Since mobile apps have already penetrated every facet of modern life, the app market competition has reached a stiffening proportion. In every app category, we have a handful of hugely successful apps and many apps that struggle to make enough to survive as a business.
The question is, what makes some apps successful and make others fail. Learning from the leading and most successful apps across all niches and categories, we will present eight critical secrets of a successful mobile app.
1. The Mobile App Should Solve a Problem
Every mobile app is looked upon by the users as a solution to some problems. The app solution must solve user problems or pain points in the most desired manner.
The solution that your app offers must be more comfortable, more relevant, and user-optimized than the apps in competition.
2. Know the Market and Audience
Your app is based upon a great idea, but it needs to orient the app idea and the user experience with the target user audience. An app idea is nothing unless it is put in the actual living context of the target users.
Most failed apps have one thing in common. They mostly fail to understand their audience and the target market and its various attributes. This is why an iterative MVP development approach is right that allows you to add more features based upon user feedback over time.
In many small business markets like India, the MVP approach is famous for building an app product over time based on users’ feedback. A mobile app development company in India is an excellent choice to build an MVP app for budget-conscious startups and enterprises trying to develop audience-validated products.
3. Creating a Comfortable and Visually Appealing Design
Any user has an impression about an app from its first look and feels, and hence any successful app has to work a lot on making the app design great. The design must be least complicated, simple, and visually clean and instantly appealing to the senses.
When creating an app design, you should consider the usability aspects. In any case, the design elements should not hamper the usability of the app. Minimize the cognitive load and make sure the design helps users access features and content more easily.
4. Choose the Right Type of App
For building a successful app, you also need to choose the right platform, type of app, and the right technology stack. As for the options, you have three key options such as a native app, cross-platform native app, and hybrid app. Each of these has its respective pros and cons.
Native apps developed for a particular mobile platform such as iOS or Android can help better leverage the device hardware features and platform-specific functionalities and thus deliver a better user experience.
Cross-platform native apps still offering a native user experience through shared SDKs (Software Development Kit) are good options.
A hybrid app built with a single codebase for all device platforms and operating systems can be highly cost-effective but hugely compromising performance and user experience.
5. Offline Access
Even though mobile apps are mostly run by internet connection, the latest caching technology can also allow some apps to offer certain features offline. When users can access the content and some features offline and the changes are updated as and when the network connection is restored, it creates incredible flexibility.
6. Robust Personalization
Since smartphone devices are very personal and accommodate personal tastes and preferences easily, mobile apps that allow personalized interactions enjoy more traction and popularity.
From allowing users to customize notifications to choosing features for instant access, you can incorporate personalization in many ways.
7. Optimize App Security and Privacy
Mobile apps have now become victims of repeated security threats, and many business brands focus on strengthening app security to protect their customers’ interests. Remember, strong app security and a well laid out privacy policy always make the foundation of a successful app.
Some of the key and most effective security practices that can save your app from common threats and vulnerabilities include encryption of sensitive data, authentication management with the latest protocols such as biometric signature, using the latest token validation procedures such as one-time passwords, deploying secure communication standards and protocols for third-party elements, etc.
8. Make Sure to Work on User Retention
Finally, any successful app works hard to retain its user base over time. This is only possible when you grab the user data and analyze them regularly. This is why using a great analytics tool and keeping a close watch on the different metrics is so necessary.
Using notifications appropriately to engage and retarget users is a great way to boost user retention. Offering users promotional offers and running campaigns to renegade users is necessary for any app to stay on top of the growth graph. A great onboarding experience is also crucial to retain users for longer.
Conclusion
Developing a successful app is not just limited to technocrats any more. A small business or startup can also take advantage of this great level playing field about mobile app development. For this, it is essential to bring together strategists, developers, designers, and marketers to create app and app campaigns that continuously can engage audiences with standout value propositions.
