Have you ever considered developing a mobile app for your company or business? Even app development has been trending, do you really need so? Obviously, creating one incurs a high cost, so before deciding whether or not to do so, let’s firstly look into the 5 things about app development you have to bear in mind!
1. Evaluate usage rate of mobile app
It is no longer surprising that businesses own their company apps, especially for industries like retail, catering, tourism, etc. The app functions add a lot of convenience to corporates, on one hand enhances the user experience, on the other hand boosts business operational efficiency. Having an app seems beneficial, but have you ever drilled deep on the essence of developing your own one?
Usage rate implies the popularity of a mobile app. Is the app you developed catering the needs of the public? Is there anyone using the app? These are some of the questions you would need to ask yourself before coming up with a decision. Unless you have clear answers, you will just be unnecessarily misplacing resources in going along with the trend of app development. It is super hard to differentiate yourself out of the crowd if you just follow the steps of the others, given the competition in the mobile app market is very keen.
2. Clarify purpose of creating a mobile app
The purpose of an app is often to develop a solution towards business operational issues or client daily enquiries. For instance, creating an app version of e-shop can alleviate the problem of overloading staff capacity, customers can self-order on the app without waiting for the shop owners’ replies. Whereas for apps targeting at booking and queueing systems, it helps enhance the operation efficiency by simplifying scheduling processes and reducing human errors.
Without the clarity of why an app is needed, it may in turn create extra expenses and time investments for a business.
3. Investigate you audience interest
Will the public be intrigued by your app? Never pre-assume that your app will be gone viral following the launch! In order not to cause over-investments, we highly recommend you to first test out the market interest.
Conducting market research is definitely pricely (especially to SMEs), and the issue here lies in: how should we minimize the cost of doing so while maximizing the output we can have? To understand more about the market persona, you should better utilize different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter with tactics like polling, or posting related contents to increase relevance!
4. Attract a large user base
Seems unrealistic to think about attracting a larger user base before actually developing the app? A comprehensive plan is what drives you to success! No matter in websites or mobile apps, higher traffic always implies that your business is being known by more people. Hence, how to attract app installation will be the next stage.
Effective user acquisition always contributes to sustainable development. As we mentioned in previous articles, mobile apps always have a more pertinent target group of customers, and hence the benefits provided shall further be pinpointing at audience’s needs. Promotional methods like lucky draw, first time installation discounts,etc., can play such a role but they always require a high cost, did you leave enough budget for these?
5. Retain mobile app users
After attracting the audience to download the app, next we would need to think of a way to keep users interacting with it. The lower the user retention rate, the higher the operational cost is, which shows the importance of having a certain user base. Having said that, it may still be difficult for some companies to fulfil such a goal, which needs extra marketing efforts. Some may choose to make a simple website, to enable users to download the app through Google Search, increase the chance of download by targeted customers, and achieve the goal of higher reach.
Recall the apps you use on a daily basis. What are the first ones that pop up in your mind? Is it an app for social media, news, or weather report? More importantly, how can the app be part of our daily lives and habits?
Retention comes by aquicisting and keeping the customer base, and there are a lot of strategies you can consider when it comes to converting retention. For instance, mobile games encourage users to log in on consecutive days for special prizes. That is how retention could be done!
Designing an app is definitely a decision that requires a long consideration process. Though the app may help solve operational bottlenecks, everything comes with a purpose, and that’s how an app will be truly efficient in bringing higher product or services sales, as well as brand awareness!