Tag Archive for: User Acquisition

Enhancing User Acquisition and Retention Strategies

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There’s no doubt that a central tactic for driving mobile app success is achieving user acquisition, engagement and retention. However, without an effective acquisition and retention strategy that keeps active users around, higher rates of downloads won’t yield any lifetime business value.

Mobile app engagement and retention are two critical metrics that give a clear and accurate insight into the success of any mobile app. Lower app retention and engagement rates are a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

App developers, brands, and enterprises must know that achieving sufficient app engagement and retention is difficult. For instance, Statista reports that only 32% of mobile users will return to a mobile app ten times or more after downloading. What’s even surprising is that a whopping 25% of users will abandon an app after one-time use.

Enhancing user acquisition, engagement and retention leads to an active user group that drives leads and sustains growth. The following tips for increasing user acquisition and retention will help you reduce your app churn rate and help your enterprise see the desired ROI and the results it anticipates from your app investment.

Let’s delve right in!

  1.   Efficient Onboarding

While it may seem simple to welcome users to your app, not all apps kick-start an efficient onboarding process. Therefore, it’s advisable to make your onboarding process as simple and as efficient as possible to initiate user acquisition and retention. The more difficult it is to use an app, the more likely new and existing users will abandon it.

Some of the ways to simplify the user onboarding process include:

  • Cut down the number of steps required to set up a new account — and capture multiple registration platforms (Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others)
  • Educate users throughout the onboarding process to launch the app’s functionality, but don’t overload users instantly.
  • Teach and educate through actions and pointers to show the main gestures in the app’s functionality.

An efficient onboarding process equals faster and easier user acquisition and engagement.

  1.   Track Data Early Enough

To accurately evaluate and measure data and improvements, you need to start tracking your app’s data early enough. Early data collection and tracking will give you what you need to evaluate performance. It will also help you fast-track which features and strategies affect engagement and retention.

  1.   Push Notifications Right Away!

Users who experience personalized brand interaction are reportedly more likely to return to a mobile app for ten or more sessions. To put it simply, if you walk into a retail outlet and you aren’t acknowledged, you’d most likely feel disgruntled. Consider app experience the same way.

An app interaction can be as simple as sending a push notification, thus providing valuable information as users leverage the app. Successful mobile applications use this approach to shape the customer’s journey. They’re strategic and thoughtful in how they access and engage new users. For instance, giving relevant retail deals based on user patterns and geo-location are clever approaches to promoting app retention.

  1.   Offer an Incentive Program

If your business model allows you to offer loyalty or a reward program, it’s vital to capitalize on this opportunity. Not only do reward and loyalty programs incentivize users towards the app, but they also make users feel recognized and part of the brand.

Realize that apps that utilize in-app purchases as a monetization approach, especially the quick router set-up (QRS) applications, offer time-sensitive discounts. However, freemium mobile apps can be incentivized with usage-based discounts instead of monetary benefits.

  1.   In-app Messages

The more disposed your app experience is with your users’ needs and preferences, the more likely users will continue using the product. Brands utilizing in-app messaging to communicate with users will see a retention rate within a month.

In-app notifications denote notifications that don’t demand immediate action or response but are altogether crucial in the customer’s engagement journey. These messages can capture notifications or warnings about version upgrades, app issues, or payment failures. Therefore, remember that not every notification you see is relevant to every user. Fragmenting your audience ensures the information you convey is relevant to their needs and expectations.

Contact NS804 to discover how your app can respond to new user acquisition, engagement and retention needs.

 

10 Features To Include In App Updates To Boost Growth

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Every appreneur should be utilizing app updates to keep their applications relevant. Users quickly lose interest in apps that aren’t maintained, and there are many good reasons for this.

For one, it shows that the developer no longer cares about their app by allowing it to languish. Secondly, an app that hasn’t been updated in a long time is a potential security risk. And thirdly, the app no longer evolves with users’ needs, which leads to its irrelevancy. So, if you care about app usage growth, include these 10 features in your upcoming updates.

1. How to Use Ads To Increase App Usage Growth

Mobile ads are a powerful tool in the arsenal of an appreneur if implemented correctly. Very likely, your audience isn’t particularly fond of ads, as these often negatively impact the end-user experience. Moreover, there’s always a risk that you’ll lose users if your ads annoy them. And with 25 percent of mobile apps abandoned after being used once, you should take extra care with ads.

Focus on app usage growth by incentivizing your audience when delivering ads, which are relevant to them. For example, if you’ve released a mobile game, ensure that your ads don’t ruin flow by appearing at short intervals. It’s better to space your ads out and then reward users with additional in-game coins or experience points (XP) to help them progress. With such a strategy, users will watch more ads and engage more with your app.

2. Why Users Want App Updates To Offer Offline Access

Your latest productivity app may boast powerful features that rely on a cloud backend. And you may have heavily invested in this backend architecture to make your app function as efficiently as possible. However, it would be shortsighted if users can only make the most of your app if they need to be constantly online.

Keep in mind that many of your users have limited bandwidth and can’t always be online or be in an area with poor connectivity. Furthermore, many users will appreciate having the ability to get work done while being offline. Consider those traveling by plane that may not have the opportunity to go online for several hours. 

3. How To Make The UI More User-Friendly

When you roll out app updates, ensure that you’re regularly improving your app’s user interface (UI). Always look at ways to simplify the interface with a clean look that makes it easy for users to navigate. Then, keep all UI elements and typography consistent throughout the app. And implement colors and textures strategically to facilitate smooth navigation and highlight important features. Finally, make it easy for users to adjust settings and revert to default settings as quickly as possible.

4. Why App Updates Should Include More Security Features

With the deluge of data breaches happening lately, users have become increasingly concerned about app security. That’s why it’s vital to keep all your applications maintained by regularly rolling out app updates with patches and security features. Always stay current on the latest vulnerabilities affecting mobile platforms and devices, and respond quickly with fixes. Moreover, listen to user feedback and analyze crash reports to detect any app instability or peculiar behavior.

5. How To Boost App Usage Growth With Built-In Save Features

Having robust save features is essential for all modern apps, so never skimp on this. Ensure that all your apps can easily save manually and that users can quickly locate the ‘save’ button. Better yet, implement autosave functionality, as it’s common for users to forget to save. Also, allow users to save on the cloud, which is especially handy for those using multiple devices.

Implementing these powerful built-in save features will make your app indispensable to users. Moreover, they facilitate loyalty to your app and drive further app usage growth. And within an enterprise environment, these save features will solidify your app’s reputation as a professional package.

6. Why App Updates Need To Focus On New OS Features

Platform holders such as Apple and Google want developers to utilize the latest OS features. After all, taking advantage of these features helps enhance security, improves the user experience (UX), and unlocks additional power and features available in newer devices. More importantly, this stance from the platform holders entices developers to maintain their apps.

So, when developers ask themselves what app updates are supposed to accomplish, they should consider new OS features. And, also consider which updates they need to roll out and how often.

7. How To Choose App Update Ideas From Reviews

One of the benefits of nurturing a growing user base is that users will often leave reviews about your app. You’ll receive positive and negative feedback, and both are equally valuable. And sometimes, users may even give you new ideas that you can implement for upcoming app updates.

For example, you may have released an app that helps users quickly compile to-do lists. But these lists are exclusively text-based, and users are now clamoring for the ability to add emojis and images. So, this presents you with the golden opportunity to add these features in the next update.

8. Why You Should Look At New Competitor Features

Users are always trying out new apps and making comparisons with those they use regularly. If a new app comes with powerful features that aren’t available in existing solutions, users will inevitably make the switch to the newer app. Therefore, you should always be eyeing the competition to see if they’re implementing features that excite users. And if this is happening, then you should respond by rolling out equivalent features immediately.

9. How To Increase App Usage Growth By Adding More Personalization Settings

You could be deliberating whether to update an existing app or create an entirely new app. And it’s easy to run into this dilemma, especially when an app isn’t performing well. However, it may still have plenty of life left after receiving a visual facelift and additional personalization settings.

Many users love personalizing their apps so that they fit in with their tastes and personalities. So make it easy for them to change colors, textures, and typography. And give users total control over how notifications should appear, as some users find pop-up notifications annoying. 

10. Why Include A Guest Account In App Updates

You may want users to sign up when using your app for the first time, but this isn’t always a good idea. Most users don’t want to provide their email and other personal details if they’re unsure that they’ll use your app long-term. Moreover, they’ll likely uninstall your app if a login screen is the first thing they see after running it.

A better strategy is to allow users to test out your app before asking them to sign up. So, provide users with a guest account in your next update. Offering them a ‘no strings attached’ option will drive up app usage growth if your app lives up to expectations.

In Conclusion

App updates can be powerful when rolled out correctly. It’s always important to release meaningful updates, which patch up security vulnerabilities, improve usability, and introduce features requested by users, to name a few. Contact us today to learn how NS804 can help you develop and maintain amazing apps.

How To Measure App Performance To Release Better App Updates

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Anytime you roll out app updates, you should measure your app’s performance. The data you collect will reveal much about your app and whether it’s gaining traction with users. Moreover, you’ll gain greater insight into your app, allowing you to work on more meaningful future updates.

1. How To Track App Usage Growth

As an appreneur, you’re not only concerned with releasing a quality app but also measuring its performance. You’ll want to keep tabs on app usage growth by implementing analytics and checking all relevant data points regularly. For example, you’ll need to know how many downloads you’re getting on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. And, also keep an eye on any sharp spikes or declines and quickly ascertain why these occur.

There are several powerful analytics tools that you can use, such as App Annie, Apple App Analytics, and Google Analytics. These will give you insight into how well your application is performing in the app stores. Of course, the more well-versed you’re in understanding this data and utilizing these analytics tools, the more likely you’ll improve app user acquisition. But if this seems intimidating, it’s best to work with a professional studio, such as NS804, to help you with your App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy.

2. Why You Should Track Feedback After App Updates

Users can potentially become your biggest fans but also your staunchest critics. The latter may not be fun to deal with, as nobody wants to hear that their app isn’t meeting expectations. However, you must set up a robust pipeline to gather and keep track of all user feedback, especially after rolling out app updates.

After all, a big part of maintaining a mobile app involves listening and responding to user feedback consistently. Your pipeline should allow you to comb through and respond to feedback as quickly as possible. Positive feedback means that you’re on the right track, but negative feedback reveals issues with your app that you need to address. If you do listen to feedback and address these issues, then you’ll increase app usage growth. But if you choose to ignore your users, you risk losing them and having your app stagnate. 

3. Why You Should Measure App User Acquisition Type

Many of the best analytics tools allow for greater granularity, allowing you to look at user data in detail. And this data can help you determine whether app user acquisition is either paid or organic. But you should also be measuring whether app updates spur further growth of your app. You may have added new features and made changes to the UI/UX to improve user retention, but you’ll never know for sure until you start measuring these data points.

4. How To Track Overall Engagement

You can track the overall engagement of your app by measuring average session length, daily active users (DAU), monthly active users (MAU), retention rate, exit rate, churn rate, and stickiness ratio. Here’s a quick breakdown of these and their respective formulas:

  • Average session length –  Amount of time users spend on your app: Total duration of all sessions in seconds during a set time frame / total number of sessions during that time frame 
  • Daily Active Users (DAU) & Monthly Active Users (MAU) –  The number of users who use your app: The number of DAU or MAU
  • Retention Rate – The number of users who use your app during a given time frame: Number of users at the end of a period – number of users acquired during this period / number of users at the beginning of this period x 100
  • Exit Rate – The number of users who leave specific screens: Total number of visits to a screen / total number of exits from a specific screen
  • Churn Rate – The rate at which users uninstall the app: 1 – Retention Rate
  • Stickiness Ratio – The number of users who return to the app monthly: DAU / MAU x 100

In Conclusion

Measuring app user growth should always be a top priority for any budding or experienced appreneur. Contact us today to learn how NS804 can help you with your app user acquisition strategy.

Mobile App User Acquisition: 9 Tips For Attracting New Users

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Embarking on the path of mobile app user acquisition is undoubtedly challenging. It’s especially tough for developers launching their first app and have limited or no experience in marketing. And, even seasoned developers may struggle to attract new users in today’s competitive marketplace. To help demystify the process, we offer nine handy tips for attracting new users to your upcoming app.

1. Why Do You Need To Create An MVP First?

It costs approximately $ 37,500 to develop a simple app and over $ 500,000 for a complex application. Now, let that sink in! For many appreneurs and enterprises, it’s a significant amount of money that shouldn’t go wasted. The last thing you’d ever want is to invest in an application that fails to deliver ROI. 

Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common occurrence for many enterprises launching their apps in today’s marketplace. And this happens because they release applications without having a grasp of what users truly want. 

But there’s a smart way to gauge user interest without spending too much time and money on a project. Focus strictly on the essential features of your app by developing a minimum viable product (MVP). If your MVP gains traction, then you know that your app has potential and worth developing further. A typical iOS MVP example is releasing an app only for iPhones on launch day. Once the app has gained traction, it makes sense to release a future iteration on tvOS with additional features that suit this platform. 

2. Why Should You Focus On App Store Optimization?

A critical app marketing strategy that you shouldn’t ignore involves app store optimization (ASO). Now, why is that? In simple terms, over 50% of users who choose to download an app do so by browsing through the App Store and Google Play. Thus, spend time and effort optimizing your app store page as you would your website.

There are several key ways to go about this that will bring about positive results. Firstly, come up with a catchy title and tweak your description so that these resonate with your audience. Make sure to keep these simple so that it’s easy for users to remember and understand what you’re conveying. Secondly, ensure that your icon and screenshots are visually pleasing and that your unique selling proposition (USP) is on point. Finally, keep a close eye on your metrics and tweak your storage page when necessary.

3. What Types Of App Marketing Work Best?

There are numerous ways to market your app, but you need to be careful about how you go about this. The type of app you make and the platforms you target will undoubtedly affect your app marketing strategy. Therefore, you’ll need to do extensive research before embarking on your marketing endeavors. Be sure to find out as much as possible about your target audience and competitors.

We’ve already mentioned the importance of ASO, which every app developer and marketer shouldn’t neglect. However, there’s more you can do to cut through the noise and get your app noticed. Start marketing early by publishing blog posts and creating videos showing how your app is coming along. A side benefit of this is that it allows you to gauge user interest and even receive feedback. Take things further by running polls and surveys to learn more about what features your potential audience wants.

Prepare both a physical press kit (PK) and an electronic press kit (EPK) to hand out to the appropriate groups, such as bloggers, influencers, and the media. These press kits should include a company description, staff bios, contact information, main features of your app, screenshots, relevant case studies, press coverage, and any awards received. Also, ensure that its graphic design is high quality and in line with your brand identity.

Distribute your PK to the appropriate parties at conventions and trade shows. And send your EPK via email or a file hosting service such as Dropbox. When approaching influencers and journalists, always establish rapport before sending your EPK in an unsolicited email. By reaching the right people in the industry, they’ll likely spread the word about your app to millions of potential users.

4. How To Encourage More Referrals?

Once you’ve launched your app, you’ll gradually start acquiring users and building up a fanbase. And it’s these loyal users that can potentially become ambassadors of your app. According to recent studies, approximately 83% of satisfied users would recommend a brand, but only 29% follow through. But that’s because most apps haven’t implemented the right tools to run a referral program. So, consider utilizing AI that identifies these loyal users and incentivizes them to refer your app to their friends and followers.

5. How To Increase Positive App Reviews?

Today’s users don’t have the time and patience to download or purchase lackluster or unappealing apps. Thus, they always read through reviews to decide whether or not to install yet another application on their smartphones. That’s why you must encourage your audience to leave a review after using your app. Include a pop-up notification that asks your users to leave a review and rating on your store page. If your app offers them a satisfactory experience, then it’s likely that they’ll leave positive reviews.

6. How To Improve Mobile App User Acquisition With Demos?

If you’re developing a paid app or subscription service, it becomes much harder to gain users. But you can sweeten the deal by offering a free trial or demo of your app, making users feel more confident to try it out on a whim. The trial version allows users to access all your app’s features for a limited period. Once the end of the trial period draws near, it notifies them to upgrade to the paid version so that they can continue enjoying the app’s key features.

7. What Are The Best Organic Mobile App User Acquisition Strategies?

Several effective organic mobile app user acquisition strategies can make a difference to your marketing endeavors. Start by leveraging all your social media channels by regularly engaging with your followers. Post engaging and relevant content that leads your audience to your store page. Furthermore, improve your website and SEO by creating articles, ebooks, infographics, and videos that provide value. Make sure to rank for the right keywords to drive traffic to your website and app organically.

8. How To Find Influencers To Test Your App?

Ideally, you want to find the right influencers and build long-term relationships with them. Not only will they promote your app to their followers, but they can also test your app and offer valuable feedback. Now, it’s relatively easy to find influencers on all social media platforms. But you’ll need to contact individuals that will actually be interested in working with you. Thus, only get in touch with influencers, which are in an industry or niche where your app will be useful.

9. Why Should You Create A Demo Video?

No app marketing strategy is complete without creating a demo video. Many users, particularly young adults in the 18-34 age demographic, enjoy watching YouTube videos. They prefer watching short and engaging videos instead of cable TV. Moreover, they’ve become accustomed to watching 30-second mobile ads and love to share videos on social media. That’s why it’s essential to create a short demo video for your mobile landing pages to drive interest.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to marketing apps and acquiring new users, it makes sense to utilize various methods. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach since your app, audience, and budget will largely determine the best course of action. Contact NS804 today to find out how we can help you acquire new users for your upcoming app.

User Acquisition

Enhancing User Acquisition and Retention Strategies

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The Importance of User Acquisition and Retention

Building a functional app is only the beginning of the journey. Once available, app developers need to attract users to the finished product. A task accomplished through a series of tactics and strategies known as user acquisition.

While user acquisition is aimed at gaining new users, user retention is the other side of the coin. In other words, keeping the acquired users. There are many strategies related to boosting user acquisition and user retention. Yet these tactics are always evolving.

It’s important to stay up to date on the latest in user acquisition and user retention.

Five of the Latest User Acquisition Strategies

CleverTap lists 10 of the most impactful user acquisition strategies. Let’s take a closer look at five of those 10.

  1. App Store Optimization – Discussed in NS804’s original post on boosting UA, app store optimization is a vital strategy in user acquisition. There are many ways to optimize for the app store. Including updating keywords, and logos, and other media associated. Keeping these elements updated will help continuously attract new users.
  2. Organic Mobile User – This is a newer model of user acquisition. Essentially, it is the leveraging of existing social media channels and the brand online presence to funnel traffic to the mobile app. Twitter, Facebook, and any social media platform can direct users to the mobile app. Additionally, paid advertising can accompany organic mobile user strategies to further drive results.

    The Last Three

  3. Influencer Marketing – Influencer marketing is also a product of the new age. Going hand-in-hand with organic mobile user acquisition strategies, influencer marketing has become quite powerful. The endorsement from well-known celebrities or personalities can drive hundreds of thousands of users to a mobile app.
  4. Traditional Marketing – Sometimes however, the traditional way of doing something is still one of the best ways. There are a myriad of traditional marketing techniques that are still very powerful and impactful. Incorporating email marketing, traditional content-marketing, and more broad avenues of paid advertising are still great ways for mobile apps to gain exposure and acquire new users.
  5. Referrals and Invites – Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful and influential factors out there. No matter the market or product or service. Word of mouth can make a business thrive, or make a business dive, so to speak. Providing a strong user experience will encourage users to tell their friends, post through social media, and garner more natural traffic to your mobile app.

Now More Than Ever

Especially in the world today with the reality of COVID-19 still ruling the globe, consumers and mobile app users are banding together like never before. Composing a strong user acquisition and user retention strategy is more important now, with record numbers of mobile app users hitting the app stores for everything from entertainment to community, and connection.

NS804 is dedicated to making mobile app development and mobile app design services available to anyone with a great idea. Visit NS804 today and get in touch to get the conversation about your mobile app project started.