You have finished your app — everything from its codes to its features. What’s next is releasing it to the public. However, you need to make it a successful app by gathering and garnering a lot of potential and active users of your mobile application.You have finished your app — everything from its codes to its features. What’s next is releasing it to the public. However, you need to make it a successful app by gathering and garnering a lot of potential and active users of your mobile application.

by Violet Smith

You need to get a significant amount of attention to your app so that it will pique the attention of your target users and audience. However, according to Localytics, In 2016, around 23% of app users abandoned it after the first use. You need to work out on the engagement of the app to its users and retention of its users since this is very critical to your mobile application.
 
In this article, we will introduce you to ten different practices you can apply to your app to increase your engagement rate and user retention.you can apply to your app to increase your engagement rate and user retention.

1. User-Friendly App

Firstly, you need to make your app a user-friendly one. It is deemed to be the easiest way to create higher user retention. You cannot do that if you do not understand your users well. It is essential to know your users’ needs for the app and information about them. After that, you can integrate those in the app. Always put your users first in the experience of the app, always think what the best angle of a specific feature that will cater them in the best way possible is.

Another thing to make your user-friendly app is creating a simple design for it and giving it great usability. The design of the app should be straightforward, up to the point that even non-techie persons will not have difficulty in having a great experience in your application. A user-friendly app is essential, especially that you are catering a pool of mobile users. According to RedStag Fulfillment, mobile usage nowadays is responsible for over 50% of market share, more than desktop computer users and tablet users. The mobile app is the new way to boost e-commerce conversion rate and the engagement of users and customers.

2. Simple and Easy Onboarding Process

 If your app needs an account from your users before giving them a great experience, make the process very easy and simple. Make sure that the whole course of filling up forms is not very intrusive and enough to not provide their personal information to your app. Avoid asking for information that you will not really use in the whole time they are engaging with you. For example, you may not need the customer’s last names. Just ask for their usernames, email addresses, and passwords. You can also allow registration from social media sites such as Facebook and Gmail.

Lastly, it may be better if you let the user explore the app itself and the whole application should allow your user to create an account. All of these should be done in the most casual and fun way to avoid your users not signing up in your app.

3. Proper App Functionality

Another thing to consider is the application’s quality when it comes to overall functionality and performance. You can achieve this by testing your app every once in a while. Bugs are always a thing in apps after updates, so testing it will minimize the occurrence of bugs in your app before releasing it to your users and audiences. It is like a factory where you have a quality assurance officer to always look at the quality of the product if it passes the standards. Same with the application, you need to assure that it passes the standards before letting your users download it.

With this, you can have higher engagement and retention rates because there is minimal app crash, faster load times, and other features working well.

4. Smart Push Notification

Push notifications are one of the best ways to create lasting user retention; however, it should be used smartly. According to Localytics, there is a 9.3 times more engagement of people who enabled push notifications than those who do not. You should be smart with this. Just like the onboarding point, you need to show your app’s worth which can lead to your users signing up for your notifications. You can tell why notifications are essential to give the best experience to them.

Notifications should be done as relevant as possible. Also, it should always consider the timing. For instance, you do not want to annoy your users when sending notifications; you need to send it in the most optimal time according to your user’s demographics, not when they are sleeping. The frequency of the notifications should be minimized and ensuring that every notification should show value. Lastly, targeted notifications should not occur in bulk. You can do this by personalizing your notification to your users.

5. Social Media Synchronization

 With all of the different trends and increase in the usage of the younger generations, social media is the key to market your mobile app. You can not only engage with your users inside the application but also outside, specifically through social media. You can also integrate social media networks in your application, just like Spotify.

Social media for your mobile app is an innovative way to connect with different people for your app. Content sharing can be done in social media networks to make your app known to many people, especially if you are targeting the app to specific target audiences of your app. You can manage your social media by creating a social media strategy for it and plan everything on how to engage and retain your users using these networks.

6. User Surveys for App

User surveys are done to gather feedback from your application users. It is a good way to engage with them because you are talking about how you can make their experience better and make them retain in your application.

You can use in-app surveys or link from your app or social media channels to a survey that can quickly help them in answering. Never forget to acknowledge what your users are saying about your app, ensure that you will assist in creating your app a better one from the feedback.

You can start making changes by compiling first all the feedback and check if all of those are applicable for change. You can also pick whatever is the most compelling feedback that can amp up your user experience.

7. App Localization

Localizing your app boosts growth and conversion rates, which can translate to engagements and retention from your users. You should know where you should focus your app on. It is better to focus it on where your app has the most users. Research is the way here. You need to do a lot of research on how you can make your app localized in a certain country.

Another question is how you can localize your app, in Android or iOS? iOS has a specific place only where you can release your app. However, in Android, there are many choices to launch your app. Every decision from here should be the best one that will not make your process in launching your app a living nightmare. Localizing an app is an excellent way to consider the culture variation around a world, making it targeted to one culture will ensure success to your app.

8. App Benefits in App Store Listing

Your users can access your app by downloading it in their operating system’s app store. You can start selling your app there and show all the benefits your app can give to them.

You should do acknowledge their struggle in today’s technology; from there, you can insert your app and how it can easily help your users in their everyday lives. Most users are thinking about if the app you are offering is worth it or not, which is the perfect opportunity to give persuasive texts and messages to show your app’s worth even before downloading. Always persevere in app stores and continue to engage with different people into downloading your application.

9. App Update Notification

When your app updates in your user’s mobile device, you need to let them know what is covered in the new update. Show all functionalities and features that are updated in the recent version of your app. It is important to show these to show that they are benefiting in your app after updating, giving them the best experience every after the app update.

Many people are signing up for automatic updates, but some are not. You need to let them sign up for this by giving notifications in other forms. Email marketing is one way where you can send the updates in their emails and make them change their mind in updating your app automatically.

10. Regular UI Update

You should always update your UI, even if it is in the best form for your customers. Look at your app as an ever-evolving entity that is better when always updated. Base your UI updates from your user surveys and feedback to your app. When you apply what they are telling you, it can raise the engagement rate and retention rate of your users since their feedback is heard and given action.

UI and UX should always be new and fresh for your users. Fresh views and experiences do not fail in getting new users and strengthen the retention rate of your current users.

Violet Smith is a marketing communications specialist who would like to share her knowledge through her blogs. She writes with the goal of spreading awareness on the topics that she writes about. Outside of writing, her other passion is shopping.