6 Tips To Keep Users Engaged With Your App

When you start thinking about the new mobile app you want to create, you’ll probably have a lot of ideas about push notifications, personalization features and how to integrate social media.

All of these are great ideas because as a business you want to ensure that you keep your new users happy. It’s easy to get a user to download an app, however, that’s only part of user acquisition. You have to use the right steps to engage your users and increase retention rates.

All of these features in your app come with a cost during the app development process. When calculating your app development costs,

Here are a few of the best ways to keep your audience engaged with your new app.

1. Ace the Onboarding

There’s a sweet spot to onboarding. It can be either too much information or too little. If it’s too much it can lead to churning and negative sentiment. Too little and you’ll be faced with feedback like “It’s great, but…” “It was missing…” or “Didn’t meet my expectations.” To avoid this, you need a kicka** onboarding process.

2. Consider Your Value Proposition

You want to address the core needs of the user and limit all the extra content. Think about the content on a website landing page versus if it were on a mobile phone. Websites have more space and can choose different layouts. To integrate with mobile devices, however, the landing page needs to be simplified with big buttons and less busyness. Your value proposition is similar. Communicate the benefits the app provides for the user.

3. Highlight Your Best Features

This can help your audience see the benefits and they won’t be overwhelmed. You also don’t want to overdo the permissions. Ask if necessary but usually just once is best. For example, an app for an e-cigarette store might ask once if the person is of legal age. The same can be said about logins and passwords. Once is fine.

4. Keep It Simple... Seriously

If users can’t jump right to the main features of the app, your retention rate will decline. So, look for ways to optimize the sign-in process. iOS devices have a single sign-on which can help. Remember, the more you focus on core features, the better the app will be for its users. Skip any drawn-out sign-in process. You’ll lose users.

5. Sell Them On Incentives

A “Limited Offer” or “Daily Bonus” incentive are great ways to increase conversions and have your audience coming back. Another tip is to link any rewards to a new area or feature in your app. Casino and gaming apps use this technique. They give out daily bonuses with free credits when a user logs in. Or, they’ll unlock random new games and give the user 24 to 48-hours of free gameplay.

By letting the user see the reward and test them out, they’ll see the benefits and want to know more. Some casino and gaming apps then include a subtle CTA to let users purchase the trial game as part of their monetization technique.

6. Push Notifications Correctly

You want to avoid being abusive with push notifications which can lead to churning and negative sentiment. Consider quality by typing a notification to a particular incentive or CTA. Make them personalized and not so generic and you’ll see retention rates increase by as much as 150%.

For help with push notifications, check out Neil Patel’s push notification personalization techniques. For example, Ticketmaster segments audiences based on the types of concerts they want to attend (instead of random notices). Hence, they're better able to increase conversions. Expectant mom website, The Bump lets future moms receive push notifications about how much their baby is growing in the womb. Instead of showing baby images, they send fun pictures of fruit. Wonder if they're calling it "Fruit of the Womb"? Their push notifications work because they are personalized and geared around what future moms care about, their new babies.

Remember, you want to drive traffic with the right engagement approach specifically tailored for your users. Hence, you need to know what your target audience wants before sending anything generic or random.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, you want your app to have all the best features and be easy to use and navigate. Look for ways to target your specific audience, sell them on the best features and correctly time any push notifications. By keeping your audience engaged, you'll increase your retention rates and ROI.