This bold, yet vague statement, “I will launch the next Udemy” or “I am disrupting the food delivery market,” is not enough to build a compelling mobile app in 2022.
Plan your approach by following these steps:
- Decide what problem you need to solve
As you develop a mobile app, it is key to establish your ‘why’ – what do you want to accomplish, and how will you accomplish it? Test your hypotheses and app ideas by interviewing a group of users who have a specific problem.
- Decide what success means to you
When you understand your audience, you should focus on offering them an empowered and supportive experience through your product. You may also want to achieve some goals while you’re working on your app, both big and small. A self-sufficient financial model, high user retention, engagement, and scalability make the app successful. From these insights from our customers, we found that it’s helpful to collect data as soon as possible, preferably even before launching your beta version. Amplitude, Mixpanel, and Google’s Firebase are some of the app analytics tools you may want to consider. Consider usability factors whenever you add new features to optimize your app.
- Interview potential clients and conduct market research
The time has come to analyze the market you’ll enter with your app, see who your competitors are, and see how your product will stand out from the rest. SWOT analysis, Crunchbase, Tableau, and Think with Google are all tools, techniques, and platforms that you may wish to consider for market research. You can use tools such as Make My Persona to create User Personas once you know who your potential users are. Your app’s ideal user can be pinpointed and described by this easy-to-use marketing persona generator. Make sure to examine statistics for your targeted demographic and use quantitative methods of user research.
- Gather all requirements and decide the scope of the project
You can finally begin developing your future app once you have identified the features that will be most helpful to them. By using this list, you can create wireframes and then develop your prototype or Minimum Viable Product (MVP) later in the process.
- Decide which platform to use based on the estimated costs
Are in-house development teams better than external mobile app development companies? Currently, Android has a 71.7% market share and iOS has 27.57%, so you can alternate between them. You can also choose to develop a hybrid app, a PWA, or a platform different from Windows, Mac, etc.
- Design UI/UX wireframes
The best time to develop an in-app structure for your app is when you work with a skilled designer or team. Make a mock-up of your user experience using tools such as Figma, Invision, or Adobe Illustrator.
- Establish a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
We’ve got the designs ready, let’s see how they work in motion. Depending on the extent of this process, a prototype app or a Minimum Viable Product might be the result.
- Develop a launch strategy
Once you have collected user feedback and the MVP is ready, you can consider releasing a beta version. Currently, it is not public and only your test group has access to it. Keep an eye out for app performance (including speed), UX/UI mistakes, and bottlenecks in the product.
- Choose the right app marketing strategy
Consider both the pros and cons when choosing your mobile app’s marketing strategy. You should market your app according to your target audience – there is no one way to do it. Through social media, influencer marketing can be very effective for promoting your product.
- Integrations and new features
Developing mobile apps isn’t linear, and you may hit some setbacks or encounter things that force you to rethink your strategies. Moreover, it is a practice of collecting feedback that never ends. If you intend to add new features to your product, you should consider integrating third-party applications. Both BigCommerce and Etsy are integrated with Easyship’s shipping software.