Today there are millions of apps available on app stores and consumers have many options to choose from. The competition is high, which is why keeping your users engaged is very important. Businesses invest a lot of resources when building an app. To see the desired results, they must take measures that will keep their user’s attention. Number of downloads does not have any real value for the business. People can download an app and delete it immediately or may not use it frequently. According to CleverTap, the number one reason people uninstall an app is because they are not using it.
When your customers interact with your app daily and get a good use out of it, that is when you know that they connect with your app. When your app is keeping users engaged it will bring in value for your business. To achieve success with your app, you need to ensure that you work on improving app engagement. The more active your users are the better for your app. App engagement can help you retain your existing customers so that they continue choosing your app over other competitors. In this article, we will discuss some ways that can help you improve app engagement.
First, let’s take a look at what is app engagement and why is it important.
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What is app engagement?
App engagement includes a set of metrics that measure a user’s interaction with an app. These metrics measure the number of times a user opens an app, the session duration, and the type of actions a user takes when using an app. All these metrics help you see how users are connecting with your app and whether it’s useful to them. These metrics are important to track to determine the success of an app. Moreover, they also help analyze your app’s ROI. Based on these metrics, businesses can make the required improvements.
Why is app engagement important?
Gain revenue
When users are engaging and interacting with your app, it will generate a good revenue. Users will make in-app purchases because they trust your app and want to benefit more from its features. If your customers use your app regularly, they will recommend it to others or write good reviews which will increase your app sales. App engagement increases customer’s Lifetime Value or LTV as customers will spend more on any in-app purchases or upgrades.
Retains users
Retention means that users are returning to your app after the first interaction. Good engagement will help you retain your users. If your customer is satisfied with your app, they will continue using it. Retention can help you save on cost acquisition. Gaining new customers is always more expensive than retaining existing ones. When you retain your existing customers, you don’t have to spend more on marketing or advertising efforts to gain new customers.
Understand users
App engagement helps you understand your users better. You get to know what your users prefer and what they don’t. It can be the user experience, features, or any other aspect of your app. If your users are not engaging with your app, you can analyze all these areas and find out what the issues are. Then you can make improvements to increase engagement. This process can give you valuable insights on your users.
Analyze app performance
Tracking app engagement metrics can give insights into the overall success of your app. Just looking at the downloads is not enough. App engagement will show you how successful your app truly is. With data you can analyze user behavior to understand how users interact with your app. Are the majority of users abandoning your app? Or how long is the session duration? How often do your users use your app? All these questions can be answered through data analysis. BY tracking user engagement metrics you can gather valuable insights to improve your app and boost user engagement.
How to Increase App Engagement?
Localytics reported that app abandonment rate has increased in 2019, and 25% of users abandoned apps only after one use. App engagement is important to reduce app abandonment and encourage users to keep using an app.
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Here is how you can improve app engagement.
Simplify the onboarding process
App onboarding is important because it helps the user understand your app. The app onboarding process are steps that guide your users through the app’s interface when they first open it. The purpose of this process is to educate the user about the basic functions of the app. It highlights the important features of an app and all the benefits. Users can also register or log in. In some apps it can also ask details about a user to provide customized content and notifications.
There are different types of onboardings businesses use depending on their app. Some apps can have onboarding that show the benefits or value a user can get out of various features. Another type is function-oriented onboarding, which guides the users on how to use an app. Onboarding process should be simple and not complicated. Overwhelming a user can sometimes lead them to exit the app without using it further. This means the user will not return and may end up deleting the app. Make the onboarding process easy, fun, and interesting so that users will interact with this process.
App onboarding should provide the users high-level information about the key features of your app. When users look at how the app can benefit them, they are going to be excited to try it out. If your app requires some level of understanding about the functions, then guide the users with simple steps. Moreover, asking for a lot of information at the beginning about user details, data access or notification permissions may discourage users from interacting with your app. Ask for important information only, and refrain from overwhelming users with permission requests. Illustrations and short messages are a great way to onboard users. When the onboarding process is smooth, users will return to the app.
Easy sign-up or account creation
Users want their life to be easy. Sometimes account creation or log-in processes can overwhelm users. It could be the reason they stop interacting with an app. If your app requires the users to create an account to access the app, then users will simply abandon it. Before giving out any personal details, a user would want to get to know the app and use it. Allow users to access the app without requiring them to sign-up. This way users can freely access your app and get a feel of it. You can ask them to sign-up at a later stage when they want to start using certain features or keep a track of all their data in the app.
Give the users various options when it comes to creating an account. For example, they can sign up with their Google or Facebook accounts. This simplifies the account creation process and users are more likely to choose this route. If you ask them too many details or personal information when creating an account, they will not continue with the process. Sign-ups or account creation is an important step, as this determines if users will sign-up for your app and you can also gather user data. To engage your users, make sure you make this process as easy for them as possible.
Send customized push-notifications
Push notifications are messages that app publishers send which pop up on mobile devices. Many users find push notifications annoying and may have them turned off. While the users who approve push notifications, show an average 30% increase in app retention (Localytics). The key is to customize your push messages according to your customers. Users would only like to receive push messages that are relevant to them.
Consider the user behavior to understand what type of push notifications are relevant to your customers. Understand what your users are looking for or type of information they need. Providing the right information captures the attention and interest of your audience. For example, you can send them push notification about a certain upgraded feature that will benefit them and make their life easier. Use push notification strategically so that the constant messages do not annoy your users. Push notification is a great way to interact with your user and helps in user retention.
Create a good user experience
A seamless user experience is crucial for app engagement. People uninstall apps if they find it complicated, slow, or difficult to use. User experience is all about creating a design which is aesthetically pleasing, functional and easy to use. Focus on designing your app in a way that resonates with your user personas. This enables you to understand the preferences of your target audience and create an app design which pleases them. Poor user experience drives away users without engagement.
If your app is slow or has technical errors that makes a user wait for long, they will abandon that app. Use layout, color schemes or fonts that your users prefer. You can run A/B testing to find out which design elements work better for your users. Incorporate them into your apps so that you can create the best design. A good user experience will encourage users to interact with your app more. Users appreciate an interface that is simple to use and provides them with all the information they need easily. Focus on the user experience and design to improve app engagement.
Leverage email marketing
Email marketing is used by marketers to reach their customers easily and maintain a communication with them. Email marketing enables you to reach users through emails that are customized for them. Creating an email marketing campaign that is relevant to your target customers can help businesses improve app retention. With a growing number of competitions in the app business, it is important to work on retaining the existing users.
Emails can be a great way to provide relevant information and content to your mobile app users. If the users have not used your app in a while, interesting emails can encourage them to use the app. Emails can include information on any updates, features, promotions or simply content that educates the users. Through email marketing businesses can reach their users regularly and get their attention. Customers don’t mind receiving marketing emails from businesses they invest in. Hence, users will engage with your emails and will be driven to use your app. Send information to users that will be valuable to them. This will help improve user engagement and retention.
Create personalized content
Use content in your app that is customized to your users. Whether it is push notifications or in-app messages or any other content on your app, make sure your audience relates to it. To create personalized messages you will need to know your audience first. Building user personas can help you understand your users. Know their demographics, psychographics, interests, preferences, problems and more. Based on this you can create various messages that are helpful to your user. For example, if you know a certain pain point of your users, you can send them in-app messages or notifications informing them how a feature can solve that problem.
Be specific with the types of messages you send your user as that can grab their attention. Irrelevant content will simply annoy any user and they will turn off notifications. These messages are important to keep interacting with your customers. This helps in retaining users and connecting with them. Hence, personalizing content is a great way to engage your users.
To wrap up, always keep your users at the center. The design of your app is going to be the most important aspect to keep users engaged. Focus on creating a great user experience that helps users connect with your app. If your users find your app complicated or they have a difficulty connecting, they may abandon your app. Use messages personalized for your users to create curiosity and encourage them to use your app.
It can be quite challenging to keep your user’s attention, especially when there are so many apps available. An app that resonates with the target customer will stay ahead of the competition. Incorporate these strategies to connect with your audience and drive them to engage with your app.
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