Mobile App Engagement & User Retention – 5 Strategic Plans To Increase Loyal Users

Wondering how to increase the visibility and visitors on your app? There are numerous factors to consider while mobile app development. But among the various, the two distinct but the most important ones are - Mobile App Engagement and Mobile App Retention, which play a pivotal role in the success of an application. While low app engagement and retention leads to dramatic failure of an app, similarly high app engagement and retention takes the sales graph higher.

Engagement defines the time of active users on the application. Though, the term is subjective in description, Localytics portrays highly engaged users as those that rounds up to 12+ sessions per month.

Similarly, retention, being a subjective term to define, the standards of industry set it as the percentage of an app’s users who visit the app again just within 3 months after they left their first session.

When the average of the two is taken, it gives an app’s stickiness. STICKINESS – shows how engaged and loyal users are for a particular app. For businesses, who are more into user conversions or rather monetary gains, the paramount motto is to keep users engaged and make certain the repeat usage.

The Sticky Situation of Engagement/Retention

With so many apps in the market, it is quite cumbersome to gain enough mobile app engagement and retention ratio. A survey states that user abandonment has increased to 25% in 2015 compared to its previous year and may be 2016 still can see an upsurge in this percentage. Additionally, if an application is just used once in 7 days, there are 60% chances that the user will not use it again. The real picture is that the mobile app developers are in stormy waves of competition where users have a lot many options.

However, the bright side is that many tried and tested strategies have worked out to be successful in increasing both engagement and retention, meaning more active and loyal app users.

1. Friction less On boarding

Giving users excellent landing experience can dramatically decrease the abandonment rates. The hassle free usage with easy sign-up steps, easy to browse through information tabs and clear-cut features and function – all together makes users to like the app never likely to quit it.

The first-time user experience leaves a lasting mark. Not only ensuring users to not to abandon the app, but also the effective first-time landing page experience has shown the rise of user retention to 500%. The below steps can enable you to build a smooth, intuitive app on boarding procedure.

->Ensure to provide logins and account creation easy (provides various registration forms, try to decrease the steps involved in signup, etc.).

->Instead of overloading users with information, provide feature/functionality guide as the users get used to it.

->During mobile app development, consider integrating effective gestures and actions that enable users to use the app efficiently.

2. Push Messaging

Usage of push notification in app has shown the increase in user retention from 56% to 180%. Moreover, the survey showed that the users who have opted into getting push notifications display 88% higher app engagement than those who haven’t.

Push notice caters very specific and important functions. It reminds users that they have your app, which is important for example if you are competing for car hire on a user’s device. Integrated exclusively, it also serves the purpose through targeting notifications based on user preferences and behavioral data. For apps that provide very specific functions, and are not likely to be used daily, this can assist users by offering them a compelling reason to return for your service or product through deals or coupons.

3. Mobile Customization

With users looking for more and more custom things, personalization provides a unique and relevant user experience. When the more tint of experience is with a user’s needs and preferences, there are more chances of using the application.

Wherever you get chance, try to customize the user experience by utilizing the given information to display relevant content and material in the app. Providing user’s name on screens and messaging in an easy way to personalize, but dwelling deep make sure you provide push notifications that are customized to specific user because this is where personalization truly works. In fact, push notifications which are streamlined to user interests have a 54% conversion rate, compared to 15 % rate of broadcast messages.

But, you need to be also careful that you do not send wrong notifications as it will definitely cut down your user engagement rate.

4. Incentivization

If you are looking to thrive on engagement and retention, offering incentives to your app user can go a long way. Mobile specific rewards, coupons, deals, special promotions, specialized content access, and other offers will help increase conversions and encourage engagement.

Depending on the nature of the app, you need to find the ways of incentives. For example, the apps that depend on in-app purchasing as a monetization paradigm can gain much from seasonal discounts or real-time deals, on the other hand premium apps can incentivize users giving them usage-based rewards.

5. Product Iteration

Apps are iterative, whether they are low usage products or highly polished and fully functional ones. Make sure that you update the user experience and embed fresh features and tailor-cut information frequently, which will make users interested and engaged. By tracking user behavior, using analytic and listening to user feedback, you can find what your users want and what features of the app are driving their usage. This definitely helps you strategize on product road-mapping and ensure the updates you make are complementing and result-oriented to your users.

In a whole, app engagement and user retention are equally important, but not least important than user acquisition. Converting prospective visitors to loyal, long-term customers will double up average lifetime value (LTV) and increase ROI for your app. The above strategies can definitely enhance user engagement and retention taking your app to higher level in the most competitive app industry.