The five pitfalls of apps and how to avoid them…

Mobile specialist, trainer and co-founder of the Mobile Training Academy Rob Thurner, in the second half of his piece advising how to create a successful app asks: what is next for apps?

Potential pitfalls

If they’re honest, most marketers, and the agencies which have advised them, will admit that their cherished app has not lived up to expectations. Here are the main challenges and recommendations.

Audience reach

50% of mobile users have not (yet) migrated to smartphones, so your audience is capped with apps. Research the handset ownership and mobile behaviour of your target audience against Flurry and comScore data. Build a mobile-optimised site for non-smartphone users.

Discovery

With around a million apps available, creating a stand out product in the app stores is critical. Apple and Android prioritise apps based on popularity (downloads) as well as quality (ratings and reviews).

Marketing your app is essential. Use traditional channels (above and below-the-line media, word of mouth and PR), digital channels (online ads, email and social media) plus mobile channels (mobile sites, mobile ads, mobile search and app store marketing) to drive awareness.

Cost

There are no established ways to design and build once and render the app across different operating platforms, which means developers need to re-code the app multiple times for each of the platforms’ different Software Development Kits (SDKs) – iOS for Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Java – thereby escalating costs.

As a rule of thumb, you should examine mobile traffic on your mobile site to confirm the handsets being used, and prioritise the corresponding SDK in your app build plan. HTML5 is emerging as a browser based alternative for “web apps” (see below).

Revenue

Trusted brands from the gaming, media, entertainment, retail and travel sectors are generating significant revenues from apps. The majority of apps fail to do so. Remember, the app store hosts keep a healthy portion of the download cost (e.g. Apple and Android take 30%, Microsoft takes 20%).

Evaluate the options: download costs, in-app payments, in-app advertising and sponsored apps, then bear in mind that 95% of all app users won’t pay for any app activity.

Free apps will achieve higher downloads but most are used infrequently and deleted quickly, while paid-for apps have greater perceived value, hence longevity.

Project management

This one is fundamental as weak project management results in a rushed and stressful app build process, resulting in sloppy testing (50% of apps are launched with bugs), leading to negative reviews, hence poor visibility in the app stores.

Build sufficient time to determine handset ownership of your target audience, define app features, hire expert iOS/Android coders, test on multiple handsets, and allow enough time for approvals (up to 10 weeks for Apple).

Proving the ROI

The true measure of success with apps lies far beyond the download numbers. 85% of apps are only used once. This is where you need to dig into the detailed reporting now available.

The market leader in mobile analytics, Flurry now tracks 37 billion app sessions each month (1.8 billion daily) based on over 520 million live app users worldwide. App owners can embed their tracking software at no cost.

This analysis allows you to view active users, session length, frequency, rolling retention and user paths into multiple layers of engagement.

You can then cross reference the data against age, gender and consumer clusters and benchmark your app’s performance against category norms.

The intelligence derived helps brands optimise their budgets in delivering content which users find genuinely engaging.

Looking ahead – what next for apps?

Prediction 1: Low cost, self-serve apps

A new breed of high-end self serve app tools is launching which allows brands and organisations with limited technical capabilities to build their own apps for multiple platform hosting and download (iOS, Android and Microsoft).

One example is Appsplash which allows easy content imports, geo-location based offers and coupons to attract new customers and stimulate repeat visits through targeted in-app push notifications.

Prediction 2: Apple and Android challenged

One of the key trends this year will be the arrival of newcomers who are likely to challenge the dominance of Apple and Android, according to Forrester’s 2012 Mobile Trends for CPS Professionals report.

The main players, Amazon and Facebook, will leverage their strengths in using social recommendations and personalisation to create new tools, which could facilitate app discovery and pose a challenge to the established app stores.

Amazon’s challenge is centred on cloud-based capabilities and the ability to personalise content; Facebook brings massive mobile audience and experience in working with web developers to distribute content virally.

Conclusion

Apps have emerged rapidly as a major force in the mobile landscape, and account for disproportionate share of brands’ mobile marketing budgets for the ROI they deliver.

This is because the majority offer little if any consumer benefit, will be used just once, which renders many of them a vanity item.

Their importance can be explained by the ease and convenience for consumers to have a “buttonised” shortcut to their favourite brands, and apps have assumed the opportunity to provide immediate “brand in hand” access.

Critically, apps have established a secure, convenient and popular payment channel which will continue to appeal to brands and organisations aiming to monetise compelling content.

Apps have taken the initiative, as well as brands’ budgets, as the mobile internet had a slow start and for many years offered a sub-standard user experience.

However, with the advances in HTML5 browser technology and enhanced mobile search, I predict that the mobile world will turn rapidly in coming months, and the importance of apps will diminish.

After all, there is only one internet, to which every mobile user has access.

For the first half of Rob’s insight, which looked at what we have learned since the app launched four years ago, click here.