Last month, Apple announced that its App Store alone now contains more than 425,000 apps. For app marketers, your challenge is finding a way to make your app stand out in such a massive crowd.

Discoverability hinges on getting your app ranked high enough in the app stores. Additionally, in order to scale your business, you need to find a cost-effective way to secure enough downloads. And the real kicker – you need to achieve all of these marketing goals without breaking the bank.

Before throwing your hands up in defeat, rethinking your career choice and going prematurely grey, know that you’re not alone, and that there are ways to overcome these challenges.

Following are four simple and proven best practices for developing your creative and effectively promoting your app for profitable and sustainable loyal user acquisition and business growth. By employing these, you can greatly increase the likelihood of finding loyal users in a cost-efficient way. You can also read additional strategies in our recent post Five Ways to Drive Downloads and Loyal Users for Your Mobile App and in our e-book.

1. With App Ad Copy, Less is More
Unlike traditional ad copy, mobile real estate is limited. Keep your ad text short, punchy and straight to the point, and make your call to action immediate and valuable. When writing effective mobile ads, we recommend the following:

• Your ad copy should resemble that of Google AdWord copy, rather than traditional copy
• Do your research and identify the most compelling, targeted keywords to use in your title
• Highlight key benefits and functionalities that clearly differentiate your app
• Keep it easy to understand, and keep jargon to a minimum

2. Practice Makes Perfect
Once you've developed your creative, conduct A/B testing by comparing a baseline, control sample to a variety of single-variable test samples across all traffic sources to determine which ads perform the best – resulting in higher ranking in the app stores and/or garnering increased downloads. By looking at the results from different tests, you'll be able to identify the ads that consistently produce the best results and swap them for lower-performing ads on a per source basis. But don't stop there – routinely play with different copy combinations with the goal of continuously increasing conversions.

3. Write Your Landing Page for Mobile Consumption
It is extremely important to remember your audience when developing your app store landing page. When composing your landing page, don't focus on how it will look on the desktop, but rather how it will look on mobile devices, since this is where the majority of app download decision-making will occur.

4. Drive Downloads Through Your Title
When creating your app's title, it is essential to look beyond your brand and also consider terms of app store search results and conversion of users who arrive on your app store landing page. For example, if you have a photography-oriented app, speak to the functionality of the app in its title by referencing a feature like "picture color". This way you are just as likely to appear in the app store search results for a user looking for a "photography" solution.

It's true that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for marketing to and securing mobile app users. But the good news is that there is a way to overcome these challenges and build a successful, sustainable mobile app business – and reduce your user acquisition costs by up to 10x in the process. To learn more about these tips and tricks and many others, download the free e-book, Best Practices for Growing Your Mobile App Business.