9 characteristics of successful mcommerce apps

THE 9 ESSENTIAL TRAITS OF A SUCCESSFUL iPHONE OR ANDROID APP

By Jim Nichols, VP Marketing, Apsalar

We speak with dozens of brand leaders every week, including many that have ques-tions about what sorts of best practices exist to ensure the success of an app. The good news is that successful apps do share a number of characteristics, and we’ll dis-cuss the most important of these below. The bad news is that the competitive en-vironment for an Android or iPhone app is intensely challenging. Recent show that there are more than 1.5 million paid and free apps available on Google Play, and almost as many - 1.4 million - available on the Ap-ple App Store.

We don’t point that out to discourage you from introducing an app - far from it. Rather, we bring it up because any compa-ny that wants to be successful in the app arena needs to recognize that it takes real, sustained commitment. That commitment needs to extend from initial concepting to ongoing support and feature development.

THE 9 ESSENTIAL TRAITS OF A SUCCESSFUL iPHONE OR ANDROID APP

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Before we continue, it’s important to remember that the challeng-es for games are rather different from those for utilities, produc-tivity apps and retail applications. Because Apsalar works with many of the leaders in the mcommerce arena worldwide, we are going to focus this eguide on key success factors for the latter group.

Before you begin app development, before you get app developers involved, before you appoint a product manager, you need to determine what constitutes success for you. Don’t get caught up with what the app developer and app publisher Joneses are doing. For applications outside of the game genres, being number one in the app stores is not only unlikely, it’s also probably meaningless from the point of view of driving your business. Retail apps, for example, are about driving sales, not being at the top of the heap in downloads. Additionally, companion or utility apps have expe-riential benefits that are not measurable in install counts. You need to define what success means for YOU, and then use that as your app develop-ment compass and barometer.

1 FORMULATE YOUR DEFINITION OF SUCCESS AND SUCCESS MEASURES


Successful apps are much more likely than average to have mobile app measurement and attribution platforms in place before they launch. They recognize the need to understand consumer behavior, both to see what is working in their apps and well as to identify and improve what isn’t. Without the ability to see and understand in-app user behavior for your Android and iPhone app, you’ll have to rely on hunches to assess customer satisfaction and define your optimization plan. This information is absolutely critical business intelligence.

2 MEASURE AND UNDERSTAND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN YOUR APP


The best apps do things that people can’t get done in other places. It is not enough to simply offer up another way to make purchases or find a store. While those tasks may be elements of your overall app experience, you need to look at your app as a way of creating unique value. That value can come in utility, entertainment, convenience, or a host of other areas. But it needs to be there.

Utility and uniqueness matter in large part because Nielsen tells us that the average smartphone bears about 100 apps but only 10-15 are regularly used. With that kind of dynam-ic, “good enough”...isn’t. A big part of delivering on this app “must” is ensuring you have outstanding app UI and UE. Apps that are difficult to use don’t get used. There is no substitute for great mobile app design. It’s that simple.

3 MAXIMIZE YOUR TYPE OF UNIQUE UTILITY


Phones play a big role in how consum-ers spend their personal time. The mas-sive growth in mobile media time hasn’t come at the expense of PC but rather as an addition to PC connected time. People turn to their phones to relieve boredom, fill waiting time, etc. Because of this, many brand find their users open to longer and deeper engage-ments on smartphones. Look at those as big opportunities to drive app adop-tion and usage.

4 MAXIMIZE EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT VALUE


You could argue that this is a corollary to the point above, but it warrants a separate discussion because it is so important. An app should leverage what’s unique about smartphone versus PC use, specifically any of the following characteristics:


5 LEVERAGE THE UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SMARTPHONE IN YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION

People have their phones with them all the time. That gives you an opportunity to create new touchpoints, like serving people while commuting, standing in line, etc. An often-cited example here is incorporating a bar code scanner people can use while shopping brick and mortar stores.

Hyperportability

Because consumers have phones with them while away from desks or the sofa, they offer an opportunity to add value through location-based services and utility.

Location-Relevance

Location-Relevance Smartphones offer unique ways to com-municate to users. Leverage them to help ensure a successful app.

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Consumers expect to be able to customize information and experiences on mobile. This raises the bar for you and your development team when it comes to creating a successful app, but it also affords you the opportunity to create uniquely personal iPhone and Android app experiences that drive brand engagement and conversion.

This app marketing principle is important in both the experience you provide in your app and in the messages you use to drive people back to your app over time. Leverage insights about in-app user behavior to segment your users and develop targeted marketing pro-grams personalized to these segments.

For example, our Apsalar Audiences for Face-book offering enables you to define segments of users and export the device advertising IDs (i.e., IDFA or Android Advertising ID) of those segments directly into Facebook Ads Manag-er as Custom Audiences. After all, driving an install from an app store is only the beginning of the marketing challenge for most mobile applications.

6


LEVERAGE PERSONALIZATION AND PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCE

https://apsalar.com/blog/2015/07/apsalar-introduces-apsalar-audiences-for-facebook/

https://apsalar.com/blog/2015/07/apsalar-introduces-apsalar-audiences-for-facebook/

Succeeding with an app is definitely NOT a set-it-and-forget it proposi-tion. You need to constantly freshen your content to give people reasons to return. In addition, you need to ensure that you incorporate new features and capabilities to keep the utility fresh as well.

7


KEEP THINGS FRESH WITH FREQUENT CONTENT AND EXPERIENCE UPDATES

Social media and social media networks are important ways to spread the word about your app and drive re-engagements and relaunches. Because so much mobile time is spent in social media apps like those for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, integrat-ing your app into social conversa-tions can yield both im-mediate and pro-longed benefits for your business. More and more app developers are incorporating social media and sharing as central app experiences. App publishers should insist on this.

8


GET SOCIAL

Establishing and sustaining an app costs money. You need mar-keting support to drive installs and re-engagements.

Take those last two sentences seriously. App businesses really cannot propel themselves. You need to create a real marketing plan that focuses on strategies and tactics to deliver on your KPIs over the long haul.

Remember, your app is com-peting with more than a million apps in each app store, and about a hundred on the Android or iOS phones that your users rely on. Staying top-of-mind and becoming a regular/ubiquitous part of their lives is essential. That doesn’t mean you should

pursue those standard measures that game companies rely on to measure their success. Being on the App Store top 10 is high-ly unlikely for a non-game-app. Fortunately top 10 status is un-necessary and in all probability doesn’t help you deliver on your true goals.

So what does matter? Since many non-game-e apps are designed to drive sales, let me provide some examples of how targeted marketing and preci-sion messaging give you amaz-ing tools with which to build your business. The key is effec-tively managing your data and creating rich and informative user profiles.

9


KEEP SUPPORTING YOUR APP WITH MARKETING


Here are a couple of examples of how to use profiles and user segments to drive sales:

Those are just three examples of how you can unlock the power of your user behavior data to drive and ensure the success of your app.

We all have customers that for whatever reason stop using an app. Often, it’s not driven by dissat-isfaction but rather that the app has left their top-of-mind consciousness. By identifying your lapsed customers and being able to send ads, emails and push notifications to them, you can make your app top-of-mind consciousness again.

Lots of people start the buying process but exit the app before they finish it. With a mobile DMP you can identify these specific individuals and get their IDs to your media partners and marketing automation platform so you can encourage them to return and buy.

If you know through past purchases that someone buys a lot of merchandise from a particular brand or in a particular category, you can use push noti-fications and other marketing tactics to sell them additional brand items, or related items, or cap-ture more share of their category wallet.

LAPSED CUSTOMERS

CART ABANDONS

BRAND BUYERS AND LOYALISTS

A final thought. It may not be necessary to deliver on all these areas for your app; certainly there may be unique circum-stances or characteristics that make one or more of these points irrelevant. But this list of app success factors offers a strong starting point on which to build your success.

The most important thing to remember is that like any other worthwhile thing, app marketing success requires strategy, insight and ongoing dedication to make happen.

CONCLUSION


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Nichols is VP of Marketing for Apsalar. Jim has 20+ years experience in over 80 different categories, including developing successful positioning and go-to-market plans for more than 40 adtech and martech companies. He joins Apsalar after several years as VP of Marketing for Conversant, where he led various efforts in the successful rebrand of the company from ValueClick, Inc. The rebrand and associated industry attention for the company contributed to the $2.3B sale of Conversant to Alliance Data in December, 2014. He is a prolific writer for digital trades on brand marketing, mobile, video, data, and customer profiling. Publications include iMedia Connection, Inside Radio, VentureBeat, ad:tech, ShellyPalmer.com, Jack Myers, and many consumer publications. He holds a B.A. in U.S. History from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Chicago.

ABOUT APSALAR

Apsalar, the leader in mobile data management, helps direct marketing brands get better marketing effectiveness by providing a mobile data management platform that delivers a true understanding of customer behavior in apps and across other marketing channels.

The Apsalar Mobile DMP enables brands to measure marketing effectiveness, enhance, manage, enrich and segment profiles to build audiences, and easily and safely connect to other marketing partners so brands can confidently share their data and audiences.

APSALAR ATTRIBUTION

APSALAR AUDIENCES

APSALAR DATASYNC

MOBILE DMP

Collect and measure in-app consumer behavior and marketing performance.

Measure every in-app action relevent to your buinesss

Unite your first party data from all sources, enrich it with third party data, and build high performance

marketing audiences

Easily and safely share customer audiences and

data with your digital marketing platforms, including analytics,

marketing automation, media companies and legacy

DMPs


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