Six Ways To Make Your Mobile App A Daily Habit
Whatever the app, whatever its content, the Holy Grail for any web app’s success is making it a daily habit. This kind of stickiness is what every app publisher, every app marketer, and every app investor dreams about.
To do that, you’ve got to make your app medicine to the user’s daily pain. Here are six ways to do that…
Tip #1: Fit Your App Into Your User’s Daily Schedules – If your users agree to opt-in to push notifications, such as in Words With Friends or Google Calendar, you’re actually granting them control for when you can deliver value to them. Think of this as rewarding them with your push notifications when they tell you they want them instead of being upset about the times that they don’t.
This can build trust, loyalty, and result in great word of mouth. The more they trust you, the more loyal they become, day after day. Remember that the user is (most) always right.
Tip #2: Send Relevant Messages To Grow Your User Base – A very relevant text message for an airline mobile app would be about a flight delay for your airplane because of inclement weather. Another example could be that the size and model of your favorite sports shoe is being featured in a 24-hour sale. Users love these types of messages because they’re so personal, they can save them time, money, and/or anguish.
Start this step by asking your customers a series of questions that are relevant to them, such as what they like best about a variety of factors that connect with your specific mobile app. They don’t want sales data or press releases –– those can be seen as self-serving. They want data that they can relate to about how they can best use your app.
Tip #3: Always Make It Personal – It’s always important to empower your users with specifics, such as what kind of information they want, the quantity of info they want, and the exact times they want to receive it. Many mobile sports apps do this extremely well, with scores and bulletins for your favorite sport or many.
This type of personalized information can get very, very granular, but we see it as personalized, one-on-one communication at the highest level. Just give them the opportunity to click what they want and they’ll do the rest.
Tip #4: Deliver A Most Entertaining Mobile Experience – You want your app’s users to look forward to receiving your personalized messages to them. Are you making these part of a video? Taking them to an online survey? Showing them something fun? Are you then piggybacking that with a form to sign up for a local event or something else they would enjoy?
Media-rich experiences like these not only engage your audience. They make your users want to use the app more because it’s so rewarding, such as seeing a new movie trailer or receiving an instant coupon for a new consumer product. Keep them on the edge of their chair for what might come next.
Tip #5: Measure Your Messages’ Effectiveness – You can measure the effectiveness of your app’s messages to see if you’re making them more sticky. Run the numbers for each message to measure the results across a variety of factors, from open rates to best performance. Once you notice a pattern, drop the messages that aren’t resonating and increase the ones that are, whether they’re for iOS users or Android aficionados.
You may realize that your users love getting a certain type of message at a certain time of the day, or that they don’t like getting so many messages, after all.
Tip #6: Adapt To Your User ‘s Time and Place – If your user is not glued to their chair, can your app’s messages find them? And if they do, will the messages be relevant or seem like a mistake because they reference something in a different time zone?
Whatever your mobile app does, your messages should be able to follow your user and keep them updated with real-time, relevant information.