Top 7 Secrets for a Successful Mobile App

We cannot deny that today, mobile applications have become a fundamental pillar in our technological society. Nowadays, according to GSMA Intelligence, there are 5.16 billion mobile phone users in the world.

We use our phones for most of the day, spending 90% of this mobile time using multiple applications.  As a consequence, competition has become fierce, pushing all companies to constantly strive to excel and stand out.

Currently, Google Play Store and Apple App Store have over 2 million applications, but on average most of us only use nine apps per day and thirty per month. So you have to make a huge effort to be visible and get your users' attention.

Not an easy task and certainly one that calls for a lot of time and dedication, but there are some crucial points that we believe are essential for an application to succeed.

First of all, it’s basic that you keep in mind these two concepts when creating your application:‍

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC                                        BUSINESS-CENTRIC

Focuses on creating a positive                      Focuses on business improvement,  

experience for the customer by                     enhancing business processes and workflows to  

maximizing service and/or product               drive more efficient deliveries of products,

services.                                                           offerings, and results.‍

Maintaining a balance between both parts is what will make your application thrive.To give you a better idea, here is an example.

You’ve created a perfect app that ticks all the consumer-centric boxes; excellent design, strong performance, great customer service,...combined with optimal workflow that your users seem to be very satisfied about. However, it turns out that this application costs a considerable amount of money to maintain and if you are not monetizing it in any way, that basically means that your application is not business-centric friendly.‍

Therefore, we can say that a perfect app tackles both consumer needs and business objectives, also incorporating technological solutions in a smart way.‍

Now that you have these two concepts in mind and you know how to differentiate them, let's see other important things that you have to take into account for your application to bloom.

‍Identify Your Users

‍You need to identify who your users will be. This is a crucial point because if you do know who your users are, the rest will come down like dominoes. Little it matters if you have a powerful application which performs great unless you target the right users.

Identifying your users will also help you verify the potential of your idea, as well as how to communicate with your target audience and through which channels.

How to do it?

Check statistics, look for trends, ask questions to your target audience, take a survey or even create an MVP version of your mobile application and collect all the feedback.

Solve a Problem and Offer Value

Every successful product solves a problem and satisfies a consumer need, your app needs to have a sense of purpose and meet the needs of your consumers to connect with them. Nobody cares about irrelevant and useless stuff regardless of how brilliant a thought might be. 

Curious to know how to validate your idea or see if it brings value to your users? Here are 9 ways to do it.

Create Addiction!

It's not just about getting users to come back, it's all about getting them to come back. Sadly for most apps, this never happens. How can I do it right then? 

Prep your rods and reels because we are going fishing with the hooked model. 

Well crafted apps are basically designed to use triggers that prompt certain actions which will turn into habits if repeated enough times. More triggers, more actions, more consolidated behaviour, more dependency. 

For example, you post a photo on Instagram and close the app. The next thing that happens is that someone comments on it, you get a notification (trigger) and you reopen the app to use it again.

Less is More, Keep it Simple

Using Instagram requires 3-4 clicks and you’re just sharing and browsing photos. Playing Among Us also requires a couple of clicks to get the full experience.

Tiktok, Twitter, WhatsApp, also follow the same guidelines, and the list goes on. They're all built around one feature. Not five or ten features,  just one key feature.

Create Regular Updates

You’ll need commitment to release continuous app updates in order to fix bugs and keep users coming back for more. That is why It’s important to ensure that app features and content always stays up-to-date. Nowadays the trends are constantly changing and what used to work may not do the trick anymore.

Listen to your Audience

The flow users go through when using your app will provide you with valuable insights on not only what to fix in your software, but it will also tell you what features are the most popular.

Take advantage of this feedback to develop new features that are important to your users and their app experience.

Promote your App

Promotion is almost as important as the product itself. No matter how good your app is, if the people who need it don't know about it.

Sometimes getting the message across takes more time than the whole development process. That's why you should start advertising as soon as possible. Successful applications are promoted long before they reach the application store. 

Final thoughts

As you have seen, the journey for an application to succeed is way longer and turbulent than just a good idea. Being a long and difficult process, you’ll do well to be realistic with your expectations. Overnight successes are overvalued, Homer showed us that the journey is the beautiful part where all the adventures happen, so then, why should we rush? 

We are sure though that if you put these pieces of advice into practice you will make it.

Have a great idea, but no software development skills? 

A partner who takes care of all the technical bits and pieces brings you many benefits to the table, such as quicker release to the market, experts’ advice or state-of-the-art technology.