Best Practices for Mobile App User Engagement and Retention

Best Practices for Mobile App User Engagement and Retention

Quick Links:

• Smooth Onboarding
• Communication is Key
• Show Users you Care
• Make It Personal

The mobile app industry is highly competitive. There are billions of mobile app users across the world, and thousands of mobile apps are released yearly. Although the potential for growth is high, mobile app creators need to do a lot more to succeed.

User engagement and user retention are crucial to success in the market today. A mobile app with low user engagement and retention is bound to fail. Active users are at the core of profitability with mobile apps. If you have a mobile app, there are some strategies that you can employ to boost your user engagement and retention.

Smooth Onboarding

First off, you must make your app unique and attractive enough to make users check it out. In other words, it must play a useful role in their everyday lives. If you can achieve that, the next step is to ensure that users do not struggle to get a grip on how your app functions. The goal of your app design must be to make users operate it intuitively.

Failure to achieve this can result in user discontent and app abandonment. Usability must be at the core of your user engagement and retention scheme. A lot of thought and analysis must go into the design of your app. If the onboarding process is complicated, users are likely to uninstall your app or stop using it.

One way to make the onboarding process of your app simple is to avoid asking for too much information before giving users access. The goal should be to remove all the unnecessary roadblocks and allow users to get a taste of what your app offers. Some of the biggest apps today like Facebook use this strategy. Research shows that users tend to recommend apps they find useful to their family and friends.

Key Takeaway: The onboarding process of an app should be fun and straightforward.

Communication is Key

Communication is essential in strengthening the user engagement and retention of your app. Not just communicating with your users, but listening to their opinions. As a developer, you must take the views of users into account. Knowing what your users think about your app puts you in a better position to make the right improvements.`

Besides feedback, user data analysis is another way to gather valuable information about which features of your app are engaging to users. It will show also reveal the aspects of your app users do not like. Data analysis can go a long way to help you improve user engagement and retention on your mobile app.

There are many ways developers can get feedback from users. You can create a section on your app where users can drop their suggestions. Another way to find out what users think about your app is to read reviews. There are many platforms online where users write about their experiences with apps. For example, you will find lots of user reviews on App stores. The comment section of tech blogs can also provide some information about the experiences of users. Social media is another gold mine for unfiltered comments about your app. Surveys are another viable option to gather feedback. Polls are more specific and deliberate; you can ask what users think about particular aspects of your app. You can contract professionals like Buildinary to analyze your app and provide an expert opinion on how you can improve it.

Key Takeaway: Listen to your users.

Show Users you Care

To engender loyalty among your users, it is essential to build a sense of community. You must let users know that their suggestions are valued. As much as possible, respond to user’s comments. Responding to feedback from users is one thing, but you must also attempt to implement their recommendations where possible. Users feel more valued when they see that companies take their opinions seriously.

Key Takeaway: Work to build a relationship with your users.

Make It Personal

Anyone abreast with the tech market knows that personalization is one of the secrets to keeping users. It can go a long way to enhance user experience, particularly with mobile applications. The more personalization options that a mobile app offers, the more it is likely to engage users. You can harness data to personalize content for your users. Users are likely to find relevant content more appealing and would spend more time on your app. Some simple personalization options like making the name of each user appear on the screen or allowing users to choose a different interface can go a long way to make people fall in love with your app.

Key Takeaway: Give users options to personalize their experience on your app.

There are many other equally good ways to improve the user engagement and retention rate of your app such as offering discounts and adding social media features to your app.