3 Ways to Keep Your App Fresh

How do you drive app loyalty with new customers and keep your current loyal customers coming back? Keep your app fresh – and here are three ways to do it.

Ported Post: This entry was originally published in the Artisan Mobile blog. Artisan was rebranded as In-App Marketing after being acquired by TUNE in July of 2015. 

To get mobile users to download an app is in itself a challenge – keeping them engaged and coming back to that app is an even greater one. The reason is simple – mobile users have incredibly high expectations. They’re quick to delete or simply ignore apps they’ve downloaded if the experience doesn’t meet their standards. However, if you do provide a compelling experience, app users can be extremely loyal, valuable customers – both online and in-store. In fact, 84% of surveyed consumers who are said they are loyal to one or more apps browse or purchase products on an app at least once a month, while 39% do so at least once a week.

So how do you drive app loyalty with new customers and keep your current loyal customers coming back? Keep your app fresh – and here are three ways to do it:

• Dynamic Updates: In the mobile world, change is constant. It happens fast, and it happens unexpectedly. These changes may come in the form of market trends, or they may be changes in user behavior and expectations. Regardless of the nature, adapting to changes and constantly providing a better app experience means you need the ability to make dynamic updates quickly, on the fly. This means no waiting for IT, and no waiting for app store approval. Just like the web world, you need the ability to make changes to your app in minutes so that you can quickly respond to changes and constantly drive improvements that make users happy.
• Personalize Content: This is the ultimate in creating an engaging, memorable mobile experience that drives more loyal users, and keeps current loyal users satisfied. To build a one-to-one experience, you first need detailed user data – location, gender, buying and browsing history, etc. Then segment users into lists based on behavior, in-app events, device type, operating system, geography, and user profile attributes. Use these lists to customize all elements of your app – after all 60% of surveyed consumers say that they are more likely or much more likely to use a mobile or tablet app again if it is personalized.
• Send Relevant Messages: Push notifications and in-app messages have the potential to increase app awareness and drive more app engagement. However, if implemented incorrectly, your users will likely see these messages as annoying spam. Incorporate push notifications and in-app messages into your overall app strategy. Analyze how your user segments behave, send more targeted, personalized messages based on this data, and even test different messages within each segment to see which drives more results. Collect data not just on number of clicks, but every action your user takes after they have engaged with the message. This can open up opportunities to drive sales across all channels.

Keeping your app fresh does not have to be hard. Sophisticated Mobile Experience Management platforms offer all of this technology in one easy-to-use platform that’s built for marketers like you.