Apps are the Name of the Game

The mobile app industry is growing tremendously and if there is one thing we need to understand, it is that customers are moving to mobile. Whether it’s the mobile web or mobile apps, for marketing purposes, it is important to understand who your audience is and where they are going. The mobile world gives us new ways to learn about and connect with our potential customers. For instance, the kinds of relationships that we have been able to make in person are now possible through software and we can connect with customers through digital channels.

While apps are great, there are some downsides. The market for apps is extremely crowded and the bar for quality is set very high. Since apps are readily available and consumers can download them rapidly and on a regular basis, the problem becomes app retention. As soon as the next best app comes out, yours may be abandoned or even deleted.

So, how do you grow your app’s retention? There are two key ways in which you can drive mobile retention and meaningful business results.

Analytics and Iteration

Many app publishers are working with analytics packages from Google, Flurry, Kontagent, or New Relic, or  in order to better understand their customers' behavior inside the app. By creating various events to track specific actions taken and watching the breadcrumbs of data left behind from consumer interactions, app publishers are able to get a much better sense of what happens once they've launched their app. Using that data helps identify places of popularity and places of exit. Using analytics to drive iteration on the product is a helpful piece of growing your retention numbers.

Consumer Engagement

Let it be said that engaging your customers is very important. Not only will it help you make a product that will drive better retention, but it will also give you higher customer satisfaction and inform your product roadmap. Listen to your customers and make it easy for them to provide feedback. People are very willing to tell you what they like, don’t like, and what could be improved upon. These are your most engaged customers. Empowering them to give their opinion will only drive their investment in your app and company even higher.

Boosting Downloads

When apps increase their retention, their overall audience grows. As a result, these apps end up with better store performance because their larger, happier customer base is more likely to talk about them and share great ratings in the app store. An added bonus is that an engaged audience is more likely to share their experiences with friends and family. A larger and engaged audience proves to be a significant engine for organic download growth.

As a bonus to driving up the retention aspect of the app business, increased retention actually provides two long-term benefits.

Understanding your Customers Better

If the goal is to drive higher retention, it is critical to understand your customers and develop better relationships with them. When you create meaningful relationships, your customers will see your company as a more human organization, one capable of listening and learning. This is a powerful tool.  Once you have taken the time to create that relationship, you will understand the language that customers use and the things that they care most about. This will enable to you to shape future marketing efforts and can yield significant increases in efficiency because you are using customers’ language instead of your own. You will also build a more robust public image as customers will tend to give you more leeway and understand that mistakes will be made along the way.