, browser-based

📖Theory

1. What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is promotion that happens on the internet: social media posts, search results, YouTube ads, email newsletters, app store listings.

It's different from traditional marketing (TV ads, billboards, flyers) in two key ways:

TraditionalDigital
One-way: company broadcastsTwo-way: users comment, share, react
Expensive (TV ad = thousands of $)Can start free (Instagram, TikTok)
Hard to measure (how many saw the billboard?)Precise metrics (3,847 people clicked, 12% bought)
Slow (print a flyer → distribute → wait)Instant (post → seen within seconds)

If you released an app tomorrow, digital marketing is how people would find it.

2. How People Find Your App or Product

Channel 1 — App Store / Search

When someone searches "habit tracker" in Google Play, apps appear ranked by relevance, rating, and number of downloads. Your app's title, description, and screenshots decide whether they click or scroll past.

Channel 2 — Social Media

A short TikTok or Instagram Reel showing what your app does can reach millions of people for free — if it's interesting enough. Social media rewards content people share.

Channel 3 — Word of mouth

The most trusted marketing: a friend recommends the app. You can encourage this by making sharing easy ("Tell a friend and both get 1 month free").

Channel 4 — Search engines (SEO)

If your app has a website, Google can list it when people search for related terms. Optimising that website for Google is called SEO — Search Engine Optimization.

Channel 5 — Paid ads

Google Ads, Instagram Ads, App Store Ads — you pay to appear in front of specific audiences. You choose: age, location, interests. You pay per click or per install.

3. SEO — Getting Found on Google

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means making your website or app page appear high in search results, without paying for ads.

The three main factors:

  1. Keywords — the words users type when searching. If your habit tracker app uses the word "habit tracker" in its title, description, and page headings, Google is more likely to show it.
  2. Quality content — pages with helpful, original text rank higher. Google rewards real value.
  3. Links — the more other websites link to yours, the more trustworthy Google considers you.

Simple SEO rule for beginners: write for humans, not for Google. If the text reads naturally and answers real questions, Google will reward it.

4. Creating Promotional Materials

Every product needs:

  • App icon — the first visual people see in the store (must be clean, readable at 48×48 px)
  • Screenshots — 3–5 images showing the key screens of the app
  • Short description — 80 characters max; must explain the app in one sentence
  • Promo poster / banner — for social media, school display, or a presentation

Tools for creating these — all free, all in the browser:

ToolLinkWhat it's for
Canvacanva.comPosters, banners, Instagram posts, presentations
Figmafigma.comApp screenshots and UI mockups (from L27)
Remove.bgremove.bgRemove background from a photo (for transparent icons)

5. Canva — Design for Everyone

Canva is an online design tool with thousands of ready-made templates. You pick a template, swap the text and images, and download.

To start:

  1. Go to canva.com
  2. Sign up with a Google account (free)
  3. Click "Create a design" → search for "Instagram Post" or "Poster"
  4. Choose a template and start editing

Canva works in the browser. No installation. Free tier has more than enough templates for school work.

6. What Makes a Good Promotional Poster?

A poster that works:

  • One clear message — what is this? what does it do?
  • One strong visual — a screenshot, an illustration, a bold image
  • Short text — 5–10 words max for the headline. People glance at posters, they don't read.
  • A call to action — "Download now", "Scan the QR code", "Available on Google Play"
  • Consistent colours and fonts — use the same 2 colours throughout

The 3-second rule: if a person can't understand what the poster is about in 3 seconds, start over.

💻Code Examples

Example A — App Store short description (80 characters)

Bad (too vague):

A great app for tracking things you want to do every day.

(58 characters, but what things? And "great" is not informative.)

Good:

Build habits that stick. Track daily goals. See your streak.

(60 characters. Specific, uses keywords "habits", "daily goals", "streak".)

Example B — A social media caption for an app launch

Code
🚀 Finally launched! My homework tracker app is live on Google Play.
📋 Add tasks, set due dates, get reminders.
💯 100% free. No ads. No account needed.

👉 Search "StudyBox" in Google Play.

#app #productivity #student #android

Structure: hook (🚀 excitement), features (3 bullets), trust signals (free, no ads), call to action (search name), hashtags (discoverability).

✏️Practice Tasks

Task 1Analyse a real app listing
EASY — IN CLASS

Go to play.google.com/store in the browser. Search for a popular app: Duolingo, Spotify, or any app you use.

Open its store page and answer in your notebook:

  1. What is the short description (first line under the title)?
  2. How many screenshots are shown?
  3. What does the first screenshot communicate?
  4. What is the rating and how many reviews?
  5. In your opinion: what makes this listing good or bad?
💡 Hint
The short description is the first sentence or two below the app title. Screenshots are the scrollable row of images before the "About" section. Notice how the best apps put text on their screenshots to explain each screen — they're like mini-posters.
Task 2Create a promo poster in Canva
MEDIUM — IN CLASS

Create a promotional poster for the app you designed in L27 (homework tracker, recipe app, etc.).

  1. Go to canva.com → Create design → "Poster (A4)" or "Instagram Post"
  2. Choose any template that fits a tech/app style
  3. Change:
    • The headline to your app's name and one-sentence benefit
    • The image to a screenshot from your Figma mockup (export from Figma as PNG and upload to Canva)
    • The colours to match your app's colour scheme from L28
  4. Add a call to action: "Coming soon to Google Play" or "Download free"
  5. Download as PNG and share with the class
💡 Hint
In Canva, click any text box to edit it. Double-click an image placeholder to replace it with your own upload. The colour palette is under "Brand" if you have a Canva account, or you can manually set hex codes — click any colour swatch and type the hex code (e.g. #1976D2 for Material blue).
Task 3Write a launch post for social media
HARD — HOMEWORK

Write a promotional post for your app as if you were posting it to Instagram or TikTok. Include:

  1. A hook (first line that makes people stop scrolling)
  2. 3 feature bullet points
  3. One trust signal ("free", "no registration", "works offline")
  4. A clear call to action
  5. 5 relevant hashtags

Also: write a 80-character short description for the Google Play listing.

Then answer: which social media platform would you target first for your app, and why? (Think about the age and interests of your target user.)

💡 Hint
For a student homework tracker app: target audience = students 12–18 → Instagram Reels and TikTok. A strong hook for TikTok: "POV: you never forget homework again 📚" — relatable, short, immediately relevant to the viewer. Hooks that mention a problem the viewer has perform best.

⚠️Common Mistakes

Writing a long description nobody reads

App store descriptions, social posts, and ad copy must be short. Users decide in 3 seconds. Cut every word that doesn't earn its place.

Using too many hashtags with no strategy

Adding 30 generic hashtags (#love #photo #fun) reaches no one specifically. Use 5–8 targeted hashtags relevant to your actual audience (#androidapp #studyapp #studentlife).

Ignoring the icon

The app icon is the first impression in a list of search results. A blurry, text-heavy, or too-detailed icon loses clicks before anyone reads the description. One clear symbol, two colours maximum.

Copying a competitor's description

Google penalises duplicate content in search. And it's unethical. Describe your own app in your own words.

🎓Instructor Notes

⚡ How to run this lesson (~80 min)

  • [5 min] Hook. Open the Google Play page for a random unknown app with 3 downloads. Then open Duolingo's page. Ask: "What's different?" Students will immediately point out the screenshots, description, rating.
  • [15 min] Theory. Cover the 5 channels and SEO basics. For SEO, actually Google something live and show the search results — point out the paid ads vs organic results.
  • [10 min] Canva demo. Create a new design → pick a template → swap text and image. Show the download button.
  • [30 min] Task 2 in class. Walk around. The main hurdle: importing the Figma screenshot. Show students: Figma → select frame → Export (bottom right) → PNG.
  • [15 min] Poster gallery. Everyone displays their poster on screen. Class gives one "star" (what works) and one "wish" (what could improve).
  • [5 min] Preview L31. Computer Networks — how does the internet actually work?

💬 Discussion questions

  • "Why do you think some great apps fail while some mediocre ones become popular?"
  • "What's the difference between organic reach and paid reach?"
  • "Is it fair that apps with bigger marketing budgets rank higher? How does SEO try to level the playing field?"