Everyone and everything seems to have an app these days! Need an app to schedule your meetings? Check! An app to manage payroll? Check! Need tracking for inventory, ad spend, or content? Triple Check!
With all the apps currently on the scene, you may wonder if you should consider launching an app for your business. If you have an idea for an app that you believe will be a hit with your customers, we have compiled a list of steps to launch an app from start to finish just for you! So let's get to it!
1. Research Your Market
Before beginning the more exciting portions of app development, the most crucial step is conducting research. It's the most fundamental part of the journey as it helps you determine who your target audience and market are for the application.
There are several things you can do to gather data to analyze later. Asking questions is a good start. For example, what needs will your app fulfill, and what is its overall purpose? What is your user persona?
Market research is a great way to gauge the market appetite for the type of app you want to create. Are there too many apps in the market? How can yours be different? These questions and the data collected will give you a sense of direction for the project.
2. Define Your Success
For every app created, goals and standards are set by those who make it. Saying that you want your app to be successful is not enough. Instead, you should set measurable goals for what a successful app looks like for your company.
To define that success, we turn again to the use of data. You can use information collected from the number of downloads or the feedback rating, for example, and use it to measure where you stand relative to your goal. Taking the time to measure your success by collecting and analyzing data will give you a better feel for your app's performance.
3. Survey Your Target Audience
They say you don't know if you don't ask! Surveys and questionnaires are a great way to assess what your audience is looking for in your product. Create a list of questions you want to ask, such as what are the customer's needs? What do they like or dislike? What problems do they have that you can solve? After you have collected enough data, it's time to take a deeper look at the results.
4. Analyze Survey Data
Data, when laid out, can tell a story, and your job is to follow that story to see which direction is the best. Data can also help guide you in knowing what types of features and designs to avoid.
The key here is to listen to what your target audience tells you in their responses. You are, after all, building an app to service your market, so why not make sure their voices are not only heard but amplified throughout the development process.
5. Design App Branding
I'm sure you are tired of looking at data by this point and are dying to get to work on the design! This is the stage where all of that research and surveying will come into play. Not only are we looking at what your target audience is saying, but we now focus on what your brand wants to say and how you want to say it.
Who are you as a company? Are you colorful and playful or more sleek and minimal? And how do you use design to amplify your brand voice?
These things will help you build an app that screams your brand name from the tops of google searches to social media hashtags. Branding is what makes your company stand out from the rest, which is why it's essential that you take the time to develop your app with this in mind.
6. Conduct UI Tests
Once your app has gone through the design and development process, it's time to put it to the test! No product or service should launch without first testing it in different ways and environments.
UI tests are performed by several potential users or groups of users. They help developers see how the app functions in real-time. You can set up these tests to achieve specific objectives and assign the groups to said tasks.
These tests can measure how long tasks take to complete, which helps gauge how fast your app runs. It's also a great time to resolve any bugs or issues found during testing. During this phase, user feedback is collected to know where improvements must be made or where better usability can be implemented.
7. Claim Social Media Accounts
You have put all the hard work into developing the app, you have conducted your UI tests and worked out necessary bugs, it's now time to get the ball rolling on your marketing.
But before you get started, you want to make sure you have claimed all social media you wish to utilize for your app. Whether it's Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, choose social media that best align with how your users would most likely connect with you.
8. Begin Marketing Campaign for App Launch
Now that you have all your social together, it's time to have some fun creating your marketing campaign! Remember, although you are creating an app, you want to make as much noise and drum up as much excitement surrounding your app launch as possible.
Be your own hype man, and get others involved as well! Enlisting the help of influencers to spread the word about your app is a great marketing strategy to use. Let's not forget the value of creating content that can help to generate organic buzz.
That can be anything from creating a page on your website announcing your launch or writing blog posts that incorporate SEO keywords. Then, alongside your organic efforts, launch your paid advertising campaign on the social media channels you claimed in the previous step.
All efforts made during your marketing campaign will contribute to a successful app launch, not to mention the brand awareness that comes with it.
9. Launch
With all the hours of analyzing data and many design ideas later, you have made it to launch day! Nervous? Don't be! This is the day you and your company have been waiting for!
10. Collect User Feedback
As more users download the app, gather feedback to help you gain a better view of changes you can make for a more enjoyable and valuable experience for your users. For example, feedback is a great way to know if you should create new features or if usability needs improvement.
11. Continue to Monitor and Make Improvements
You thought you were done, didn't you? Well, not so fast! Now that your app has launched, it's time to monitor how it's operating and make adjustments if necessary.
Your app will require upgrades and improvements throughout its lifetime to keep up with not just demand but your competition as well. Launching an app is not a one-and-done process. It will evolve as time passes, and with your target audience at the top of your mind, you won't go wrong.
Are You Ready to Create Your App?
Planning and developing an app might seem like a handful already, however, there's a key success factor that relies on how the promotion of that app is done.
At Sud Creative we're experts in working marketing strategies for the tech industry: we've done launching, worked on brand awareness, and boosted sales funnels. Most of the time we focus on these 11 steps. If you want to know more about how we do it, don't hesitate to contact us!