10 important things you must do to successfully launch and promote an app

1. Market & Competitor Research

The first step before you set out on a journey to develop your own app to do extensive market research to understand what kind of apps are already available on the market and answer a few questions like

• Who are my competitors and what is their strategy?
• What are the key features of their apps?
• What additional features can I add to my app to make it stand out and give my users a better experience than the competition?
• What mistakes are my competitors making and what can I do to avoid them?

Answering these questions will give you a fair understanding of the current market scenario and what you should be focusing on for your own app.

2. User Research

It is essential to clearly define who the target audience for your app is and what unique problem does it solve for them or what value add can it add to their lives. Your app won’t make it to the consumers’ phones if it doesn’t satisfy any of their needs. Speak to the consumers, get their feedback and see how to can work from there.

Pro Tip - Look at reviews from competitor apps to see what features the users like and additional features they would like to have on the app and build on that to amplify your app’s demand.

3. Define the scope

There are multiple factors that need to be considered here right from the feature definition, design of the app, UI/UX strategy, to crucial technical decisions that will determine the maintenance of the app

• Determine the Scope of Work - This is where you define the nitty-gritty of all the features that will be included in your app. A few examples are if a user is required to log in - defining the different ways including logging in with their email, phone number, and OTP or social media integration, user profile creation. Search and filter features, what the users can discover on each section of the app.
• UI/UX and Design - Define design architecture like font, colors, customizations that are pleasing to the user’s eyes and also maintaining an intuitive UI/UX for easy navigation and an enhanced user experience.
• Devices and Platforms - This is where you think about the devices you want to develop the app for, the more screens you opt for the more designs for better UI, UX is required. Is your app for Android or iOS or both or would a web app be more suitable for your requirements? You also need to ensure your app is compatible with earlier and latest versions of different platforms and devices
• Native or Cross-platform app - Choosing between React Native, Hybrid, and Wearable app development depending on your requirement from the app. Each has its own use cases, benefits, and associated costs, his is a technical decision that is made in the beginning stages but has an impact on the maintenance and updates on the app later on and needs to be made with careful consideration.

These kinds of decisions help you determine the cost associated with developing your app and are best made with expert help, book a free consultation with us here.

4. Determine your Revenue Model

Building an app is an investment to turn it into a revenue-generating machine, and there are different options that you can leverage to monetize your app. Having an understanding of each model and having a projection of how you will break even is important to justify the cost of developing the app.

• Freemium apps – Free to download, with certain locked features or subscriptions which the users pay for unlocking.
• Premium apps – Apps that can only be downloaded at a premium fee.
• In-app purchases – This model works like a part of your sales funnel for eCommerce products.
• In-app ads – This model involves allocating space on your apps to advertisers and has no cost barrier for the users.

5. Pick the Right Development Company

The technology partner you choose has a major impact on how your app turns our and any further maintenance and marketing efforts. It is important to look at a few things before you pick a consultant

• Experience - Look for all the technologies they have used
• Look at existing portfolios and case studies
• Look at reviews given by existing clients
• Get an understanding of their app testing methods, data security, UX capabilities
• Project timelines and hourly rates

6. Testing & Usability

Once the app has been developed, there needs to a quality check to test different aspects and identify bugs and error which need to be fixed before launching

• Usability tests of the app
• Ease of navigation
• App performance on different devices & platforms
• Speed of the app

7. Privacy & Security

Decide and include the privacy policy on the app with all the information of the user behavior that is being collected, do not collect more information than required to protect the privacy of the users. The security of the app is extremely important, ensure there is a process is a place to collect and store the user data with maximum security.

8. App Store & Play Store Optimization

Once you have your app ready the next step is to launch it on the app store and play store to make it available for users to download, here are a few things that you should keep in mind while launching the app to ensure it is optimized to increase discoverability and downloads

• Optimize app titles and descriptions with relevant keywords across your marketing funnel.
• Include clear screenshots and videos highlighting the USPs
• App performance on different devices & platforms
• Have a strategy in place to collect reviews and respond to all reviews.

9. Marketing Strategy for your App

Once your app is up and ready to run, the next step is to promote the app through digital marketing on different platforms to amplify awareness and installs.

• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Paid advertising

10. Analyze, Optimize, Repeat

To keep up with the requirements of the consumers and constantly enhancing the user experience on the app, it is essential to analyze user data on the app to test different features and measure how it performs. Here are a few examples of different data points and KPIs that can be used.

• Installs - Measure which channels are driving the most installs at the lowest cost and increase budgets there
• Keyword Analysis - Track keyword performance and rank and optimize the titles and descriptions to increase discoverability
• Load speed - Regularly track how fast your app loads and optimize speed.
• Daily Active Users & Monthly Active users - Keep track of MoM increase or decrease in users and measure the impact against the efforts.
• Heatmap - Get insights from sections on the app users interact with the most and see what can be improved in the sections with the least interactions
• Funnel Drop-offs - Measure which stage of the funnel users drop-off the most and test changes to optimize the rate
• Cost per install - Measure the cost paid for each install across different channels against the quality of the installs and optimize budgets and efforts accordingly.

Mobile App Development requires a strong collaboration between strategy and technology. doodleblue develops beautiful, user-centric, engaging, and responsive applications that stand out. Our mobile app development follows an agile development process that leverages and delivers projects at maximal quality. Let's talk and see how we can help your business develop a winning mobile app.