It’s quite crowded in the mobile app market. Every day, thousands of new apps are listed on app stores. According to a recent report by Forbes, the number of mobile apps reached 8.93 million in 2020. Today, almost a year later, this figure has likely gone way up.
For this reason, it’s important to analyze where the app you want to build will fit in this ecosystem. Who is it for? What does it seek to achieve?
In today’s article, we’ll show you how to choose the right mobile app development strategy. Following such a strategy will help you build a high quality app that will meet your customers’ needs and move you closer to your business goals.
Contents
Conduct market research
Market research is the most important step of building an app, and the reason it makes the top of our list.
Conducting market research will help you understand the audience you are catering for. What devices do they use – smartphones or tablets? Are they likely to make in-app purchases?
Understanding the people you’re targeting will ensure you develop a product they will find useful. Many businesses and developers make the mistake of building apps without a clear picture of who their target is. Such apps become super difficult to promote when they see the light of day.
What kind of app are you developing?
Different apps have different uses, and thus come with distinct features. Figuring out the kind of app you’re trying to build is the first step to developing a good app.
Some of the key things you need to consider are: what is the size of the app? What is its scope? Are you only targeting residents of a particular area, or will you serve international users?
These are the decisions that will determine the development strategy to follow. For example, large apps with an international audience will take a lot more work than a local restaurant’s app.
Allocating resources
Figuring out the kind of app you’re building will enable you to allocate the right resources to cover the entire process. App development can be a costly affair, especially if you choose to get a development company. Most of these services charge by the hour; the more work your app requires, the more you will need to pay.
If you need to save some money though, you may consider development platforms such as Microsoft PowerApps which are easy to use as they require minimal coding. You can learn more about PowerApps for Office 365 to find out whether or not this is for you.
Whichever route you choose, it’s important that you come up with a budget and a breakdown of how resources will be allocated to the process. A budget will help to stay on track of your finances and will keep you from spending more than you need to. This will in turn leave you with enough resources to market and maintain your app.
Put out a beta version
Before you launch your app, it would be a good idea to put out a beta version. You can run a test drive and fix the issues that users will point out in their feedback. Beta app versions are the surest way to check whether your app is up to standard, and whether users will find it useful.
It’s vital that you pay close attention to what the users say during this period. Addressing these issues will ensure everything runs smoothly when the app is officially launched.
Launch and promote your app
Once you’ve officially launched your app, it’s time to market and promote it. This is why it’s important to conduct market research.
When you know your target audience, you learn all their habits and preferences. You know the kinds of websites they visit and the kind of content they watch on the internet.
Remember, marketing is about more than making people aware of your brand. For example, a good ad campaign informs people of your app and ultimately converts them into regular users.
Maintain and update your app
Maintaining an app is a lifelong endeavor. As time goes by and technology continues to advance, you will need to update your app to match. You will also need to keep up with your competition.
To ensure that you’re always on top of the app maintenance, it would be a good idea to keep a team dedicated to maintenance and fixing bugs, and a different team working on updates and new features.
Let’s get coding!
Building an app for your business may be the step that takes your business to the next level. A business app will make it easier to communicate with your customers and clients. Besides, it can play a vital role in building awareness around your brand.
When you’ve done your research properly and devised a development strategy that works for you, there’s no way you will fail to build an app that wins.
