In today's mobile-savvy generation, a company's online presence, which includes its mobile app, determines its success or failure. Even if you have a fantastic product line, service, or other ideas, you'll need a wonderful app to enhance its performance. It must capture attention and trigger a visual appeal.
However, just developing any app is not enough, you need certain planning and strategy that match your business needs and urges users to return to your app. This way you can minimize the chance and risk of developing an app that never attracts viewers and can't meet their expectations.
It would be best if you kept a few critical considerations in mind.
Here are some best practices for developing a robust mobile app:
1. Conduct Market Research and Identify Your Target Users
Running a business or creating an app should not be based on a hobby, gut feeling, or passion. It needs a well-structured plan and strategy.
As a business owner or an app developer, conducting market research and collecting information is crucial to defining a successful solution. This process may include brainstorming new ideas to solve any issues limiting your growth, productivity, and profitability and how a new app can help overcome them.
For rigorous market research, you should have a bird’s-eye view to observe every aspect of your business as well as multiple information sources such as online surveys, feedback, queries, trends, etc.
Key points to remember while conducting market research:
- Collect an extensive range of data using sources like search engines, social media, surveys, etc.
- Start thinking about the ideal audience you want to serve. Who are they?
- What are they trying to achieve? Once you know their goals, how are you going to help them? And for that, you really need to hone in on their pain points.
- Gather enough information about your users.
- What particular thing can you bring to the table to help your customer and give them a fantastic experience?
In-depth marketing research provides you with the context you need for making more precise decisions which finally make you confident about achieving your goals.
One of the main components of market research is knowing everything about your prospective audience, such as their interest, demography, age group, etc. It helps you create an app that meets their requirements.
2. Conduct Competitor Analysis
Trends can be incredibly tempting, but app development is not complete without a competitor's analysis. In fact, according to experts, many developers and entrepreneurs don't pay enough attention to other players.
Competitor analysis is a key to beating out the competition; it starts with understanding your competitors who are offering the same app features.
You can save money and time on your app structure by learning what worked and what didn't during their trial-and-error process. This will allow you to create something more distinctive, fresh, and better for your users.
Key factors to consider while performing competitor analysis:
- Find competitor apps that have a similar category, features, and as well as the same target audience as your app.
- Once you find out about your competitors' apps, it's time to find their unique value offering that makes the competitor's app appealing to viewers.
- Reviews competitors' apps to give your app a cutting edge and establish a solid position in the marketplace.
- Use the strengths and weaknesses of competitors to get more ideas for a successful app launch.
- Check the app store ranking of your competitor's app for a detailed study and specific keywords.
3. Make the User Interface Visible and Easy for Navigation
The touch sensitivity of mobile apps for users while scrolling, swiping, menu, CTA, etc, is referred to as a user interface. When they use mobile apps and websites, it gives them a realistic and entertaining experience.
To build a user-centered interface, you must first prioritize people above machines and consider how people learn, remember, and think before incorporating these factors into software design.
By following this step, the developer can reduce software annoyance by creating a pleasant, smooth user experience that supports business goals and allows speedy and error-free task completion.
Key points to remember while building a user-centered interface:
- Before you craft a user interface, make sure to beautify your content with themes and graphics that can blend the message smoothly with the designs for a relevant user experience.
- Remember to design a layout that can support most device sizes and optimize your experience.
- Keep your app free from clutter like unnecessary app elements and overload content on a single screen for an excellent user interface.
- Make sure to design finger-friendly tappable buttons that enable users to control the touch actions.
- Creating high-resolution images is a very crucial part of improving your app visibility.
4. Implement In-App Analytics
With the advancement of technology, businesses worldwide recognize the need for mobile app analytics. The app owner can improve and make it more profitable by analyzing data that typically includes:
- Location
- log-in and log-out information
- New and returning users
- Devices like mobile or tablet
- Visitors
- In-app actions
- Screen views
- Source data
- User behavior
Because of quick advancements and breakthroughs, such as the 5G network, consumers may be able to connect with the mobile app in new ways. By combining the power of app analytics with emerging technologies, companies may anticipate in-depth user information.
5. Conduct Beta Testing
Undoubtedly, an excellent user experience of an app is vital for the overall mobile app development process's success. It necessitates the process of mobile app software testing.
There are mainly two types of software testing you need to perform one by one for mobile app development. The first is Alpha testing, and the second is beta testing. They are commonly known as A/B testing.
Here is a checklist for mobile app testing before releasing it to end-user:
- Test you want to conduct
- Your target audience
- Follow the next step if you get disapproval
- learn from your own test for better changes
- Implementing changes
Here we will focus on Beta testing
Conducted after Alpha, Beta testing is generally performed by real software application users in a real environment. Beta testing is one of the types of User Acceptance testing and one of the final steps of mobile app development.
Beta testing is performed to find bugs and functionality issues before the app goes live for general use.
Some other testing methods your mobile app has to undergo is:
- User experience
- Functional testing
- Performance testing
- Security testing
- Device and platform testing
6. Secure the App
Securing a mobile app is essential, and it should be the top priority for any developer and client. Your mobile app may contain confidential information such as the name, home address, password, and account numbers of users, which create a security risk that could be detrimental to the users and the organization.
To protect the mobile app from any such issue, you should practice a few things:
- Write a secure code
- Encrypt all data
- Use authorized APIs only
- Use high-level or server-side Authentication
- Deploy tamper-detection technologies
- Use the principle of least privilege
- Build threat models to defend data
- Deploy proper session handling
- Use the best cryptography algorithms and techniques
- Obfuscate to prevent reverse engineering
- Repeated mobile app security test
7. Marketing Through Right Channels
Promoting your app can be surprisingly time-consuming. However, Marketing mobile apps is an intricate process where the developer has to make sure that he has opted for the proper channels. By taking advantage of several marketing channels, a developer can enhance the exponential growth of mobile app marketing.
However, having several marketing ways for promoting apps might lead to confusion and indecision. Consider following some marketing channels before choosing the platform to ensure one gets the best deal.
- Incentivized CPI
- Non-Incentivized CPI
- Social media/Facebook Advertising
- Search engine Marketing (Google AdWords)
- Get Featured as an "App of the Day,"
- T.V. Advertising
- Co-Promotional Partnerships
- Celebrity Endorsements
- Mobile App Advertising
Before you consider which marketing media is best for you, don't forget your audience's expectations, experience, and priorities.
8. Make the App Shareable
No doubt, the success of a mobile app depends on its overall user experience; however, its total number of downloads makes it top of the list.
To maximize the number of total users, the first and foremost step that you need to take care of is to make the app shareable. Making your app shareable is one of the biggest and brightest ways to make it go viral very quickly.
One way to make the app shareable is to ask your partnered mobile app development company to add some native elements to make your app easily shareable on all social media platforms, including WhatsApp and others.
9. Create a Web Landing Page for Your App
Often used for websites, a landing page is created for marketing and advertising any campaign. This page provides the link destination where customers click on an ad and are redirected to the app store to download the link.
One of the significant benefits of creating a web landing page is that it can increase your conversion rate as these links collect information about customers and traffic and turn them into leads.
It is advisable to go through a few questions before the creation of the landing page:
- What should I need to include in my app landing pages?
- What is my objective in creating a great landing page?
- Which headline and CTA will make my landing page more persuasive?
- Is there any offer for my audience?
- When should I use the landing page pre- or post-launch?
10. Stay Active on Social Media
While many of us may have a basic understanding of social media and how it has influenced user participation and created demand and growth, let us try to comprehend it.
The current scenario has provided a good opportunity for your mobile app to launch as you can find many friends and followers.
Furthermore, current trends give developers an advantage in obtaining all information and staying ahead of the competition.
It's not just about publishing an app; aftermarket reviews and feedback can help you improve it. The upcoming years will have multiple exciting and innovative social media styles with user-friendly and sustainable trends.
11. Use Influencers and Bloggers
Influencer culture is gaining popularity among app developers. Its importance has grown manifold during the pandemic. Developing a great app is very crucial, but at the same time, the marketing of such an app among the potential audience is equally important.
The current scenario has provided a good opportunity for app developers and app owners on account of the availability of a large number of influencers who can attract more people and quickly build trust in the brand.
Here are the ways to find influencers:
- Use any social listening tool to find an influencer who fits your niche.
- Search on google for relevant influencers that fit your niche.
- On social media, apps click search and enter the hashtag.
- Use influencer marketing platforms.
- Look for bloggers who have written about the topic.
12. Run an Affiliate and Referral Program
Mobile app affiliate marketing is very effective as it allows one to generate revenue from the app. App developers do their best to offer lucrative deals to the public to generate brand awareness.
There are lots of opportunities in mobile affiliate marketing, and you need to keep in mind a few points:
- The type of affiliate marketing you want to include.
- The affiliate offers you to run for marketing.
- The network you want to sign up for affiliate marketing.
- The emerging mobile market channels for more sales.
While running affiliate marketing campaigns, you can also run a referral program for an easy transition, as it allows instant access to all contacts as well as social media accounts. You just need to integrate an app referral program for your brand app.
The aim of running such a process is not just to increase the number of users of your mobile app but also to create an audience base for your future venture.
13. Create Visually Appealing Screenshots for Marketing
We all know how important first impressions are, and images are the ideal showcase for anything with a functional or emotional role in the decision-making process.
In simple words, having some clear screenshots of your app gives users an idea of what the app is about.
App screenshots provide apparent features and functionalities that help get users' attention while searching for an app on the play store. Ensure that you include the best features in screenshot slots.
14. Create Mobile App Promotional Video
While screenshots are a major deciding factor in choosing an app, one also needs to be mindful that an appealing preview video of the app can tell a lot about your product.
Videos entered our devices a decade ago for a reason. Experts will delve deeply into video production in the future years, primarily for commercial purposes.
Here are some more reasons why you should create an app promo video:
- To give a brief description of the app.
- To make your app more presentable than your competitor's apps.
- It creates the right path for users to understand how to use the app.
- This promo video is highly shareable, improving the overall reach of your app.
- You can use it on other platforms like youtube and social media.
15. Create a Press Kit for your app
If you want to get your mobile app launch information out to the media, you need to create a 'Press kit.' This kit is an essential part of your app's publicity efforts, making it easy for media and journalists to understand your brand and app.
It involves a comprehensive list of facts, pictures, images, and figures that can be accessible in their content to create a compelling story.
For creating an informative press kit, include these key elements:
- Store icon
- Launch date
- App description, previous review, and story
- Branded marketing assets
- Promotional video
- Screenshots
- About us section
16. Run Giveaway, Contests, and Limited Time Offers
We almost certainly came across contests and offers when browsing various websites or apps, and no one can deny that we all enjoy freebies.
Giveaways usually encourage new customers to download and subscribe by linking them, and this has been a frequent technique for organizations to enhance conversion rates.
There are a few things to keep in mind for a successful offer campaign:
- Great appealing content for the campaign
- Duration of campaign
- Best time to launch
- Budget for prizes and offers
- Free giveaways like eBooks, pdf downloads, and subscriptions for a certain period
17. Localize Your App
Once you have successfully launched and established a mobile app, it's time to localize its services and features to increase user satisfaction and the success of the mobile app.
It's a fact that customers prefer to download and use localized mobile apps.
This process involves app localization elements like:
- Native language support
- Catering to Local culture and religions
- Support for regional currency
- Idiomatic Expression of the local area
- Nearby market trends and practices
18. Invest in App Store Optimisation (ASO)
App Store optimization is the continuous process of optimizing mobile apps to rank higher by improving app visibility in the app store's search results.
This step aims to make it more visible to potential customers and increase the number of downloads. The process of ASO is similar to SEO, and only ranking factors are different.
ASO factors involve:
- App name and title
- Keywords
- App description
- Subtitle
- Total number of downloads
- Ratings and reviews
Final Words
Here we focused on the technical and business aspects, but how to implement each element is a high-level task.
Undoubtedly, the success of a mobile app depends upon its quality, performance, and experience, which meet the client's high expectations.
On a concluding note, no matter where you are in the mobile app development cycle, understanding each of the stages mentioned above is a crucial task for any mobile app developer and business owner for their growth and brand trust.
