When it comes to custom app development, be it for a brand new app or the redesign of an existing app, User Experience (UX) is the number one goal. Often, companies focus on adding cool and unique features in their apps as a way to enhance UX — as they should. However, far too many times, businesses can get a bit carried away by including an extensive array of elements in their apps when, in reality, they should be concentrating on providing customers with the services they are looking for.
While it’s understandable that you’ll want your mobile app to offer a range of services, adding too many features that your users might find irrelevant can deter prospective customers from using your app. Your app needs to provide value to your users, but it’s important to first determine 1) who you should actually be marketing your app to, 2) what their needs are, and 3) how to create or redesign an app so it prioritizes, caters to, and offers the solutions your target audience is searching for.
If you miss any of these critical steps, your product or service apps may be completely overlooked. In this post, we’ll cover how to assess whether or not your app is targeting the wrong audience and how to shift your marketing approach to correct this common app development mistake and improve its UX and overall appeal.
Is Your Brand Product-Centric or Customer-Centric and Why Does it Matter?
Businesses often believe that the products and services they offer are customer-centric. In other words, they are under the assumption that their solutions are geared toward the needs of their intended clients. However, companies often miss the mark because they are too focused on the solutions themselves (product-centric) or how to surpass competitors.
At first glance, it may seem like a focus on products and services should be the logical first step for companies who want to create a mobile app and start building a loyal consumer base, but in reality, this is not the case. While yes, your products and services are a starting point, developing an app that consumers will be interested in involves a lot more research. Your brand’s priority should be your customers.
If you are not focused on your customers’ needs, you may go off on a tangent and create an over-the-top app that doesn’t actually offer real value to users. If your app doesn’t offer value to its users, the UX will be terrible. If the UX is terrible, your app will fail. You’ll have essentially wasted your time developing an application that no one wants to use.
So how do you create an app that garners mass appeal? It all starts with determining who your target audience is and their ideal User Experience.
Determining Your Target Audience and Ensuring Your App Caters to Their UX Preferences
Who is your target audience? That is the first question you should ask yourself before trying to strategize a concept for your mobile app. Why is this important? For starters, if you don’t have a specific audience in mind, you’ll likely end up designing an app that offers an excessive amount of solutions but that no one will find particularly relevant.
Yes, we said it. Having TOO many features on your apps can be detrimental to your brand. This is an example of when you are trying to account for a strategy for too many types of consumers when instead, you should be concentrating on the audience that your services will be the highest in demand.
Still not sure who your target audience is or if your app will gain traction? These are a few tips to help you choose a segment for your app. In case you are targeting the wrong audience, they can help you switch your marketing approach and improve your UX.
Get to Know Your Products and Services
How well do you know your business? Does your brand provide a full range of products and services for an entire industry or is it more niche-based? Who is the buyer persona you want to reach? Make sure you know the answer to these questions.
If you’re not able to acknowledge these pain points, then it’s likely that your app will end up targeting the wrong audience. If this happens, the amount of money you invest in your digital, social media, or email marketing strategies will not result in the type of traffic that converts to sales. To achieve success with your marketing campaigns, work with experts who can help you segment your content and run effective analytics based on customer insights.
But first thing’s first. Take a moment to carefully review the products and services your company offers and the buyer persona you foresee benefitting from them the most. Is it teens? Retirees? Singles? This is something you must address before you start thinking about creating your app because if you don’t have a full understanding of your business message and content purposes, you won’t be able to determine who can benefit from or take interest in them, and you certainly won’t’ be able to decide on the theme of your app.
If you are struggling to obtain this essential data, turn to social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn for consumer insights and competitor actions to help you craft your marketing campaign. These platforms will show you the types of products and services your buyer persona is looking for and how to appeal to their needs.
Aside from social media, you can also gain valuable information about buyer personas and generate traffic to your website using paid ads, as well as by asking questions that will allow you to identify the right message that you should send to your buyers.
Hone in on a Specific Solution
We know that all people are not created equal. The whole world will not benefit from using every single service you offer. To find ways of advertising your app to the right market and provide the best possible UX, you’ll need to break down the full scope of your solution. See which services provide the highest value to your real customers, and hone in on one main solution to build your app around.
Let’s say your company provides financial solutions. Finance in and of itself is a very broad industry, so creating an app that offers all types of financial services may overwhelm consumers. Instead, choose a specific financial service, such as debt relief or retirement planning, and make that service the main focus for your app.
Market to the Right Demographics
Now that you have a clear understanding of what your business app will be about, you’ll need to determine who are the people most likely to use it. World demographics (age, race, income, and place of residence) play a vital role when determining your mobile app’s target audience, especially age. Understanding how different age groups interact with technology and what experiences or content they seek from that technology is critical when developing a business app. Still, it is also the most effective way of marketing through ads, social media, and email campaigns.
To make sure you don’t target the wrong audience, look into the research of demographics you should be marketing to before you move onto the app development phase. The features you incorporate into your app should be specifically designed for the generation it will cater to in order to provide the best possible UX. It doesn’t make sense to stuff your app with complex content and elements if you are targeting a more mature audience that probably hasn’t had too much experience with HiTech software. Likewise, if the typical customers that you want to reach are younger and more tech-savvy, you’ll want to offer new functionalities to keep them interested.
To ensure you don’t market to the wrong people, it’s also important to understand what different demographic segments want from an app. Younger audiences aren’t thinking about their future as much as they like to be entertained. Conversely, older audiences prefer to be informed and will likely favor an app that provides advice on health and money matters. So, if your business and mobile app offer people retirement planning services, chances are your target audience is older, has already graduated, and holds a steady job. Kids and teens are probably not going to use this kind of app, so don’t waste your time trying to incorporate flashy media elements or games into your software or online store.
Marketers and business owners should take all this data into consideration and use it when designing a mobile app so the content, verbiage, tools, and elements align with their audience’s needs. Granted, some users will defy these metrics, but try to remember that your app should be marketed to the typical user within the market demographic.
Give Your App a UX Makeover
If you didn’t quite get your target audience right the first time around with your business app or are still in the data planning phase and need the advice to ensure your app will appeal to the correct users, Koombea can help.
Our experienced app developers can review your products and services and help you choose app elements that will resonate with your target audience and provide an incredible User Experience that will lead to sales. If you already have an app or website, we can take a look at how it’s currently performing and redesign certain features so it can better attract the appropriate audience. Contact us today to schedule an app development consultation and get started on designing a truly customer-centric app.
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