With thousands of new app releases daily, only a few make it to success. However, a 2020 study shows that 88% of mobile time is spent on apps, and regardless of the competition, there’s plenty of room to maneuver and succeed in the mobile apps world. Having a brilliant idea is not enough as it takes a massive deal of groundwork from concept to completion to become truly successful. Whether you’re building your app with app maker software or coding everything yourself, you need a clear strategy that outlines key features. Get your creative juices flowing, work on your ideas, and check out the 7 secrets to building a successful mobile app.
Focus on Solving Only One Key Issue
People with not a lot of app developing experience often get distracted from their original concept with the idea of adding extra features. However, any experienced developer would confirm that sticking to the original scope of work is a must and adding extra features too early is a common mistake. A single-feature oriented app would be less confusing and won’t make the users feel overwhelmed. A user-friendly experience is a must in every strategy and is not much of a secret. The real secret here is to restrict yourself from adding features that may seem lucrative and must-have money-making selling points. However, adding more features to a mobile app is not forbidden and is another must for healthy future development. Future is key here and as long as you’ve developed a solid main functionality, adding more features is something to look forward to but only one at a time. The goal is to release an app that is easy for users to understand and operate. Following users’ feedback is also key, and once you feel your target audience is comfortable with the current product you offer, incorporating another feature is not a bad idea. That being said, never forget what the main purpose of the app was in the first place and keep on developing it in the same direction.
Narrow Down Your Target Audience
It’s clear that the mobile app industry is highly competitive and finding a niche is key to success. However, don’t just take the area you’re good at for granted. A successful app should be aimed at a specific target market and the more you know about your potential users, the more effectively can you tailor your app to your users’ needs. To target your audience, you’ll need to conduct serious research on demographics. Start with determining the location, age, and even gender of your perfect users. Then, you should think about those people’s lifestyle and what they usually do daily. Are you targeting professionals, students, singles, etc.? What is it that defines that group of people, and how can you improve their lifestyle with your app? Answering those questions will help you connect with your target audience and convert them into users more easily.
Intuitive Design That Catches the Eye
This may be the trickiest of all. When it comes to outstanding design, everything is subjective, and this is why researching and analyzing your target audience is the important step before you get to the design part of your app. Everyone has their taste but remember, certain groups of people are defined as groups exactly because of their similar interests. While a clear and straightforward design is the evergreen must for many generations of developers, a certain crowd may be attracted to something different. The secret here is to cover the basics and start minimalist. This includes sticking to just a few colors, no more than two fonts, and as few buttons as possible but still providing a comfortable user experience. Once you have something that looks finished, you can then complicate or simplify it depending on the audience you’re targeting. The most important thing to remember when designing an app is to disregard your aesthetic views as you’re creating the app for your target audience, and not for you.
Collect Data & Analytics
Developing one app is a never-ending process. After your first launch, there is much room for improvement and adding more features. Remember secret #1? Instead of rushing and adding all the features that come to your mind at first, launch your app as simple as it can be and start collecting user data so you can nail the next features. Many tracking tools help you measure the activity of your app, and this way, you can monitor the features that are most popular and improve them according to your users’ needs. Another great way of collecting valuable data is reminding your users to give you feedback with mobile app popups. Not many developers find them useful, and quite a lot of mobile app users think they’re annoying. However, statistics prove popups to be good for your app, and there is a right way to create an engaging one that won’t be hated.
Provide a Smooth User Journey
Your user-experience efforts shouldn’t stop at initial design and popups that won’t annoy your users off your app. You have to think about the big picture and how people would feel when using your app daily. Again, simplicity is key, but don’t forget about your target audience. A smooth journey would mean laid-out buttons that are not just functional but also make sense to your users. Also, consistency in style, colors, and fonts and how they show up on different screens is another must.
Accessibility, Sharing & Caring
Before anything else, you should always consider what the true power of apps is and namely, their capability to connect people and share data. Regardless of the purpose of your app, users expect information at their fingertips in real-time. Winning users with whatever campaigns you run is one thing, but you should make sure to incorporate viral mechanics into the core functionality of your app so that your current users can easily invite their friends to use it too. Additionally, never limit your app to a single platform. Back in 2018, it was determined that Android was the dominating platform worldwide; however, in the US, Apple’s iOS is still the preferred mobile operating system. Ideally, your app would be available to every mobile platform there is, and if you have to choose one, think about future launching that is accessible for everyone.
Step Up Your Marketing & Distribution Game
Don’t spend your entire budget on development! Make sure you include a fair amount of marketing and distribution costs in your initial budgeting. With the increasing number of apps launching daily, you are lowering your chances of getting discovered without proper marketing. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are the perfect place to start attracting users. Depending on your target audience, you may have to use different platforms, but in the first steps, it’s more important to collect test metrics and understand the real value of each user before moving on to more narrow campaigns.
Finishing Words
For a few years now, smartphones and tablets have been outselling laptops by over three times. In a way, this makes sense, as pocket devices simply provide effective solutions at users’ fingertips. Your most important job in developing mobile apps is to enhance that simplistic experience with a product that solves one issue at a time.
