Mobile apps are everywhere.
You’ve seen them, you’ve used them and you’ve done a ton of marketing for your brand on them, but there’s still a lot to learn — starting with how mobile app marketing is manifesting in today’s marketplace.
We spoke with Artem Loktionov, the Chief Operating Officer of Alty, a software company in Ukraine with expertise providing full-cycle services, including web and mobile app development, about the current state of mobile app marketing.
This is what we discussed:
What does it mean to have a mobile app today?
With so many mobile apps available to customers and so many ways to operate your own, it can be easy to get lost in the noise of user experiences, interfaces and demands. We want to clear up some of that noise and take you back to the basics; mobile apps bring a wide range of benefits and you have a lot to gain from having one.
Here’s what having a mobile app means to Loktionov:
1. You are an up-to-date brand: Having a (good) app means you’re technologically aware of trends and demands. It also means that you appeal to the most active customer segments: Millennials and Gen Zs.
2. You have a reliable and fast channel to connect with your customers: You use push notifications to instantly promote your services, engage with your target audience and collect valuable feedback.
3. You keep the customer engaged: If your digital product develops gradually, getting new features each 1-2 months, this can help keep your customers engaged and also help them stay with you for longer.
What are the most important qualities of a user-facing app?
When brands create mobile apps they tend to do so for a number of reasons: to build immediate communication with customers, to promote high customer acquisition rates and to increase revenue. But above all else, to serve customers.
The likelihood that your mobile app has undergone a few changes since its inception is probably pretty high. After all, it takes practice to make a perfect app — or at the very least, a great one. But what does that look like? What is a great app? Loktionov says they typically have the following three characteristics:
1. Satisfies the need. Whether it is a problem to be solved or another reason, users never use the app just because it’s nice. They always look for something that can help them satisfy a need and get rid of their pain points.
2. Easy to use. As Steve Jobs used to say about the design, “It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” That’s why the app needs to be well thought out and engineered with care, handling all the complexity under the hood and leaving the user with something beautiful that “just works.”
3. Well maintained. Some people think that the initial release of the app is where the journey ends. Loktionov looks at it as only the beginning. After the MVP release, the product team then should focus on iterative improvements and cherry-picking of the new features to integrate into the app. A lot of work lies in the customer support and analytics fields, and site reliability engineers never rest. All this is to make sure that the product serves users well and grows day by day.
The future of mobile apps
One look around the digital landscape, and it's easy to see that mobile apps are becoming a main channel of customer acquisition.
Consumers are on their phones more times than not and they’re depending on the mobile apps they’ve downloaded to assist them in their customer journeys. Not only that, but they’re looking for an experience. While great features are certainly important, Loktionov says the experience-centric approach is what will dramatically change the mobile experience.
There’s a lot we know about mobile app marketing, but there’s also a lot left to learn. You can be sure that this blog will remain a trusted source for all your mobile app marketing questions and concerns.
