The 3 Necessary Steps & Tools to Successfully Launch a Mobile App
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Planning to launch a mobile app to promote your business? Be careful; a rushed app that offers no additional value to your target audience will only hurt your brand’s image. Keep in mind that developing a successful app involves a tremendous amount of effort.
After building a working app, you must carefully monitor how well it performs. This way, you can improve the usability of your app by identifying its strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, you need to develop a marketing strategy to make sure your app will be downloaded and used by the right people.
To help your app gain a solid footing in the mobile market, here are the essential factors you should consider:
Identify the Target Market and Gain Insights
No matter how well you design your app, not everyone will appreciate it. However, it is your job to those who will. One of the foundations of a mobile app strategy is to define your target market. This comprises of the people who will benefit from using your app.
By figuring out the particular group of individuals who will benefit from your app, you will give the development process a meaningful direction. Start first with the problem that your app is trying to solve. Along with solving for a problem you must also optimize it to align with the preferences of your target market.
You can use the Persona App to build audience or buyer profiles so you can better understand your target market. This tool allows you to create “Personas” that represent your audience based on their behaviours, demographic, and goals.
You should also conduct surveys using a tool like SurveyMonkey to gain valuable insights from these personas. Ask questions such as, what aspects of your app were disappointing, which design elements need improvement, and anything else that can help you set objectives for your development team.
Test, Test, Test!
Once your app works and fulfils the objectives based on your target market’s needs, it must undergo a series of tests to ensure that everything works as intended. This will also enable you to gauge the performance of your app so your development team can find room for improvement.
One of the best ways to test your app is to let actual users be the judge. You can use TestFairy – a mobile app beta testing tool – to help you obtain valuable user feedback. TestFairy also provides you with complete logs, crash reports, and recorded video clips to help you learn how an average user navigates through your app. This will help you detect its strengths and weaknesses firsthand.
To make sure all your app development goals are met, you can work with companies like BoxUK, who offer software development and usability testing services. This is an excellent way to go if you want the development of your app to be overseen by qualified professionals. Gaining assistance in your app development also gives you more time to focus on marketing.
Marketing
The next essential foundation of a mobile app strategy is marketing. By now, you should have a comprehensive profile of your target audience. What you need now is to establish promotion channels that will help them find your app.
First, you need to identify the unique selling points of your app. Why should users choose your app over similar competitors? These reasons should be clearly visible on your app’s page in stores. Your app’s page should be optimized for maximum discoverability. Include keywords/common search terms in the app name and description. Be sure these keywords are visible within the first two to three lines of the story.
Marketing your mobile app also involves several other promotional activities such as launching a beta testing campaign. If you’ve been following this article, then you should already be done with this. The rest of the activities include creating a preview trailer, blogging about your app (and the development process), outreaching to influencers, and promoting your app in social communities such as online forums.
Measure Performance
Apart from the performance of your app, you should also measure the performance of your marketing strategy. You need to keep up with post-launch marketing strategies that ensure you keep attracting new users while retaining the current ones.
For this part, you should consider paid marketing channels through ad networks and social media. Facebook Targeted Ads, Promoted Tweets; these are all great channels to target people with specific interests. Additionally, you can rely on cross-promotion networks for apps such as Tap for Tap to leverage the ad space present in other apps. If you following these steps and use the tools mentioned then your app should be well on its way to success.