In recent times, we have experienced a huge shift of focus on App Engagement and User Retention techniques rather than just User Acquisition ones, and rightly so. With changing time, marketing goals and targets of mobile applications have evolved and they are not just looking to create and increase their user base but to create more and more loyal users. To ensure that a first-time app user comes back to the app frequently and does not end up uninstalling the app just because he doesn’t use it anymore, we need to deploy certain strategies which would help to improve app engagement. The number of downloads of an app over the store is no longer a measure of how successful an application is, rather it is the number of users who stick around which actually matters. There are quite a few mobile marketing strategies which help towards ensuring user app engagement. Let’s have a look at some of the best tactics to improve app engagement.
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First Impression Matters
The first impression of any app is a combination of the following processes:
- Visit App Store Listing
- App Download
- Onboarding, i.e., first log in
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Speed Matters
In a survey by CA Technologies, it has come to light that more than 50% of people consider an app loading time of fewer than six seconds acceptable. Hence, it is obvious that age-old saying ‘Slow and Steady wins the race’ doesn’t work in this domain. With pizza getting ordered by simple tweets, online retailers offering same-day delivery, a cab being available by the mere click of a button on an app, it is quite evident that everyone expects things to happen as quickly as possible.
If the app is able to provide fast service be it in terms of delivering information or placing some orders, people are sure to keep using it and come back to it whenever they require such service in comparison to one which is slow and lags thereby wasting their precious time. The app needs to meet user expectations else people are sure to find an alternative as soon as possible.
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Push Notifications and Personalized Content
Push Notifications have proven to be quite beneficial in recent times. In-app messaging and push notifications, being highly customizable, are able to gain the best conversion in terms of app engagement, thereby outnumbering the effectiveness of emails. Apps which remain silent or unused for a long time get forgotten and people eventually end up uninstalling them from their smartphones. We should make sure that we provide necessary and important information in our notifications and not overwhelm the users which spams. Push Notifications have been a major reason for improved app engagement, only if the content is properly customized to user’s needs and requirements.
Offering personalized content be it in the form of recommendations on the app or even personalized ads go a long way in creating user engagement. A survey by eMarketer confirms the fact that more than 56% people mention that personalized content has led to improved app engagement rates. In order to serve personalized content, we need to know our users better.
The data required for this include:
- Demographic: Age, Gender, Occupation, Interests
- Contextual: Device, Time, Location
- Behavioral: Likes, Shares, Order History
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Engage Users
It is very important to make sure that we keep engaging the users in every small opportunity which we get. The major area to focus on during user engagement is that we don’t forget to measure this user engagement. Tools like Google Analytics, GameAnalytics, Localytics and many others can come in quite handy in measuring the user engagement and extracting useful information from the same.
We can try things like A/B Tests, production of relevant content, launching thematic campaigns, hearing out our customers or think of many other different opportunities to enhance and promote user engagement which would ultimately lead to improved app engagement. We need to grab every single opportunity which comes our way, as there is no perfect user engagement technique. Implementing different techniques and trying to reach out to the users and show them that their opinion matters. This will not only build a strong bond but also make sure that our app thrives in the market.
Endnote:
It is quite evident in today mobile application domain that there is no point in attracting a huge number of users if we are not working towards strategies and policies to retain them. We can utilize the tactics mentioned above to devise a solid app engagement strategy for our mobile application. These are just some of the most widely used and recommended methods and can be used irrespective of the business domain under consideration by our mobile app. We can also deploy several other mobile marketing strategies in combination with the aforementioned ones to ensure best results. A proper research and planning must be put in learning more and more about the user base so that we can not only deliver personalized content but also figure out what the majority is looking for and what is the reason that people do not come back to our app. Once we figure out the reason for people staying away from our app, we can definitely look for options to ensure that we mitigate them and retain our customers. Deploying proper app engagement and user retention strategies go a long way in making sure that the app is a success.
Author bio:
Jennifer Ruth works at HireMobileGeeks (best android app development company) as a mobile app developer in the New Jersey, USA. She keeps writing on mobile technology such as Android app development, mobile app testing, latest updates about mobile phones and much more. Follow her on Facebook to get more mobile tech news.
