We are living in a consumer-driven economy. This means that the customer has all of the power. With the growth of review sites like Yelp, consumers now have a platform to voice their opinions like never before. An increase in consumer power means that user retention is as important as ever. Users simply have more options in the market nowadays. In fact, it’s common for a mobile app to lose 80% of its users. These kind of statistics are scary to hear – especially for those who are launching a mobile app, but haven’t thought through their marketing strategy.
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Let’s take a look at 5 strategies that some of the biggest brands and most successful companies use to retain their mobile users.
Customer Loyalty Programs
“When a rewards program can be moved from a punch card to an app, opportunities to interact and build customer loyalty grow exponentially,” Shep Hyken, a customer service and experience expert wrote in a recent article on loyalty programs for Forbes.
When I think of a premiere loyalty program, I can’t help but think of the My Starbucks Rewards program. The Starbucks loyalty program does a great job of providing value to the customer through interaction with the Starbucks mobile application. Not only are users able to earn points and rewards through the program, but they are able to gain specific benefits as well including ordering ahead of time and skipping the line at Starbucks. These benefits keep the user coming back. Starbucks isn’t strictly creating a system where consumers gain rewards, but there are increasing the number of opportunities Starbucks gets to interact with their customer.
Users keep coming back to the Starbucks mobile application because the application promotes a lifestyle, one filled with a plethora of Frappuccinos and iced lattes. Customer loyalty programs are a great way to build a relationship with your customer and keep them using your app on a daily basis.
New Content and Features
Content marketing is a key customer retention technique. Content creation is cheap, and an easy way to keep your customers engaged with your brand. New content, including articles, videos, and blog posts, is a great way to keep your users coming back to your app. Alerting them with texts, push notifications, or emails will help them stay up-to-date with your content and create an easy reminder for them to interact with your mobile application.
Additionally, new features and updates are a way to increase user retention. Constantly improving your product and adding features will let your consumers know that you are serious about providing an incredible customer experience. When they get a notification for an app update, they will also be enticed to login into your app and see what new features you are offering.
Big tech companies like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram are constantly adding new features and improving their mobile applications. The user needs to be at the heart of the experience, and your product needs to constantly be getting better.
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Engaging and Actionable Communication
Push notifications, text messages, and emails from your mobile application are an easy way to keep your user engaged even they aren’t in your mobile application. The key to user retention is keeping your brand at the top of your user’s mind. If a user hasn’t logged into your app in a while, send them a message and offer them an incentive.
The MyFitnessPal app does a great job communicating consistently with its users. If you’ve logged a lot of your meals through their app, they will send you an encouraging message to keep up the good work. But, if you haven’t logged your meals and exercise, they will remind you to do so through push notifications. Make sure your messages are focused on user retention and getting users to interact with your mobile application.
Check it out: How to Build Your Customer Retention Strategy in 4 Steps
User-Driven Ecosystem
User-generated content is the name of the game. Think of how Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram became popular. They thrived because they focused on being a platform for users to create their own content. Mobile applications that are built around user generated content have to overcome a few initial challenges to be successful, but once they get over these barriers their success can be immense:
- Mobile applications and platforms that rely heavily on user-generated content need to make sure that they have enough users on their platform. Imagine Facebook if no one posted anything. That would be the worst! Getting enough users to create a sizable amount of content is crucial.
- User-driven applications also need to make sure that the platform has specific features to make content-sharing ideal and cool. This is important because you need to ensure that users are able to recruit their friends to your platform.
- Your entire platform doesn’t need to be built around user-driven content, but aspects of your design can lend themselves to user-generated content.
Including user-generated content in your mobile application is a good user retention strategy because users will feel more inclined to interact with your app if they have a voice in it and can share on your platform.
Connection to a Larger Community and Purpose
User retention is most successful when your user feels connected to a larger community through their mobile application. I think FitBit does a great job of this through their mobile application. Their app allows you to connect to other individuals in the FitBit community and compete in challenges. The application not only tracks your steps, but it also tracks other vitals that are crucial to your health. It’s tracking capabilities along with its challenges create a connection to a larger community and purpose through their platform.
These benefits contribute to successful user retention by focusing on delivering value to the mobile application user. These functionalities are a core part of what makes the FitBit mobile application click with users.
Final Thoughts
User retention is all about designing your mobile application in a purposeful way where you can continuously deliver value to your user. If you have a user-focused approach, you should have no problem retaining customers and constantly improving your user experience.
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