How to Increase User Engagement for Your Mobile App?

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Open up the Google Play Store or App Store and BOOOOM!!! You are bombarded with a variety of App display. One says you can get a lot of features, one ensures you with smooth performance, one offers you with great user experience and all such factors are enough to trap you in the web of confusion.

However, the only solution to this problem is going for the one which has been appearing as a known and popular one among the customer’s domain or has been awarded a huge number of downloads or has been showered with a good amount of positive customer feedback. Isn’t it?

Well, let’s take a pause here! Have you ever wondered why certain apps receive a lot of attention, while others just disappear like a vapor? You may or may not have hit the nail, but the correct answer is “App Engagement”. Yes, it can be stated that the apps who are tasting the grounds of success are definitely the ones who are engaging their consumer’s in-app engagement.

As per the stats provided by business2community.com, there are over 2 million of apps over the Apple App Store and about 2.2 million Apps on Google Play Store and the number is expected to increase in the future. It is also predicted that by the year 2017, there will be a $76.52 billion increase in the Global Mobile App Revenue.

Image source: https://appsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/1-8.png

So, in case you have forgotten to pay the required attention to app engagement before, here’s your time. After all, it’s better late than never!

Before proceeding further with this thought process, it is important to understand the concept of App Engagement.

What Is Mobile App Engagement?

Developing a mobile app does not solve all the purpose. But it also needs some further measures to retain your consumers. This process is known as Mobile App Engagement and this further helps in understanding your audience, increasing your brand’s loyalty and turning your marketing strategy into a strong and competitive one.

The Mobile App Engagement process goes through Four stages of Application Development: Attraction, Engagement, Monetization, and Retention.

The first step of Attraction deals with developing the customer’s interest towards using your developed application.
The second step, Engagement, comes after the fulfillment of your first step. This involves in keeping your consumers engaged towards the use of your application so that they can further refer it to others.
It is actually the success of Engagement step that further leads to the successful completion of Monetization step.
After the completion of all the above-mentioned steps, Retention process is sure to take a successful leap. Customers are quite definite to return to your app’s usage even after the 3 months of its session.

Ok, so now the whole basic concept of Mobile App Engagement is highlighted in a spotlight. Now, what next? I know your wandering mind now must be thinking about the list of benefits that can be attained from this process.

Well, patience my friend!!! I was actually coming onto that only…

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Viral Effects of Mobile App Engagement

Each and every consumer counts and it is hence important to retain them forever. Apart from engaging in the social marketing of your designed app, it is equally important to engage yourself in providing a top quality user experience to your consumers.

Imagine you have designed a powerful mobile application and you are unable to retain the consumers just after the month of its launch. God forbade, if this situation happens to you, then you are eventually destined to lose the opportunity of free marketing of your app in the form of ‘Word of Mouth’. An app needs to create such a viral effect among consumers that is much more efficient and powerful than the use of any other PR or marketing tool.

In order to achieve such viral effects smoothly, one needs to keep few things in mind and they are as follows:

Writing relevant content for your designed mobile app.
Making the use of applicable channels for attracting your targeted audience.
Engaging in sharing the app’s information through invitations, tweets, recommender system and much more.
Offering referral policies including virtual currency, bonuses for attracting users and much more.

It can now be stated that the most important objective of developing an app is to keep the users engaged and to ensure their repeat usage. Most of you must have tried doing so. Few of you may have been able to taste success, but what about others? If you are among the latter one, then do not worry more. With the use of few simple tested and tried methods, you can not only increase the user engagement but can also actively participate in retaining their loyalty.

Here’s how you can encourage your folks (referred to Users here) to keep coming back to you…

Add the Touch of Personalization

Give the user what he/she actually wants! Personalizing the app as per user requirements and demands will not only make them stick to you but will help in drawing more and more users towards your app’s usage.

You can conduct a survey before launching your app for getting a broad idea of how successful will it be. One can also drive his/her efforts towards enabling options like live chat, feedbacks, complaints or suggestions for communicating directly with their consumers and users.

Notify with Push Notifications

There are proven stats stating that about 65% of the users come back to the application within 30 days if the push notifications are enabled. Furthermore, as per info.localytics.com, users who have opted into receiving push notifications exhibit 88% higher app engagement than those who haven’t.

The above statements make quite clear that the service of Push Messages or Notifications is a highly important function for raising the bars of your user engagement. Providing push notifications on a regular basis helps in keeping the user engaged and notified of your app updates.

Say Yes to Deep Linking

Installation of deep links reduces friction and helps in increasing user engagement. Yes, they really do! Deep linking holds the power of improving retention and encouraging a better user experience.

This thing mainly works like an URL for your mobile apps. It works towards sending the user directly to a specific page or screen inside an App. In simpler terms, it can be stated that it works exactly like an e-commerce app, where the user directly gets imported into the product they want to buy. It not only helps in improving the user experience, but it also helps in saving the valuable time of the user, who then do not have to waste his/her time in navigating through the whole screen or content.

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Click on the Use of Social Sharing Option

The term Social Media or Social Network does not require any kind of explanation. It can be stated as a self-explanatory term which is viral on a large scale. It is advised to integrate the use of social media platform in your designed mobile app.

This thing can eventually help in converting your visitors to brand ambassadors. This can further help in gaining a large number of audience. You are simply required to let your users share their app activity on Facebook, Twitter and G+ and the app go viral on its own! Isn’t it amazing? But before all this, you need to feed your users with something worth sharing.

Welcome New Users to Easy & Simple Process

Logins and record creation are a precarious issue representing a critical loss of first-time clients. However, the dominant part of the applications requires you to make a login before you can begin utilizing the application. So, streamlining the procedure is an essential factor.

The use of various social login options like email can turn the whole process into an easy one. After all, it is correct to state that ‘ the first impression is the last impression’. Making your first impression a simple one can make the user install your app on the first go only and that too without any complications or disturbances.

Offer Rewards & Retain

The free thing is something which the consumer can never miss, so why not hit a six on this opportunity! More than half of the users download the app just to receive discounts or sometimes maybe the special sale discounts.

Coupons, specialized content access, mobile-specific rewards, special promotions and other offers can make your app go in a long run. This option encourages the first time users and also work towards raising the number of your app downloads. Boosting user retention and brand loyalty also plays a significant role during the follow-up of this process.

It’s Time to do the Bottoms Up!

There is no specific formula for operating your app’s branding, but that does not mean it is something impossible! The listing of above-mentioned steps is among those which have been followed by someone or the other. Most of them have proven their worth time-to-time.

You can definitely come up with lot more options. But the follow-up or consideration of above-listed points can surely mark your app’s success in some way or the other. After all, good things take time and require the input of hard efforts.

P.S: While following such tips, do not forget to keep a track of your apps. Also, remember to apply required updates to it!

This article is written by Mr. Dheeraj Juneja. Working as our backbone and pillar of Loginworks.com, he has been sharing all his versatile technical experience and leadership skills since the beginning. Contributing towards the success of the organization in many ways has been his only agenda throughout. Follow him: Twitter | LinkedIn.