A Handy Guide for Mobile App Development: Tips For Acquisition, Retention, and Everything in Between
The application world is full of challenges. Starting with app planning and then development.
The latter, in turn, can be painful either to develop alone or to find the ideal partner for the mission. Then there are the launch challenges and the “final step” to keep downloads and users active — the hardest part. So let’s talk about marketing for user retention.
The mobile engagement has once again gained the agendas of those who want to engage and retain users of mobile applications.
At other times, we could take user acquisition as the main metric for determining the success of the mobile app. But without engaging and retaining app users, high download rates mean nothing.
In 2009, for example, the PlayStore had only 16,000 apps available. Today, there are more than 3 million applications available for download.
In other words: The market has become much more competitive and challenging.
Faced with so many app options, engaging and retaining app users is the most valuable indicator to determine the success of your project.
In this article, you will learn about some tried and tested tactics for engaging and retaining app users. It is the success of your project that is at stake. Keep up with us and have a good reading!
To get here, you can already consider yourself victorious, since downloading is not a simple task. However, downloading is winning a battle and not a war, as retaining can be even more work and your app depends on it.
But no worries, because I will give you guidance on how to ease this pain and increase your retention rates with marketing! Come on?
Engagement and Retention: Understand the Unique Concepts
Names are self-explanatory, but reinforcing knowledge never hurts.
Engagement describes how active users are in the app. Despite being a subjective metric, market trends describe users as highly involved as those who have more than 10 sessions per month.
It is a concept that is directly linked to retention, which means keeping active users at your base. Retention is also a very subjective term. It is usually measured from the percentage of users who return to the application within 3 months after the first session.
[Prefer Reading: “Multi-Experience Evolution: New Experiment in Mobile App Development”]
The Hurdles with Engaging and Retaining App Users
Achieving sufficient application engagement and user retention rates is not less than a hard nut to crack.
To exemplify, an Android app loses 77% of active users within three days of installation on disliking the experience from the application.
The number grows over time: after 30 days, the drop increases to 90%. And after 90 days, it rises to 95%. Having an application without active and involved users can frustrate the plans of those who intend to win with the project.
But it is possible to reverse this scenario.
Give Value to the User, Earn Value from the User
The first thing to make more than clear to your customer is: what value does he get when choosing your app?
What good does your app have to offer that will convince you to stay? These values must be present in all circumstances of the application, as it cannot be sustained without value.
“Offering value is good marketing practice for user retention. After all, the creation and delivery of values is the essence of this competence.”
So, try to use this information as a curiosity trigger so that users want to continue using your app — or try it out.
To do this, reserve the first lines of your app’s description to highlight this information, and make sure to use it on your app’s social networks.
Show that your mobile software is not just another one! Its value must be in sync with the pain of its users.
[Prefer Reading: “B2Me: Marketing where Brands Get More Personal”]
Promote Good Experiences & Success Stories
Did you know that experience is a buying decision factor for 73% of customers around the world?
And that only in the US, that number is 89%! The PWC survey shows us this and also that 80% of Americans consider speed, convenience, and service as factors for a good experience.
Now that we know this, what can your app offer for good experiences? This is a question that you should ask yourself. Offer more discount coupons?
Create really interesting and fun gamification? Promote actions on social networks? Establish a 24-hour call center or chatbots? I leave the answer with you!
You can also analyze the most downloaded applications and study how they keep download and retention rates so high.
Offer Relevant Content and Information
A good experience can come from relevant information and content. That’s because quality information adds value to your brand and the customer.
This practice is one of the pillars of Content Marketing to attract people potentially interested in your solution. In addition to creating this value, relevant content is excellent for your app’s brand awareness, increasing the chances of user retention.
That is a recognition of your brand and knowledge about your product. To interact with your audience and deliver value through your content — especially through social media.
Here I bring some tips on how to use them in favor of your application.
Use Push Notifications for Enhanced User Interaction
I bring you another valuable piece of information: we use an average of 9 apps daily, dedicating ourselves to them for 3.7 hours, according to Techcrunch and App Annie.
Do you know what you can do in that time? Send push notifications. They increase the likelihood of accessing your application, especially when the content offers value, benefit, information, and so on.
After all, your user will definitely see your notification there, which will make sure he doesn’t forget about your app’s existence.
But don’t overdo it! Excesses cause bad experiences and we already know where this can lead…
Pay Attention to ASO and SEO
I commented that the value of your application should appear in all circumstances, correct?
So you can include app stores in that. Optimize the description, put prints and videos that are attractive, informative, and that catch the attention of users and the stores themselves.
Good products that guarantee usability, functionality, and security are the favorites of Google and Apple.
So pay attention to app stores, especially since your app depends on them to reach users. But your app’s ASO shouldn’t be the only focus:
Roughly speaking, SEO is about techniques to make certain content appear on Google and other search engines. And you can bet: there is no doubt that people research the apps available in their region, such as in the case of urban mobility apps.
Therefore, your application should appear as a result of this search.
There are N forms of responses for this user search: blog content, news from portals, and the link of the play store and app store itself.
For this, it is very crucial to be aware of the keywords in your application.
These words must appear in the description of your app, in the blog content it will appear in, in the news, and in other formats. And to further optimize, include the names of the cities your app operates in case of local actions like Uber apps.
Take the test: search for an app and see which Google will suggest to you. If yours doesn’t show up, it’s because you have a job to do!
[Prefer Reading: “Top 10 Trends that Define the Future of Mobile Applications in 2020 & Beyond”]
Marketing for User Retention: For What?
Wanting more people to use your app is a common desire for any app owner. After all, it is satisfying to see that all the hassle to produce the app has had an effect.
However, this is not all about keeping users active. Marketing for user retention also works with the scalability of your app and increased profits. So, take care of the retention rate very carefully.
And as a bonus tip to keep your values always high, I advise you to keep active and efficient customer support, as this is one of the ways to offer good experiences to users.
We talked about this above, remember?
Good practices, Excellent Design & Use of the Latest APIs
One way to conquer a large number of users, to be known and desired by users is to get featured in one of the App Store.
Google, Apple, and Microsoft love apps that follow the latest design and usability guidelines. And that uses the latest APIs released in their annual builds.
Google has been encouraging the use of material design, even creating a category of Show Cases to highlight applications that make the best use of Material Design.
Apple, for its part, has been looking at applications that use Touch ID, Apple Watch, among others.
[Prefer Reading: “Latest Trends in Web App Development Dominating 2020 & Beyond”]
