You have to consistently tweak the content of your push notifications to find out what works best. Always track the open rate after trying out a new notification, and try everything from a special offer, a new update alert, or just a personalized "we missed you" message. Never settle—some apps achieve an 90% open rate or higher with their notifications. You really just have to learn what your audience wants.
With so many apps on the market for every target audience imaginable, the key is getting users to understand the efficacy and ease of your app right off the bat. To do this, eliminate your welcome pages describing how to use the app. With too many, you run the risk of losing interest in potential users with short attention spans and over complicate your app. Instead limit your welcome pages and present clear, concise, and compelling copy that celebrates your app’s key features and benefits, perhaps using animated images and icons to keep users engaged on each page.
Ensure that users' in-app experiences are consistent with their experiences on your other brand channels, including your mobile and desktop sites. This helps build brand familiarity across all the channels a customer uses to interact with you. You want your customers to effortlessly move from one channel to the next, and receive the exact personalized experiences across all these platforms. This eliminates any confusion or friction that may hinder the user to interact with you on their platform of choice, including in-app. A seamless cross-channel experience will contribute to higher engagement levels on all your platforms, including in your app.
Cool, pin-worthy App graphics capture the attention of a large audience, driving significant app engagement and downloads. Pinterest is a goldmine of new products and brands for users to discover. And a visually striking and informative app ad will have your app standing out from the crowd. A crisp image with an engaging headline in a clean and clear font keeps your design simple while making it easy for readers to consume your ad quickly. And size your graphic to stand out by using an aspect of 2:3. Doing so ensures your audience will see all of the image’s details on their Pinterest feed.
Incorporate social sharing in your app to increase and encourage continuous app engagement. You should add social buttons for popular sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, etc. to your app's functionality. Social media is a massive part of modern culture, and people love sharing what they are doing with their family, friends, and followers. Make sharing on social media easy and quick, with simple buttons and quick reminders for app users after they commit certain actions. This not only encourages people to share their progress, creating a sense of achievement that drives them to return to the app but will provide more exposure for your app. When users' followers see them using the app, they will be inclined to download and use it too.
Gamification: Gamification, in my opinion, has emerged as a novel and successful method of attracting clients and increasing corporate revenue. Gamification is built on viral techniques that encourage users to be socially engaged and to attract their friends and acquaintances while spending money. Gamification, in this sense, turns the use of a service or product (for example, a mobile app) into a game. And the game has always been an effective technique for drawing new players.
For things like signing up or tutorial explanations of your app's functions, be mindful of how many screens the user has to go through in order to complete any given task on your app. If it becomes an ordeal to complete a task, it will make the user less likely to use it again in the future. Try to keep the number of screens in quick succession under five, and aim for two to three. That way they don't drag down the user experience of your app and make the user more willing to return to it in the future.
Encourage two-way communication. Customers want to not only build relationships with the brands they purchase from, they also want to feel valued and appreciated. To achieve this, open a line for two-way communication. This mobile app marketing strategy allows you to obtain feedback, solve customer problems, and improve product functionality. It also helps with your user journey. You'll be able to help them reach their goals more effectively.
Open a rapid feedback loop with your user base through a wizard, basic bot, or social media, then delight their socks off one iteration at a time; early adopters and raving fans love to help build better versions of and share their favorite tools with friends. Keep the user interface clean and simple so the navigation stays intuitive and the desired in-app destination is achieved with the fewest taps possible. Split test and regularly survey your most engaged users so you can keep what’s working well, drill-down on what’s not, and spur innovation through ongoing in- and off-app conversations with those who know your app best.
Our go-to app engagement strategy is word-of-mouth (WOM). My company partners with crowdfunding campaigns, helping them reach their goals through paid advertising and exposure. Businesses should apply similar campaign techniques to their app interface by integrating social sharing. Adding social buttons to an app makes it easy for users to share with popular websites, like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Social media is one of the most efficient and budget-friendly ways to increase and encourage continuous app engagement. People love to share what they are doing with family, friends, and followers. If your users share your app with their followers, you get free exposure, spreading the word of your company at no additional cost to your marketing department.
Head of Customer Acquisition at MitoQ
Answered 4 years ago
App engagement is generated by one thing, a CTA, and links. Your apps should have an easy CTA so people are able to engage quickly and know how to engage with your company. A social media marketing goal should have impressions and engagements as a usual stat to be viewed. CTA's help builds that engagement.
The structure of apps can be different in a multitude of ways from what many are used to when utilizing a general business website, often leaving visitors confused, and by using Tooltips and Hotspots, you can simplify the experience and increase engagement. Abandoned shopping cart rates are nearly 70%, and apps that fail to clearly explain the process, either by not identifying products, or explaining the shopping and checkout procedures, will only exacerbate those numbers. By using Tooltips and Hotspots to explain important features, give hints to expedite use, or automatically initiate when sensing a delay, you can re-engage the user and keep them moving through the purchase journey. By implementing these tools, you can increase engagement as well as the likelihood that your apps use will lead to a conversion.
To increase app engagement, the first thing to keep in mind is that your employees will need thorough training on how to actually use the app. Whenever you introduce a new tool or app to your workspace, take the time to check that everyone is learning in a way that matches their needs.. This can begin as team training but perhaps move on to a few one-on-one sessions to ensure that no one uses an “old-school” method because they’re afraid of the new technology.
Push notifications on an app can be used to create the same kind of personalized customer experiences that a customer might experience when entering a physical store. Push notifications can be used to share helpful tips, announce new features, and prompt users to perform actions within the app. This will allow the app to shape the customer journey of each individual user in a way that’s relevant to their needs and encourages app engagement. We have found that just sending one push notification a week increases app retention by 63%.
Many popular apps have grown and are still growing through double-sided bonus referrals. Rewarding both the promoter and new adopter mitigates the risk of dissatisfaction for both of them. It also doesn't require giving away a fortune as the bonus can be free premium access for a couple of weeks, additional features or in-app credits. This approach is also crucial to enabling network effects and economies of scale. Many apps wouldn't acquire enough customers to make the experience worthwhile for all users.
The best application engagement strategy is to consider your customers' experiences and feedback about the app. You need to understand them to be able to improve and adjust the focus and features of your app, leading to their satisfaction and increase in app engagement.
When done strategically, push notifications can keep your app top of mind, and can entice users to engage more regularly. It's undeniable that some users simply forget they've downloaded certain apps and are quick to delete any that no longer offer them anything of value. By sending out push notifications that have a clear and desirable CTA - like personalized product suggestions, the promise of exclusive content, or a discount on an abandoned cart - apps can achieve far higher levels of engagement. Ensuring the desired action is perfectly clear, offering something of real value, and personalizing based on user data are all ways a brand can use push notifications to their advantage, rather than sending out something vague and potentially irritating.
App development often begins with the essential step of focusing on downloads. Often, even when this initial phase goes by, the team fails to shift from their focus on downloads and delay the move to making improvements that improve functionality, factors that enhance engagement. The trick is to maintain a balance and ensure that once the intended number of downloads are achieved, the existing customers find continuous improvements in functionality that enable them to remain engaged.
Data Scientist, Digital Marketing & Leadership Consultant for Startups at Consorte Marketing
Answered 4 years ago
Send your users push notifications that remind them to log in daily to earn loyalty points and rewards. The key is to include a compelling call-to-action in each notification, and to make it simple to understand in a short period of time. For example, 100 points towards a free GoPro just for logging in could be enough of an incentive to keep your users engaged. This might be pricey for your revenue model, so be sure to work out the numbers first.
Your app marketing strategy should include a direct link on your website to your app on the App Store. Make it as few steps as possible for someone to find your app. This will drive traffic to your app, increasing App Store ranking. Once you have captured the customer, you can then you can integrate things like push notifications to increase app engagement.