You might have heard this a few times now, “it is not just about creating an app and putting it up in the app store”. It is about having a certain marketing strategy around it to make sure it succeeds. It means identifying the right key performance indicators and finding the right tools to assess and correct based on consumer interaction. Are people finding and using your application? How engaged are they? How do you retain customers and a flurry of other questions. As the mobile adoption rates increase, and as it becomes a preferred way to access information, it will also become a very critical marketing channel.
Forrester believes that the biggest pain point for consumers today is measuring the mobile ROI which is a function of various factors. But it can be measured and there are several companies which have done it successfully. But to do that, there needs to be a definitive mobile strategy. One way to go would be to release the app and cross your fingers that it will succeed, and the second route is to have a plan around it to demonstrate ROI. Caution: number of downloads would not mean much, especially if most people don’t use the app after the initial download.
I was listening to an interesting web cast from WebTrends about how Telegraph quickly figured out what its customers wanted and tweaked its iPad strategy. And it worked. They continued to increase the readership and make the user experience better and hence drive success in the app economy.
Here are a few things that WebTrends points us to when thinking about mobile analytics which we should keep in mind.
Influencing Adoption – total downloads, total number of app users, the active user rate – ratio of the number of app users to the total downloads, and new users – the number of users that first used the app during a period of time.
Engaging Users – the frequency of visits which is the ratio of the number of visits to the number of users over a period of time, depth of visit which is number of screens viewed on average compared to the number of visits, duration which is the amount of time spent on the application and bounce rate which is ratio of the number of user visits with a single view event to the total number of visits.
Engagement in High Value Activities to Become Customers – This is to measure what the customer is doing with the app. Capturing the user characteristics of the audience you’re trying to reach and the user activities provided to generate revenue and brand engagement for your business.
Retain Customers and Encourage Users – Increase stickiness by staying top of mind and up to date. Capitalize on other channels, don’t rely on customers finding you by chance. Get direct insight from customers on what they’re thinking about your app and it’s features.
You’ve learnt your lessons in the digital marketing world, now it’s time to implement those in mobile marketing.
