10 Tips for Developing a Successful Mobile App

Despite the vast number of smartphone users, 9 out of 10 mobile apps fail. In addition to the effort required to encourage your audience to download and install your app, you also need to think about how to engage them in its ongoing use.

According to statistics, only 25% of users continue to use mobile apps regularly after their initial encounter with them. How can you achieve success with your mobile app? Let's find out.

Key Insights

To make your mobile app successful, it's not enough just to get users to download it – you also need to make it interesting for them to use regularly.

Every mobile app success story includes proven ideas, effective marketing, and correct technical implementation. When developing your mobile app, you must also ensure its security for end users.

What is a Successful App?

The concept of a successful mobile app is quite subjective. Some measure their success in terms of millions of dollars in recurring revenue, while others evaluate it by the ever-growing number of users. However, the problem of assessing success can be reduced to compliance with well-defined criteria.

Below, we outline the objective parameters for assessing the success of a mobile app. These can be divided into two groups – consumer-centric and business-centric.

Consumer-Centric Qualities

Seven general qualities determine that a mobile solution is focused on the end user:

Visually attractive design that is convenient and understandable for the target audience;

Low entry threshold that doesn't require extensive onboarding with complex documentation and manuals;

Meeting the expectations and needs of the target audience for a specific task;

Stable and predictable function performance;

Security and confidentiality of user data;

Efficient customer service;

Adherence to accessibility policies that ensure usability by different user groups regardless of their physical and/or cognitive abilities.

Business-Centric Qualities

Let's look at the key features of successful mobile apps from a business perspective:

Easy download and installation of updates;

Constant growth in the number of new users and high retention rates of existing ones;

Fast and convenient payment process (if the app is monetized);

Protection against typical hacker attacks;

Optimal balance between development, deployment, support costs, and profit received.

10 Tips for Developing a Successful Mobile App

Here, we present ten non-obvious app development tips to help you launch a successful product.

1. Identify Your Audience First, you need to determine your target audience: their demographic characteristics (age, location, gender, social status, etc.), interests, intentions, pain points, and goals. Based on this data, you can create a client profile and view your idea from the average user's perspective.

2. Test Your Idea: Offer Real Value to Customers Before you begin development, test your assumptions about your mobile app with potential consumers. Gather a focus group and present the main tasks your app will perform. This way, you can promptly discard ineffective ideas and choose those positively received by the audience.

3. Define the App's Business Model Along with confirming the usefulness of your idea, determine how you can monetize it. Choose the most profitable business model for your app and consider implementation options.

4. Define the Scope of Features Now that you have a clearer vision of your final product, start defining its features. This will help you implement your project gradually, starting with the highest priority features (and building a minimum viable product, MVP) and gradually adding less important ones.

5. Choose the Right Technologies and Development Team Much depends on choosing the right technology stack and development team. Issue a Request for Information (RFI) to gather detailed information on available technologies and potential development teams to assess compatibility with your project requirements, scalability, budget constraints, and adherence to performance, accessibility, and security standards.

6. Design a Simple and Intuitive UX/UI Even if you develop an MVP, don't sacrifice the quality of its design. Ensure it meets generally accepted UX/UI standards, ensuring competitiveness from the start.

7. Ensure Your App is Secure Ensure your mobile app meets the common security requirements of the region it will operate in, such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc.

8. Prepare a Go-to-Market Strategy Your market introduction strategy should include correct positioning and standing out against competitors. You may need to revise your app's functionality and design to highlight its competitive advantages.

9. Plan a Marketing Strategy Develop several marketing strategies. The first should focus on launching the initial version to attract early users. Subsequent strategies should aim at retaining existing users and attracting new users as the product gains popularity.

10. Make Regular Updates Based on Feedback As you receive customer feedback after launching your mobile app, use it to improve and add new features. This way, you maintain interest among users who have been using your app for some time.

Deliver Your Vision with the Right Developer Do you have a million-dollar idea that can be implemented in a custom mobile app for business? Share it with us, and we will select experienced experts to bring it to life. Our developers have extensive experience in creating mobile apps and are ready to apply their best skills and knowledge to your project to ensure cost-efficiency, high competitiveness, and user satisfaction.