How to Increase Engagement with Your Mobile App - Haneke Design

Buzz / 06 27, 2019

HOW TO INCREASE ENGAGEMENT WITH YOUR MOBILE APP

The number of people you can get to download your app means nothing if they don’t actually use it. According to Localytics, 21% of users will abandon an app after only using it once. This makes it more difficult for companies to achieve their desired retention rate, which measures how many people have visited the app more than 10 times.

Why are retention rates important?

They reflect the quality and success of your platform through engagement. Retention rates have become the focus of many developers because high rates of return indicate that people are enjoying their experiences on your app or are finding it useful. The more people that come back, the more likely it is that your app has met their needs. So yes, retention rates are definitely something you need to consider.

There’s a variety of different ways that your company can improve retention, but before you begin trying, it’s absolutely critical that you look at the stats first.

 

graphic of Phone breaking down interface parts

 

Analytics

Make sure you note how each feature on your app is performing. What separates those that perform the best and the worst? Where are people spending the most time? How frequently are people using your app? Looking into the analytics of your app can divulge trends of activity which can be harnessed to improve performance. Look at what people like the most and build on it. Update your UI to suit their needs. Note that this is not just the first step of growing retention rates — analytics should be an ongoing process that will help you over time. It is a consistent feedback loop that provides a significant amount of perspective. 

 

Make a Good First Impression

Once you have a solid understanding of how users engage with your app, it’s time to look at your onboarding experience. Make sure that your app doesn’t overwhelm first time users with gadgets and busy graphics. Ensure that the registration is an easy process and that the app’s instructions have a clean design. You can draw them in even more if you include a call to action button within the instructions so that it gets them started right away. This will make it so that people are more incentivized to start using the app right away and are gently introduced to how it works. 

 

Push Notifications

After they have already had a pleasant experience with your app, it’s likely that users will want to come back. However, because it is new to them, they may need a reminder. Push notifications are an effective tool to prompt users when used properly. Nobody likes spam clogging up their lockscreen, so make sure that your notifications are to-the-point. In addition, personalized notifications are shown to yield the best results on retention. One method is to create subsets of users based on their activities and send reminders about them. For example, a shopping app can send a push to anyone who left items in their cart without purchasing them. This brings them back to the app, where hopefully they’ll finally decide to make the purchase. 

 

Final Thoughts

Once you begin making improvements, make sure to go back and check analytics to see if they were effective. Harness what the data is telling you and don’t be afraid to ask users for explicit feedback when you need it. There are a variety of ways to survey audiences within the app or to provide them with incentives to leave a review on The App Store. This provides you with a clear indication of your successes and where you have room to grow. Having an engaged crowd can make or break your app. There are dozens of other ways to draw people in, and this process is all about finding what works best for you.

Are you ready to rethink your mobile app? Feel free to reach out to Haneke Design. We are a firm that specializes in engaging users through the Internet of Things, whether through social media or a mobile app!

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