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What Does it Take To Create A Good Mobile App?

“Mobile is becoming not only the new digital hub, but also the bridge to the physical world. That’s why mobile will affect more than just your digital operations — it will transform your entire business.” – Thomas Husson, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research

If you have an idea for a brilliant app then you must also have know about the fiercely competitive mobile app stores. If you are experienced in app development and have all the resources and monetary back up to hire a vendor you may create and publish your brainchild. But what will be your next step? Where will your creativity reach? There are hundreds of mobile apps launched each day and chances of your stunner getting lost in the crowd are way too high. Success is measured only in terms of ROI (return on investment). Without commercial success and popularity there remains no pint in pursuing app development. Even if you are successful with 5 apps you get to reach 2% of the world’s mobile crowd.

According to Gartner by 2018 the world will experience 0.01% commercial success of mobile apps. This is a worrying percentage to be considered by developers, agencies and app stores around the world. You need to build an app that stands the test of cruel times.

Tips to learn, earn and become a successful app maker:

1. Know your audience – In the past couple of years numerous start-ups have failed to come up with standard business statistics for themselves. The reason for failure of newcomers has been identified as minimum knowledge of the target audience. More than 14% of start-ups have failed as they did not know their target. There are two steps to identify your exact audience. First step is to do a general research on the age group and their behaviour that is will your app be suitable for a certain age group and their acceptance ratio? Your second step will be to perform a comprehensive marketing research. This will make you aware of your niche audience. You can choose to float an advertising campaign or create a website for promoting your product. You can also come up with an explainer video giving details on what your product is. The next line of action will be to estimate customer lifetime value. You need to know what your customers expect from your product. A routine survey is necessary. You can also choose to take public opinion polls and interviews of a wide variety of users. Behavioural targeting will let you have details of detailed buyer personas. If you are promoting a music app you must target people who are musicians or who visit music related blogs and websites. If you are all set to launch an animation sketching app then you must pull users who are students and individuals passing out of art colleges and animation enthusiasts.
2. Ensure excellent Performance – Poor performance in apps is the reason why 90% of mobile users abandon apps sooner than they download them on their devices. Your app must seamlessly work on the operating systems (according to the OS they have been specially been designed for) free of glitches like bugs and slow loading. Cross platform apps developed on Javascript, HTML5 and CSS face maximum challenges. If you publish a standard iOS or an Android app make sure it is tested well by your hired team and run extensively on multiple devices before making it public. After an app has been launched you must constantly introduce updates and include software improvement. User interfaces and user experiences are co-dependent factors. Most users are known to have increase expectations from apps after a couple of months. This expectation must be utilised to your maximum benefit. An app having sooth and easy performance will go on to have tremendous success and bring you the desired ROI in terms of reach, popularity and profit margins. (Read Also: 5 Simple Ways to Retain App Users And Increase Mobile App Engagement)
3. Stay focused on your app’s basic functionalities – Your app must serve a purpose. It can be anything starting from finding the nearest cab in the locality, getting the latest news updates or providing some great fashion tips. An app is expected to solve a real-life problem. Users consider apps as a support system for some kind of a daily life problem. Once you have achieved the focal point of your app’s feature/features you are ready to reap rewards. Attaining success is not a day’s goal. It takes persistent efforts in building future for apps. We can take the example of Uber which started off as a simple app which was downloaded by users who had to contact the owner of the app top get access codes for their cab rides. But with time it became a multi-million dollar company that currently can channelize its business in various sectors. So the point to consider is improving your app’s/apps’ functionalities. A simple app can go on to have complex success routes. Having a clear picture of your app’s functionality is important in deciding its fate.
4. Marketing rules the world – Every industry holds marketing as the key component of branding. Without promotion there would not be any downloads possible. A Smartphone user reportedly uses 26 apps per month. Social media activity is done maximum through mobile devices. App marketing is essential as most users download apps from the Playstore and the App Store. In order to put your app on the top ranks you must perform app store Optimization with metadata and reviews. App’s success is not achieved overnight. A lot of time, resources, planning and energies need to be spent to attain marketing and promotional success.
5. Reach out with your idea – By starting a website you can engage users and impart knowledge about your apps. An effective MVP (market viable product) need to be created to ascertain a pleasurable UI, usability, value and feasibility for an app. An MVP brings out the reasons why people will use your app, how they will use it and the way you can deliver their needs. If you want to raise funds for your product you can look for your MVP to help you a lot.
6. Choose the Right Platform – Before choosing to build an app for all operating systems you must focus on one particular platform to make it run best on it. When you find success with one platform you can continue finding successful launches on other OS. You need to find the current popularity of operating system in various parts of the world. This will let you have a target audience. Android is reportedly more popular in Chinese, US, German and UK markets. Apple is known to have lesser shares in the marketplace but pulls 75% more revenue than the Playstore. Android users prefer free apps whereas Apple users are open to purchase additional features and paid updates. Android app developers work on higher hourly rates than iOS app developers. Both Apple and Google have different set of app development and publishing guidelines. There is a huge difference of hourly rates and app development costs between iOS and Android apps.

Ultimately what does it take to create a good mobile app? There are numerous things like bright ideas, excellent app performances, right set of users, appropriate platform, intelligent marketing and focus on basic functionalities. Development processes meet success when app reviews, user retention and download rates are heightened.

Read also: How to Strategize Well For App Pre-Launch?