The Tools Your App Has to Have in Order to Make It Big
You’d be surprised to find out that nearly 80% of users who’ve downloaded an app uninstall it within a three-month period. So, if you thought for a moment that once a potential consumer downloaded your app they’d be using it for life, you’re sadly mistaken.
Retention is not something you can take for granted and app owners need to work hard to maintain and secure it. The fact is that without our constant work to preserve them, users will not do what it is we need them to do, be it purchasing something on our app, subscribing to a service we’re offering, and so much more. They could, potentially, uninstall the app. Read on to learn about the ways to increase your retention rates and the four marketing tools that will help you do it.
How To Increase Your User Retention Rates?
In a world swarming with apps— 2.09 million apps on the App Store and 3.14 million on the Google Play Store— maintaining a loyal and engaged user base is crucial if you want your app to succeed. Once you’ve calculated your churn rate it is important you try to return users who’ve uninstalled your app, increasing its usability and strengthening the connection between you and your potential consumers. To justify your app’s presence on their most prized possession, i.e. their phone, you need to create a relevant connection between what it is your app is offering and their customer journey as well as increase their customer share through in-app purchases. To make matters more simple, retention is what can make or break your ROI (return on investment).
To make sure you are doing everything, you can to increase your retention rates and keep your head up in a sea of apps check out the four main retention tools every marketer should be using.
In-App Pop-Ups
As the main part of your UX (user experience), pop-ups help your users go through their app experience with guidance as well as important information and tips. Usually appearing as a banner at the top or bottom quarter of the user’s screen, pop-ups ask users to do something for the app, like rate it or refer a friend, but guarantee they’ll get something out of it that will make it worth their while. When done properly, pop-ups enable you to reinvent yourself while engaging with your users, all the while creating value that will make them want to return to your app.
Email Marketing
As of 2021, there are 4.03 billion people using email around the world and the number is expected to grow to 4.6 billion users by 2025! With that being said, the percentage of emails sent that are actually opened by users is around 18%, the average click-through rate is only 2.6%, the click-to-open rate is around 14% and the average unsubscribe rate stands at 0.1%. Coming up with an eye-catching title that will make a potential consumer open your email isn’t easy and in today’s marketing world your email marketing efforts will require you to work with different attribution programs to get the deep links you need to embed into each email.
Campaigns
Retention campaigns are all about re-engaging with your customers, giving them a reason to return for more and hopefully purchase your app. By consistently adding new services and products and promoting them your campaigns are bound to keep users interested and most importantly – loyal to your brand. With that being said, coming up with successful campaigns that will help boost your retention rate is no easy feat. Depending on the size of your audience, you will be needing a substantial budget and here too, your campaigns will require you to put part of your budget into attribution programs.
Push Notifications
Push notifications as the main communication line between you and your app users, push notifications enable users to deliver mobile (or desktop) messages to their users that help them in some way, add value to their lives and keep them interested in your app. Made up of a title, message as well as a CTA (call to action) link and image, they have the power to boost your app engagement by a whopping 88% as well as make 65% of users who’ve abandoned your app to return to it within a month’s time. They are also killer at increasing your brand visibility and awareness, helping you gain insight into your users’ behavior and engage with more legit leads rather than dead-end ones. They can even up your traffic and conversion rates and improve your performance levels.
When it comes to push notifications you may need to create deep links but you won’t be required to use any attribution program. Push notifications are so successful that no matter how big or small a business is, they can improve your retention rates and ROI significantly since they have a whopping 90% open rate. Companies use them so often that they are known to bombard American mobile users with 45 push notifications a day on average even though they are permission-based. This means you have to invest in the opt-in message you send requesting your visitors to subscribe to your push notifications through pop-up boxes on their browsers. Once you’ve received their permission you can better engage with them as well as target them to specific pages on your app.
Sending out pop notifications can make a world of difference to your user’s app journey and to your retention rates through re-engagement notifications that remind a user who stopped using your app to return to it. Taking in mind that by improving your customer retention by merely 1% you can lead to a 7% improvement in your bottom-line revenue, push notifications can do wonders for your ROI as well. In order to guarantee you’re reaching the right audience and targeting them with personalized, engaging and relevant notifications that drive conversions, you’ll need to monitor your push notifications with A/B testing.
The Bottom Line
In order to make sure you hit all the boxes when it comes to your retention strategy, you’ll need to set up an organized goal-oriented plan and come up with the personalized messages your user needs to receive in order to prevent them from churning. From targeting unengaged users to re-targeting users who have yet to convert, working with professional marketing specialists can help you reach your retention goals.