You said that you plan on targeting your home town as a ‘soft launch’, then consider a local mailout. A welcome card or letter is a great way to attract new users. Here are some other effective promotion ways for you.
Post on Pinterest&Instagram
Just be sure to watermark your images with your app logo. Better yet, share these images on your APP Pinterest&Instagram account.
Answer questions
Help others get the answers they need on Quora&yahoo, and use your app name in your author bio.
Help users promote your app
Add an in-app “tell a friend” feature so that your current users can share the app with their friends, family, co-workers, and colleagues. Incentivize this sharing feature by offering credits or discounts for every new subscriber someone brings onboard.
Encourage customer ratings
Ask your happy users to leave a rating on the app store. You can also invite your friends and families to rate your app.
Use social media
Make yourself click-worthy and share-worthy. Be creative about your intro text.
Ask for positive reviews
Positive app reviews could very well be the best possible way to market your app. Customers will get a visual representation of what others think about it. You can guide your users to leave positive reviews on your app.
Become a guest blogger
Contribute to other websites and share your expertise. You’ll be allowed to put a link back to your app into your bio, that’s for sure!
Apply for Awards
Participating in app awards is the most recommended channel and I would highly suggest you take advantage of it. It can give you tons of press, exposure, reviews and plenty of downloads.
app store optimization
You can optimize your icon, title, description, and screenshots in order to be found faster on official app stores. If you know little about aso, you can hire anapp store optimization company to help you.
Update your app Constantly
Your customers need to know you are always making the app better for them. Keep your app content fresh and let your customers know that you are always planning something more for them to enjoy. Update can also improve your app ranking temporarily.
Participate in relevant activities
Meetups, events and conferences can be a great place to recruit new mobile app users. Simply bring along a stack of business cards with your app download link on them and give them out to everyone you speak to.
Join Linkedin & Facebook Groups
Linkedin is a massive social network with 400 million business professionals and Facebook has over 1 billion users. Find groups that are made up of people that closely resemble your existing customers or your ideal customers and share the app with them. Increase your visibility on social media groups.Explain the benefit of using the app and why they should use the app.