If you’ve ever designed and launched an app, you know how vital it is to keep user retention at a high mark. If a user downloads your travel, health or lifestyle app, uses it once, and then forgets it even exists, what’s the point?
In a day and age where all digital content has found its way to handheld devices and smartly designed applications, the single biggest problem that plagues app developers is retaining customers.
While most users are willing to try out new applications to see if they add value to their lives, the sheer number of these in the travel, health and lifestyle segment makes it hard for customers to stay glued to one for long. For this reason, devising a retention strategy has become a key indicator of growth in the field of mobile app development.
As a business owner with a new app idea, what can you do to retain your users and keep them engaged? Let’s take a look at some best practices that successful app marketers swear by.
Build a Community
In the digital world, it’s all about a sense of belonging and engagement. App marketers have long known that the best way to make their users come back for more is to build a community for them within the app. MapMyRun, a lifestyle and fitness app takes this very seriously.
This mobile application is a one-stop solution to a user’s fitness needs. It integrates every aspect of health; from runs and workouts to calories, sleep and food-logging. And above all, it provides a social platform for runners to connect and discuss their achievements, progress and thoughts. Not only does this motivate them, it keeps them coming back to it because they ‘belong’ to the group of fitness watchers who use this app and will continue to do so for life.
This type of engagement is designed specifically to improve the mobile user journey and drive engagement. Read more about how much health care startups can learn about the mobile journey and how proper design can do wonders for a health or fitness app.
Attract with Incentive
Giving users a reason to stick around after they have used your app for the first few times is what retention is all about. If users feel they have an incentive to keep an eye on your application, they will definitely stay.
Think of it as telling a customer they can get 40 percent off their next purchase if they spend $200 today. They would want to come back to avail that discount next time. A travel mobile app that has executed this strategy beautifully is Airbnb. Airbnb started incentive-led referral programs whereby if X referred Y to the app, X would receive $100 Travel Credit when Y traveled.
The result? The company registered a record-breaking increase of 300% in user sign-ups per day.
Understanding Apple and Android Users
Every app market is split between these two massive platforms, and so you need to ensure that you find a developer that understands the different user behaviors on both, and how each OS changes the user journey.
According to Moz.com, Android users spend on average $11.54 per e-commerce transaction, while iPhone users spend a staggering $32.94 per transaction. Knowing that iPhone users will spend almost triple when visiting an e-commerce site compared to Android users means you can tailor the customer journey more aggressively on an Apple app. Meanwhile for Android users, you can tweak the journey to ensure it focuses on activities other than buying.
Keep these three best practices in mind when you design your travel, health or lifestyle app and you’ll be well on your way to success.
