With more than 194 billion downloads worldwide and a purchase volume of 101 billion dollars, the mobile application market recorded growth of more than 35% in 2018. A trend which was confirmed in 2019 and which should strengthen in 2020. In view of these figures, launching a mobile application appears to be the opportunity to diversify its revenues.
However, the launch of a mobile application is not trivial. Very often, we tend to distinguish two phases: the creation and then the launch of the application. Indeed the launch is perceived as a pivotal event, which comes after the developments and which initiates a viral propagation of the application. It is in fact a succession of events concomitant with development which are part of the duration.
The article offers some good practices for a successful launch, by analyzing the strategy of the Jock application, a gay social network developed by Gala rim.
Content Marketing: creating your community even before having a finished product
The distribution of content related to your product on social networks allows you to initiate and maintain a dialogue with your community before the launch of the application. The jock. Life pages on Facebook and Instagram made it possible, thanks to relevant content, to prepare the launch of the application by constituting a first base of users likely to use the application.
In parallel with communication on social networks, Jock has created an online store. The store has not only made it possible to start generating income, but also to strengthen its visibility by distributing products likely to be of interest to future users of the application.
Target a small number of users to mature the product
The strategy of maximizing the number of downloads on the first launch is risky. Indeed, the application is rarely mature at this stage and nothing is known about the behavior of users on the application.
In the case of Jock, the launch went through different phases: an internal beta version, a first publication on the stores without communication then targeted communication campaigns. This gradual launch of the application has made it possible to optimize the overall performance of the application and improve certain features, such as live streaming, tracker, instant messaging or even the localization of profiles around you. It also made moderation more effective, a fundamental element for a dating application that aims to be premium.
Optimizing the application by putting it in real conditions of use makes it possible at the same time to optimize the retention rate on the application.
Ensure the scalability of the application
Once the product reached a certain level of maturity, Jock accelerated the launch by playing on different levers:
- marketing campaigns
- dissemination of the application through different media
- intensification of Content Marketing
These various levers, coupled with a robust infrastructure, in particular with the use of Amazon cloud services, have made it possible to reach a significant number of active users per day without encountering any scaling-up problem.
Encourage users to stay
However, the retention rate remains the most relevant metric to assess the quality of the application. To keep users, you have to listen to them and communicate with them regularly. Jock, through the social network integrated into the game application development companies and the sending of promotional messages, broadcasts content on the application and thus strengthens the community effect. In addition, Jock constantly evolves the product and offers regular updates. As a result, the number of active users continues to grow.
Conclusion
The user is most able to provide data about himself. It is therefore essential to initiate a dialogue with them as soon as possible. This dialogue allows us to better understand their behavior, aspirations and needs. Thinking about a feature without including the user can be resource intensive, cause the acquisition phase to fail and decrease the retention rate. From this perspective, the validation of a feature must also be done by the user, who is most able to judge its relevance and areas for improvement. Our vision of a functionality is only a starting point, an unfinished perception. It is up to the user to perfect the functionality and to orient the developments, by iterating with him.
Based on this conviction, the development method at Gala rim consists of putting into production each feature developed in order to maximize user feedback. This is where the interest of an agile method lies: taking into account the feedback as it develops and not waiting for the launch to assess the impact of each feature on the user.