Launching an app is a great idea, but it’s not that easy as we supposed to think. The majority of mobile applications don’t generate revenue because companies aren’t ready to be competitive. Referring to our experience in successfully building and launching apps we hope to help you omit these difficulties. We are going to talk about ideas, marketing, testing your product, its development, distribution and support. You will learn 8 product launch stages to succeed.
First of all it’s no use thinking about any technology before you have a smart idea. That’s better to think over your goals and a problem that your application can solve. The very step to establish an app is to have a clear vision of the reason why you want to do this.
There are some ways to find it:
Take a sheet of paper and a pen, write down all your ideas for this project and ask yourself: What is the main idea of working on it? Will it be useful for anybody?;
Think about any problem that you and your friends or relatives have. Will your application be able to solve it? How will it make our life easier? Also you can browse a few forums and read comments or chats there;
Find out about some complications which people get rid of without a device and then preseed and put the solution into a mobile application e.g. people have a lot of tasks to be done so you create a journaling app.
It’s crucial to be certain your idea is unique. If it’s not, it must make any worth considering difference among other familiar apps.
Since you’ve got an idea for your app, you should focus on doing a market research. A great number of developers miss this step and engage in an app development process but it’s a fallacy. Even if your idea seems brilliant to you, somebody could have already executed it.
So that’s really necessary to drill into research the competition and get some things to make your app better. Pay attention to not just companies around the country but around the world. It will fill you in with new ideas and define current failures or gaps.
Here is a strategy to manage it:
evaluate the market size, its quality and quantity of frequently used applications, that’s will help you
understand if the idea worth providing and identify serious competitors;
take a look at their functionality, characteristics and its layout and make notes on everything that draws your attention or was skipped in your set of features to set your app better for customers;
read users’ comments and reviews for your competitors’ apps, focus on cons to decide whether you can erase the weaknesses in your own app;
find marketing channels which your opponents don’t use and you will get an opportunity to occupy that niche in the market e.g. a company don’t have any communities or groups on social networks so that becomes your scope.
Do a great amount of prior research to reduce mix-up and disappointment.
It goes without saying that a good app won’t survive without an audience. Understanding who your target audience is will help you to concentrate on making fruitful set of features and content. Then you can focus on their demands, analyze and retain it, create a special product for it. Because of these 3 reasons you won’t miss this step:
feeling that there is an audience for your product;
feeling that you establish a beneficial app which people need;
converting it more often according to the previous items.
Understanding your target audience is the way to a well-developed lucrative product: communicate with them, ask for their reviews, talk about your project.
To find your target audience you can refer to some basic criteria:
Demography
age group;
accomodation;
education;
earnings;
family status;
male/female;
ethnic group etc.
Scan this list and think about common characteristics of the people who are interested in using your app. That’s better if you focus on 2 key points e.g. age, earnings which indicate your main market and 1 — 3 secondary points e.g. male-female which detail your main market.
For example, if I create an online clothes shop, my key points will be women with income 3000$ and secondary point will be 22-35 years old.
Psychography
persona;
beliefs;
perspectives;
interests;
style of life.
Throughout your demography, you will observe your audience tending to definite trends, opinions or interests. If members of your market share posts with the same idea of healthy lifehacks, you can add a feature of showing pieces of healthy advice while using your app. Psychographics is a great motivation to use or buy something so they can be easily looked into by monitoring the media.
When a target market has been chosen, ensure to answer these questions:
Have you got a big target audience?
If it’s only 200 people you should evaluate your target again;
Will my target audience get the most benefit from my app?
They must see a need in it.
Are they accessible?
You should connect them easily to send promotional emails or post information about launching an app.
Seeing your goals and results is a powerful motivation to accomplish it.To start developing your mobile app, it’s extremely crucial to set concrete goals which you will achieve during a launching process.
make a choice of main and additional features for the first version of your app
In the previous stages you made the market research and found your audience therefore now you can easily make a feature list for your app. Follow your idea and take into account what people need. This is a really important step, especially if you entrust the project to some company to do. The more precise you enlighten your demands, the better result you get.
think of user interface
It’s great if you have a definite picture of graphics and content that will be pleasing to the eye, attract people and fit trends or fashion styles. In case of not having enough time or ideas, a professional graphic designer can create it for you;
establish a marketing strategy
A best-selling product needs to be known by everyone! Think about different ways to promote your application: emailing, screenshots, blog, groups or pages with content on Facebook and Twitter etc.;
foresee results
Make a list of points that you want to achieve after launching an app e.g.:
– a 4.5-star rating in App Store and Play Market;
– 70k downloads for the first 2 weeks;
– 5% CRR(Customer Retention Rate).
During this period a lot of developers set indicators of an involvement level for measuring app’s KPI e.g. time that was spent in the app, a number of sessions per a day/ a month, a quantity of repeated actions. Several indicators seem to be simple but it’s important to identify expectations and goals. A high involvement level is a key to success.
If you have a ready-to-go IOS or Android app, it’s high time to make the world find out about it. The most challenging aspect of App creation is marketing. That’s better to start working with it before Store administration and customers have already known about it. Calculating the cost of app advertising is no less important than app development cost.
There are two relevant tasks:
gather an audience before releasing an application
Firstly you need a couple of pages e.g. a landing page, where an app idea, its pros in the market and its functionality should be described. Complete it with a form for guests to sign up for emails on your app’s progress or participate in a beta-test. With it you will get a list of emails of potential users.
Identify the most usable social networks(Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram) for your audience, publish some screenshots on it and provoke its discussion.
Create a promotional video that shows the essentials of your app in a minute. It’s an effective way for advertising your product on social posts, landing page etc. It should be full of screenshots or mockups and key benefits.
Send a message to bloggers and journalists. Find people who can influence on your target audience, connect them and present your app.
prepare a base for after-releasing period
Think about useful partnerships and make arrangements on advertising your product.
Be ready to launch a new version of your app with corrected bugs and crashes. After releasing an app you can meet negative comments or reviews, so inform your support group about upgrading your product.
Before launching your app, it’s time to launch a beta-test of an almost completed version of the application. The aim of its test is to get a real-world view on your project and to work on kinks. Here are two options for it:
an internal testing for persons from your team;
a public testing for people who have already registered for it or everyone.
When you collect all the feedback, list all the revisions and set updates that you need to make to this version. Then provide these changes and get you app ready for retesting and make sure that all the bugs have been removed. It matters to work on cons after having the test. If there is a necessity, you should stretch out a release date.
Also you can use the analysis to be sure that your language overlaps with your audience’s. A big number of apps isn’t shown in app store search results. Find out about terms and words your target audience use to describe your app and be sure that your description involves these items. It’s useful to work with ASO or App Store Optimization to have your application in the top of app search results. Your app’s description should be written in many languages so users all over the world can find your mobile application.
And only now it is time to launch an app! No matter what store you’ve chosen for it, you should meet its submission guidelines. First of all, create an Itunes account(corporate or personal) to send an application. There are some limits in submitting for personal account, so study this information first.
Make sure you:
tested your mobile app for kinks and crashes;
prepared all app descriptions and metadata;
set your contacts for App Review if they need to connect you;
have a live demo account and login info, hardware and resources that may be necessary to review your application;
accessible backend service during the procedure;
included accurate explanations of features and internal purchases, supporting documentation in the App review notes;
checked if your app follows all the requirements.
To be safe, submit your application a week before the launch date in case of Apple or Google rejections.
As soon as your mobile app is live in the App or Google stores, it’s high time to draw the attention to it. You can email your customers, update your website, post a blog article or promote it via social media.
Three weeks after launch are perfect to analyze and improve your product. Feedback tools like comments, forums and reviews are really important channels for open communication. Your app customers will have a platform to report bugs or crushes, present their ideas and seek customer support.
Early monitoring feedback will give you an opportunity to fix bugs, add new suggestions and release a new version while your app is still in the limelight!
Now it’s crucial to retain customers. They usually decide if they will keep using an app with the first minute. So engage them, communicate with people, make them feel important and valued. A few week near launch is a golden time to get customers.
Every time you launch an app is a great opportunity to expand your segment of the market. In Multi-Programming Solutions we understand the importance of creating mobile apps. Our solution is to be flexible and pay attention to the details. In the case of obtaining an important insight or new data at one of the stages, the work is structured in such a way that it does not cause chaos and delay in the execution of the task. Processes and sprints are immediately adjusted in accordance with changing circumstances. Stay one step ahead of your competitors with high-quality mobile apps that Multi-Programming Solutions will create for you.
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