Best Methods To Improve App Engagement & User Retention
With the benefits of the small platform, the mobile app industry has exceeded our expectations and many sectors have changed their approach to the mobile-centric market. With the growing growth of the mobile app industry, every business is moving towards smartphones for success.
However, with this revolution, the industry has also brought fierce competition. In the multitude of mobile apps, you need to make sure your app doesn’t get lost in endless lists of app stores that nobody cares about. What I mean is, you need to make sure of the success of your app and it depends on the user acquisition.
How many users are engaged with your app will ultimately reflect the popularity and success of your app. However, the number of customers is not the only metric responsible for success. It is broken down into user retention and application engagement. The task is not complete when you get a large number of users for your app.
The real struggle is to make sure they keep using the app and interact on a regular basis. The most important metrics that define the success of any app are user retention and application engagement.
What is App engagement?
It tells how active users are in your app, and how often they use it after installing it. According to Localytics, the most active user has 10+ sessions with the app in one month. If a user doesn’t use your app or open it regularly, installing it in the first place has no benefit.
What is User Retention?
This metric is a little more subjective and measures how many users have returned to the app in the three months since their first session. Every brand and business has its own standards and benchmark for retaining the consumer. The increase in customer retention shows that customers are becoming loyal customers.
Both app engagement and user retention are key factors in app growth and revenue generation. Stickness is the average of engagement and retention, which shows how loyal and regular your customers are.
Why do you need user retention and engagement?
In today’s competitive market, developers are up against a tough situation where consumers have many options. If your app is not engaged and there is an error in persuading the user to open it, then again, it is much less likely to last longer on a smartphone.
The user abandonment rate, which means the user has dropped the app after one use, is currently 23%. Moreover, if the user does not open your app once in 7 days, the chances of uninstallation are 60%. This is because users don’t have to compromise because they get everything you don’t have in a different app.
There are about 3.8 million apps in the Google App Store and 2 million iOS apps in the Apple App Store, so the competition is more fierce than ever.
What Affects Customer Retention and Engagement?
There may be many factors that drive the user to leave your app. The user interface may not be as friendly or your app will take too long to run, or it may have too many ads. 60% of users say that the app’s functionality, features, and design are about brand loyalty.
For a better understanding of how to improve the engagement in the mobile app below is the video Watch it
Another reason why your customers may not feel special with your app is that your competitors offer them special benefits. The most common reason to abandon an app after the first session is because of the complexity of the app or the lack of promises.
Methods that Increase App Engagement And User Retention of the App
1.Effective onboarding
This sounds simple, though not all apps start with an effective onboarding process. Make your onboarding process as simple and natural as possible. No matter how hard it is to start using the app, users are more likely to leave it.
Here are some ways to simplify user onboarding:
- Reduce the number of steps required to create or sign up for an account and include multiple registration options (for example login with Facebook or Google).
- Provide feature education in the onboarding experience to introduce the app’s functionality, but don’t overload users right away.
- Teach through action to reveal basic gestures in the app experience.
2. Apply appropriate analytical expertise
Most of the mobile app developers lack analytical skills because they can make up their minds to focus on the logical part to program the features they need to work on. Therefore, it is important to work with analytical expertise to engage the website visitor audience with a satisfying mind. But to be more productive with the thought part of contacting customers, we need to focus on the mental model. So by integrating the mind into it, the response comes from the visitors with high interaction. And analytical expertise should not be copied and pasted from the website. It requires a huge impact to analyze and reach with A / B testing.
3. Personalization is the key
Personalization or mobile personalization has become the key to a winning app that keeps its users happy. With the help of the app’s personalized environment, you can win the user’s loyalty. There are many ways to personalize the app, including personally targeted push notifications for users. You can add a username to the screen with a greeting message so it gives the user a warm welcome.
Giving the user an environment that shows items or offerings based on user interest can increase user engagement. You can get help from previous searches and actions taken by users in your app. Track user behavior to find out what interests the user and other things.
This gives the impression that your app cares about the user. In addition, personalized push notifications offer a higher conversion rate compared to broadcast messages. According to one report, personalized messaging offers a 50% conversion rate compared to a broadcast message that only offers a 15% conversion rate.
4. Use push notifications (the right way)
Localytics reports that users who experience somewhat personalized brand interaction are likely to return to the app for 11 or more sessions. With this in mind, if you walk into a physical store and are not accepted, you will be disappointed with customer service. Consider application interaction in a single light.
Interaction can be as simple as sending a welcome push notification to users or providing useful information as users progress through the app. Successful applications use this type of interaction to create a consumer journey, by being thoughtful and strategic about how to reach customers. For example, offering relevant retailer deals based on location and usage patterns is an effective strategy for promoting in-app sessions. Communicating with customers is also a great way to re-engage customers who have fallen out of the exchange funnel. The same report further supports this by stating that leaving this app after use can fall from 25 percent to 19 percent when this type of interaction is implemented.
5. Offer an incentive program
If your business model allows you to offer a reward or loyalty program to customers, it is important to take advantage of the opportunity. These programs not only encourage consumers to use the product but also make loyalty programs appear to be important and important to the brand.
Apps that use in-app purchasing as a monetization model, particularly QSR applications, benefits through time-sensitive concessions, whereas freemium apps allow users to receive consumer-based incentives rather than monetary discounts.
6. Updating the app regularly
One of the most common reasons a user leaves the app after a while is to get bored with it. This makes most apps vulnerable to being the same and improving its functionality. Updating the app regularly will make the user more enthusiastic about using the app and ultimately help increase user retention and engagement numbers.
Even the most popular social media platforms, such as WhatsApp and Instagram, regularly add new features to their app. This is a very compelling method to engage the user with your app.
To find out what you can improve on your app, you need to take care of a few things. You need to regularly monitor feedbacks, user behavior, and monitor analytics to find out which app is needed to keep the user intact.
With simple updates and bug fixes, it shows the customers you are working hard for them. Another thing you need to start doing is to study your competitors and figure out what they are offering. Compare your current services with them so you can know what they are missing and start offering that feature to your customers.
Top considerations to keep in mind
Find the right opportunity in the market
All successful apps have one thing in common: they can develop habit-forming behaviors by building their app around users’ every day and emotions. When you think of brands like Spotify, Uber, or Instagram, they understand their target audience’s pain point and design their features to link to their daily routine, which encourages them to use it more often. Meeting your customers’ needs plays a huge role in how often they use your app.
Don’t underestimate the user experience
There is no simple equation to increase customer engagement and retention rates, but you have to maintain the right balance between different strategies and the overall user experience. Just because push notifications are effective for a brand does not mean it’s the right approach for you. Before you adopt any of these strategies, you should evaluate whether this is the right choice for your application in particular. Does it add value to customers or does it frustrate them? The minute you intensify customers, you are sacrificing your retention rates. Weigh your options and determine the best course of action for the consumer.
Wrap up
The mobile industry is more competitive than ever, and consumers are getting more and more demanding with time, which makes app ownership more difficult. To make sure your app has a high user engagement rate and increases user retention, you need to take the above steps. With the help of these methods, you will be able to gain more customers' time and earn their loyalty.
For any Queries related to mobile app development, feel free to reach us at FuGenX Technologies which is a leading mobile app development company in USA & India, delivering quality-driven mobility services across the world. We have been crowned with many global technology awards, including the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific & Fast 50 India, for pioneering high-quality products and ideas in the mobile space.
