Just how important have the applications on our smartphones become? A recent Global survey from Apigee posits that 85 percent of smartphone users would rather “give up drinking water” than part with their favorite apps. Refusing to drink water might lead to a few more pressing issues than deleting that highly addictive Candy Crush game, but somehow, matching candies on a screen has taken priority.
With this addiction to apps in mind, the next statistic might come as a bit of a surprise. Mobile marketing firm Swrve has discovered that just 26 percent of users actually return to an app for a second time two days after opening it. After seven days? Developers can expect around 13 percent of those who downloaded their product to make a comeback.
Those figures aren’t exactly encouraging when companies are spending millions of dollars developing the most responsive, well-tested services on the market. With so many unique apps being released on a daily basis, developers have to fight hard just to earn a few hundred installs. From there, it’s an even greater battle to keep them on your average Joe’s home screen.
So, how do you do it? Is there an end all, be all strategy to keep users coming back to your mobile app for more?
When looking at which apps tend to draw the highest percentage of returning users, a few things stick out. First, it’s important to note that in-app purchases make up 76 percent of US iPhone app revenue. That means that more people are downloading free products and spending their money to add greater value to the barebones service.
Once money is spent within the app, users find themselves feeling encouraged to return. If someone puts hard-earned dollars into either a game or social service, it becomes more difficult to just delete that icon off the home screen.
Another interesting metric to note is the success of in-app messaging. The previously referenced data from Swrve shows that in-app messages generate a click-through rate of 37 percent, which is exponentially higher than what was recorded for push messaging.
Facebook is the poster child for microtransactions and in-app purchases, and that’s one of the major reasons why it’s head and shoulders above its competition when it comes to the most popular apps in the country. People have personal and financial ties to their social networks, so tapping on the big blue “F” on your screen often feels like second nature.
When it comes to app retention, it’s not all doom and gloom. Fewer apps in 2014 are being used just once compared to 2013, so developers are seemingly getting their hooks into consumers. However, it wouldn’t hurt to take notes from the industry giants in order to keep users from looking at your product as nothing more than the flavor of the week.
