I was recently asked what three pieces of advice I would give to someone thinking about developing a mobile app. You can see a snippet of my response here as the very first tip mentioned in Kathryn Bisson’s blog post: 25 Tips for Mobile App Success in 2015.

I offer these three very simple pieces of advice:

  1. Have a solid business purpose for developing your app. Does it meet an existing need? Will it drive brand engagement with your customers? Does it add value to an existing suite of products such as connected devices? Does it create efficiencies within your work/sales force? It’s not enough to have a bright idea – that won’t get your app downloaded. It must have a purpose. We counsel our clients to focus on adding benefits rather than creating the next, flashy new trend. While trendy apps are great in the short-term, their purpose may not sustain engagement in the future.
  2. Find a great development partner. Don’t underestimate the importance of a strong developer. Once you’ve established the business case for your mobile app, you don’t want to lose users because the user experience is horrible. Users want an app to work, they want to use it intuitively and they don’t want to have to think too deeply about how it works. Make it a great experience by designing and developing properly. Our designers and developers stay abreast of the latest design techniques and programming technologies so we can offer the highest quality product that works exactly as anticipated and exceeds users’ expectations.
  3. Test and learn. Don’t give into the temptation to jam all the features you can think of into your app’s first release. You may waste time and effort on features that your users don’t value as much as you thought they would. We suggest that you prioritize features most important to your app’s purpose and success. Make sure you get those features right. Then invite your users to test and suggest future features they want most. This way you engage your user in the app, making them feel as if they are part of the process. They will likely be far more invested in your brand if they have a sense of ownership. Later on, release new features. Your users will be excited to see that next release and see their suggestions brought to life.

This infographic from TechCocktail offers 10 very useful nuggets of advice to anyone trying to figure out how to get their feet wet in the mobile app space. If you’d like help figuring out your mobile app strategy, email me. Happy to talk through some ideas and offer suggestions on getting started.

 

Marketing-a-mobile-app-infographic

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *