The app market today is like the Coliseum, and unless you are that gladiator that possesses that one survival skill that no one has yet to discover, you are left to fight to endure with the rest of the combatants. Luckily, your survival odds in the app market are much higher than those in ancient Rome, but never the less, a few tips here and there can certainly up your odds.
Prioritize
Like any other major undertaking, you have to set priorities. Make sure you prioritize your time, your apps features, your budget, later releases, and any other aspect of your project that may call for sacrifices at a later date.
Solidify a Monetization Plan
You need to decide early in the development process how you will profit from your app. Are you going to make it free with ads? Are you going to provide a freemium service? Are you offering in-app purchases? Or, are you going to employ the newest trend of sponsorships? Your monetization strategy can affect development, so make this decision early in your planning phase.
Develop a Strong A Security Play
Security breaches have been rise to much chaos in the mobile industry. Start out strong with a solid and effective security plan. Invest big in this area! You need the protection, and you need to create a reputation that you are a secure company.
Learn Design Patterns
A lot of experts feel that app’s core should be thought of first during development. That’s not always the case. By considering what you want your app to look like before the development, you can create a better user experience.
Place Usability at the Forefront
You constantly need to be reflecting on usability. You need to create a visually appealing, easy to navigate experience for your users; otherwise, they will dismiss your app and move on to one that does.
During development, this thinking needs to stay at the forefront. Programmers will tell you otherwise, but users want quick and simple, and making that a priority can eliminate a lot of redoing things later on.
Keep it Small
Mobile devices have limited storage. In fact, users delete apps when they get storage warnings from their mobile devices. By keeping the size of your app small, you up your chances making the cut when device clean up day comes.
Study Your User’s Motivation
Take the time to look at how and why users are using your app or apps similar to yours. Read reviews of competitors’ apps, and develop a way to make your app more user friendly. More importantly, examine how quickly users are able to accomplish the goal that you created the app to accomplish.
Think About Wearables
Wearables are gaining more and more popularity, so you need to keep part of your development concentrated on this new mobile movement. Stay ahead of the pack with new technologies.
Reflect on Marketing Strategies
Keeping your eye on the ball during development is crucial, but at some point, you will need to develop a solid marketing plan. You need to make sure you are staying abreast on the most successful app marketing techniques.
Test, Test, and Retest
You need to constantly test and retest your apps for bugs and for a simple user experience. If you cannot provide your users with a quick and easy solution to the problem you set out to solve with your app, then you need to go back and create one. If you don’t, your app won’t succeed in the stores.
Author:
Bio – Andrew Gazdecki is the founder and CEO of Bizness Apps, a do-it-yourself mobile app and mobile website platform for small businesses, and Bizness CRM, a CRM for selling to small businesses.