If you are like most smart phone users you have several apps on your phone and you use a handful of those regularly.
What makes those apps different?
Why do you keep coming back to them and not the others?
Those apps have succeeded in engaging your interest. You want to keep using it. Many of these apps have integrated themselves into your everyday life.
There are several ways you can improve engagement on your mobile apps to keep users coming back rather than having them sit unused on users’ phones. Make sure you evaluate which of these fits your business, mobile isn’t an arena where one-size-fits all. Your iPhone app developer or Android app developer can offer insights as to which is the best fit for your program and existing apps as well as helping you understand what is needed to implement each.
Collect Data
Whenever your users open your application they complete an action that can be tracked. This is just one type of action. Action taken within you application can be tracked using analytics. Understanding how your users use your app and knowing which features they utilize the most can be very useful information.
The cornerstone of any great engagement program will be allowing users to opt-in to data collection in order to improve their app experience. Not only will it allow you to focus your efforts for future app updates but the data will also allow you to create personalized, relevant messaging for your users.
Personalize Content
More than anytime in history there is data overload. Personalized content can cut through the clutter and be relevant to users.
To deliver content that matters to your users keep in mind their goals for using your app and then deliver information based on their user habits. As you can imagine, you won’t know those habits unless you have built a program to collect data.
Push Notifications
Customers regularly will opt-in for push notification programs (60% in some app categories). This is a huge opportunity for you and your business as push notifications are a great way to engage and retain app users.
The most effective push notification programs are offer value and are relevant to users.
Your app can improve its chances of a user giving you permission to send them push notifications if you let them know how push messages will add to their experience when asking for permission.
Mobile Only Rewards
If you have users that don’t use your app regularly, you can re-engage them by creating off mobile exclusive offers or a mobile loyalty program. Incorporate these offers with your push notifications and personalize them per the data you are collecting to maximize effectiveness.
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns (Flikr) http://bit.ly/1emjUQV
Regardless of the purpose for your app, it important that it be built to the highest possible standards if it is going to succeed.
Modern consumers are highly experienced with mobile apps and will quickly abandon apps that don’t meet their standards. This is exactly why you should hire a professional mobile app development company to build your application.
When you hire professional iPhone app developers or Android app developers you know that your project is in expert hands.
But beyond that, there are other benefits to working with a crack team.
Cost Savings
There can be a great deal of cost associated with hiring and managing the professionals you need to build a mobile application and do the necessary online programming. But hiring and training personnel is just the start of it, as this team will need software and other assets such as test devices to complete their job. It can be much cheaper to hire a professional team to build your project. If you move ahead with in-house development you will find that unless you choose to hire experienced designers and programmers to develop your project, you are likely to waste a great deal of time and money by choosing to develop your app in-house.
Leverage Experience and Resources
Professional app design and development firms are experienced with app development and can provide their experience to your organization’s app, thereby shortening your learning curve. Teams that have build hundreds of apps will understand challenges and will have the experience to address them. They will also understand trends as they work with many customers and generally keep a careful eye on industry innovations.
Expedite Development
Specialists that have build several apps will be able to complete your mobile app in a much quicker time-frame than hiring and bringing in-house new developers. Not only will a newly hired staff have to overcome start-up challenges once hired getting to speed in their new environment but the company will need to spend time on a lengthy recruitment process. Whereas, most professional firms can start your project right away and hit stride quickly on your project.
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns (Flikr) http://bit.ly/1eYA1Fo
Mobile has gone from the next big thing to businesses finding themselves in a position where if they are not mobile ready they run the risk of rapidly becoming irrelevant to the marketplace. You don’t need to do much more than walk down the sidewalk one day and spend some time dodging the people looking at their mobile phones to realize just how big mobile is right now.
If you want to connect with your customers, mobile is essential in the modern marketplace.
If you want to get the most out of your mobile application development makes sure you look at the latest trends before speaking with an iPhone application developer or Android application developer. Here are 5 mobile trends predominate in 2015:
Data is key
Data not only helps target ads and increase conversions but allows you to deliver personalized content that is relevant to your users to increase engagement. You have no doubt seen how Google and Facebook use data to try and deliver the most relevant ads possible. The same type of logic can be applied to the content on your application.
Mobile applications that do not take advantages of the opportunities presented by using data are essentially throwing darts in the dark and not delivering content to an established target. Content and ads that are delivered based on the interests of a particular user catch the interest of users and improve engagement.
Leverage location
Utilizing location in your mobile program is a must. Adding location data into your program will allow you to add context into your marketing program. Tracking location on a mobile device is simple so there is no reason not to be leveraging location data. Studies have shown mobile messaging and ads are most effective within 5 miles of a businesses location so make sure you take this into account when you start developing your mobile application.
Interactive ads improve engagement
With the mobile market maturing we are seeing interactive ads starting to stand out and increase user engagement and acquisition. There is a sense that interactive ads are fresh and new. Additionally interactive ads can give users a feeling of being in control, engaging the user on a personal level. Compared to static ads, interactive ads are shown to increase a drive in sales, which means this trend is likely to stick around.
Native ads continue to grow
If you haven’t heard the term, native advertising describes a trend where ads emulate the look and feel of the apps or mobile websites where they appear. These ads typically are displayed as blogs, videos and infographics that are designed to entertain and enlighten the viewers without expressly promoting a particular brand. Native ads usually discuss topics related to products or services the company is offering and provide valuable information to users.
Video ads are popular
As the size of phones increases and cell phone service improves we are seeing video ads getting more popular. Video is more engaging than text or image based ads. They let advertisers tell a compelling story to entice customers in a way that other ad formats cannot match. Additionally video is a hot trend in general in the mobile world so video ads fit within a media format that is rapidly increasing in popularity.
While these trends are hot across the industry as a whole, make sure you analyze you brand and apps to see how each of these can fit in and remember that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work with mobile. Find the opportunities in your trends that will for for you and your users.
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