6 Easy Ways to Increase Mobile App Engagement

What does it take to keep users glued to a mobile app?

Being a mobile app owner, this question must have come to your mind. But exactly when? The timing is extremely crucial factor here as it determines how effectively you can plan to work on your engagement model.

Many business owners worry about user engagement once the mobile app is developed or they have already finalized a mobile development company to proceed with their mobile app idea.

This type of delay could reduce the possibilities a business owner has to work with their mobile development solution provider in the area of long-term mobile app engagement factors.

Metrics of Mobile App Success

Most of the mobile app owners commit the mistake of determining the success of mobile app to the number of active users. But since the aim of the mobile app ultimately is to generate revenue for the business and for that user-engagement is extremely crucial.

Mobile app engagement and mobile app retention are two important metrics that provide required visibility into the success of a mobile application.

Low engagement means users do not have much to do on the platform, which means they are not interested in the app after downloading. This is a recipe for failure.

Before we delve deeper into the successful mobile app engagement model, let’s first take a look at the engagement and retention metrics.

Engagement – It describes the number of active users on the mobile application. It also includes how much time a user spends on the mobile app. According to Localytics, a highly engaged user is one that has more than 10 sessions per month.

Retention – Defining a mobile retention is bit complex. However, a somewhat subjective term is available that sets the industry benchmark. According to Localytics, mobile app user retention could be when a user returns to the app at least once a month.

Where it is much easier for the big brands to invest on appealing marketing tactics to increase their user engagement and user retention, small companies bear the brunt of insufficient funds for mobile app marketing.

Tips to Increase Mobile App Engagement and User Retention Rates

Modern users can be really picky sometimes, especially when it comes to mobile app. This is because there are a huge number of options available in every segment of the industry.

Any company that is going the extra mile with user-experience, content, and personalization have better edge over others. It provides a golden opportunity for the businesses that are highly proactive in responding to customers.

And those who fail to engage their mobile app users, the users do not care about the company either. You can see the existing mobile app abandonment rate which reflect how companies have been struggling to keep the users engaged and improve retention.

As there have been slight improvement in the user-engagement rate, it clearly shows that how mobile app owners are making an effort to keep the users happy so that they can keep coming back.

Below are some tips and tricks that you can adopt in line with your custom mobile application development company to increase engagement and retention of your mobile app.

Optimizing Google Play Store App Details

You have to begin selling your app right at the app store. To begin with, effectively list out the benefits of your mobile app that derive value for your users at the app store listing, from where users download the app. The practice is popularly known as “App Store SEO”.

The three key strategies for Google Play Store Optimization are:

• Keyword research & market research: Go for long-tail keywords and appealing keyword combinations specific to what the users search.
• Play Store page optimization and testing: Optimize the online and offline meta data of your mobile app. Keep the process of trial and error to come up to the expected conversion rate.
• Tracking and monitoring: Check the user reviews, analyze your strengths and weaknesses and accordingly make changes to your communication strategy.

Easy Onboarding

According to a report, effective mobile app onboarding can increase the user lifetime value up to by up to 500%. Providing a seamless onboarding experience is crucial to make the users comfortable with the app and reduce the mobile app abandonment rates.

Things to avoid

• Too many steps to sign up
• Multiple information fields
• Complex features and functions

Work with your mobile app development company to come up with appealing and extremely easy onboarding for your mobile app users.

Use Push Notifications (The Right Way)

Did you know that sending push notifications can increase the user retention up to 3 to 10 times? And the report further adds that those users who respond to push notifications retain 2x as compared with the users who have not availed of the service.

According to the report, Push Notifications also boost the app engagement by 88%.

Push messaging are an essential function of the mobile app amidst the highly competitive mobile app market. It helps in two ways:

1. Reminds users that they have downloaded the app
   
2. Encourage mobile app usage

However, you have to effectively target the message to gain the users’ attention and make them return to the app.

Mobile App Personalization

Mobile app development companies must give attention to mobile app personalization, as it provides unique and relevant experience to the users. In the modern epoch, it is mandatory for the businesses to remain aligned with the users’ preferences, so that they can return to the mobile app.

Two things you can do for mobile app personalization

• Use stored user-information to connect with customers
• Customized content and tailor insight to provide more value to the users

Offer and Incentive Program

User incentive and offers will always be in trend to garner user-attention. You can reward your mobile app users with specialized content, promotion offers, and coupons to increase conversions and enhance engagement.

Offer and incentive programs must align with your monetization model to provide maximum benefit to your users.

Asking for Feedback and Reviews

Always encourage your customers to provide feedback and write reviews, so that you can have a firsthand idea of how users are responding to your application. It is not necessary that you edit every negative review rather you can reply on those reviews in your attempt to address their challenges.

Conclusion

To build a successful mobile application, you have to be aware of users’ behavior and habit-forming pattern. Besides, you also need to connect with them on a regular basis to understand their emotions and how comfortable they are with your app. This way you will be better able to address their needs and increase mobile engagement and retention.