One thing that many people underestimate when creating a mobile app is the time it takes to really understand your market.
Many businesses, organizations and individuals assume that this process takes too long for them to prioritize over their other needs, and instead choose trial and error strategies that may or may NOT increase mobile app adoption over time.
While trial and error strategies are great if you’re willing to put the necessarily time and money into them, it can take you a long time to see the results you’re looking for.
Understanding your market before you launch your mobile app, and continuing to extend your knowledge after its launch, can vastly cut down on the trial and error strategies you’re using.
By doing this, you’re also bound to grow organically, as you’re targeting an audience that is going to get the most from your app. Those that enjoy your app will then go on to share your message, increasing your word of mouth referrals considerably.
You might not think word of mouth referrals are that important, but ComboApp reports that 33 percent of app downloads come from referrals alone.
If your own numbers are much lower than that, or you’re yet to get started, it might speak volumes to how little you currently understand your market.
There’s no need to grow concerned! Here are the top strategies we use to help our clients increase their mobile app adoption rates.
Study Your Competitors And Identify Trends Between Different Apps
With thousands of apps launching every week, it’s inevitable that your idea will be similar to someone else’s.
Though you may initially view this as something to feel defeated by, having competition is actually a good thing (it means your idea has potential!).
By analyzing the similarities between what’s already on the market, you are able to easily identify what has worked for other people.
This will allow you to make changes to your current app to make sure you are utilising the popular trends within your own app.
It will also help you outperform other competitors, as you will be able to include more trending features than an app that has already been released, allowing you to acquire users who have previously been unsatisfied with the limited functions of other apps.
Create A Strong Business Model
According to HealthcareWeekly, as many as 98 percent of startups funded by angel investors fail because of a poorly thought-out business marketing strategy.
That statistic may seem irrelevant to you, but as a mobile app creator, you are counted within the start-up statistics seen above.
We don’t mean to put you off with the warning that most startups fail, however; just to give you warning that it can—and definitely does—happen if the right precautions are not taken.
The easiest way to avoid this happening to you is to partner with an industry leader who understands your market better than you do. It could also increase word of mouth referrals, which is something we touched upon earlier, as people will feel like your app more closely matches their individual needs.
Creating a strong business model also helps to define your goal, which will be crucial in learning who you need to target towards.
After all, there’s no point in targeting a productivity app for students towards an 89 year old man in a nursing home.
Become Active In Your Niche On Social Media
One of the easiest ways to understand your market is to become involved within the community on social media.
The beauty of the internet being available in most countries around the world means that there is a community for literally everything you can think of, so no matter how niche your app idea is, there will be a community out there who will rally behind your idea if you go out and find them.
You can do this by joining Facebook or LinkedIn groups, following certain hashtags on Instagram, or following people within your niche on Twitter.
This will expose you to what is currently popular within your industry, and give you an idea of what’s missing, which in turn will help you target your audience better.
Once you know what other solutions are missing, you can develop a marketing strategy that pushes the answer to the problem many within your niche are having.
Build A Minimum Viable Product And Test It
When you’re developing your mobile app, the first instinct is to build the best possible product before releasing it to the public.
Despite your instinct, however, this could be the worst thing you could do for your app’s adoption.
Instead, you need to focus on creating a minimum viable product that includes the most basic functions you want your app to have.
This is because it’s extremely difficult to change the functions of a fully-fledged app to reflect your target audience’s needs.
And, as pointed out by Digital Authority Partners, even if your app is brilliant, as you get to understand your audience more, you may need to adjust things like branding and positioning so that your app resonates more with your target audience.
Releasing the minimum viable product also provides you with vital analytics that can help you understand your audience, giving you a first hand look into the preferences and dislikes of your market.
As you can see from this article, there are many different strategies you must implement in order to understand your market on a deeper level.
These strategies have been tried and tested by us many times in the past, and have yielded extremely positive results, helping to increase our understanding of our target audience, which has benefited our member acquisition and engagement rates over time.
This guest post comes from Codrin Arsene, CEO @ Digital Authority Partners.
Image Credits: Mobile App from TierneyMJ /Shutterstock