Having hundreds, thousands, and millions of downloads is really cool, but those downloads don’t mean anything if you can’t get people to stay on your app. In this post, Ty Magnin will walk you through 10 steps to increase customer retention and make an app that people will be sure to remember.

Summary:

1. Have them at hello

    First impressions are crucial. Humans are hardwired to form lasting opinions on gut instincts. Make you “Welcome Message” personal, clear, and attractive.

2. Start with the Highlight Reel

    On your application’s first launch or login by a user, highlight some of the key features your app provides.

3. Nudge into Endless AHA! Moments

An AHA! moment is when a customer finds value in your app. Always nudge your users to discover these values

4. Give the Scoop on New Products

The tech world is forever changing and improving. It’s important to make sure your app is flexible and stays up to date with software, device features, integrations and more. When you make these updates, share it with your customers!

5. Update to Remind

Keeping your users engaged is HUGEE and you should reach out to them more than just twice a year. Give users updates on their behaviors and check-ins to remind them that you’re still there.

6. Give customers More Than Software

You want to offer your customers as much value as possible. Don’t let it stop with just the features of your app. Provide other resources such as newsletters and content that may be useful to your users.

7. Offer Contextual Help

   When you provide customers with more than just your software, it’s important to give it to them at the right time and in the right context. Ex: Offering an upgrade for more storage during week one is less effective than offering it when a user runs out of space.

8. Ask for Their Two Cents

Make your app a perfect fit for your customers by reaching out to them, giving them surveys and gaining insight on how your app is used, what can be done to improve their experience, and more. Users love it when they see what they asked for come to life!

9. Invite into Beta Program

Make your best customers recognize how valuable they are to you by letting them try out a beta product. This will let them feel like they are part of the team and in turn will lead to loyalty.

10. Foster Community Around Your Product

Sometimes it’s easier for people to learn about your app from other users rather than just you. Enable users to learn and help teach other users. In turn this makes your brand become more personal.

All in all, to increase retention you want to

• Educate
• Engage
• Empower

Read the full article here

To have a successful startup, you must have a strong brand and by brand, we mean a piece of peoples’ brains carved out. The two main things needed to build you brand are novelty and repetition. Novelty is the quality of being new, original, or unusual. Repetition comes into play when you want to carve out space in someone’s brain; getting in their head over and over until you’re there to stay.

“Building a brand is about more than giving out free swag with your logo on it. It’s about creating stories.”

Read more here

About Pioneer

Pioneer Mobile Applications is a one stop shop for bringing your app idea to life. It is our mission to provide personal, affordable, & reliable app development for individuals, organizations, and businesses by being with our customers from the idea stage to launch and everything in-between!

With several years of expert mobile app development experience, United States app design and development company, Pioneer Mobile Applications is committed to the success of our clients. Whether your business is at the idea stage, currently in development, or already has a million users, Pioneer Mobile Applications can help create an affordable, reliable, and beautiful experience for your users. As a United States app design and development company, Pioneer Applications prides itself on being a full service development agency. We don’t just make apps, we will take a simple idea and create an application personalized for your business. Our goal is to ensure that our clients are succeeding. We accomplish this by providing idea conceptualization, market validation, app design (user experience & user interface), iOS, Android, and web development, testing, and marketing! We are constantly keeping up with new technology as it comes along to be sure that your app is using the latest, most cutting edge tech. United States mobile app design and development agency, Pioneer Applications is a United States based organization that is a team player on every project both small and large.

We have over 5+ years experience working with all different types of clients such as BuzzFeed, UMass Amherst, All in One Music Applications and many more! Our strategic process provides quick turn around times which lets us keep development costs down, saving our clients money!!

Services

iOS & Android: We have multiple developers on hand to build your iOS and Android Applications. The code we create is always clean and easily understandable by other developers.

UI/UX: Design is a very important thing. Our User Interface and User Experience developers make sure that your app is beautiful and easy to navigate through. We’ll help you out with branding and ensuring your app is recognizable!

Project Management: When there are a bunch of different moving parts, things can get messy. Our project managers makes sure everyone is on the same page and getting their work done as efficiently as possible.

Sales & Marketing: We don’t stop once we’re finished developing the app; we want to make sure that your app gets users on it and help you get featured in the App Store. Our sales and marketing experts will help you get the word out and acquire users!

Our Process

Conceptualize, Validate, Brand, Develop, Test, Launch, Promote

Have an awesome app idea? Need some funding to make it into reality? Look no more!

Pioneer Mobile Applications is in partnership with a few investors who are looking to fund early stage startups; as early as just an idea. Along with funding, Pioneer will provide app development services that are 35%-50% less than the average app development firm!

This is your chance to finally turn your idea into reality!

You should apply if:

• You have a solid app idea
• Motivated & ready to take this idea to the next level
• You’re a team player
• You know how to “get it done”

Are you a driven entreprenuer with an idea you believe in? Submit the information below:

The team at Pioneer Mobile Applications is always looking for ways to make people’s everyday lives more efficient. In today’s “smartphone society”, it is important to have information easily accessible no matter where you are in the world. Luckily mobile applications make that happen. Take a look at our latest project and how it is doing so:

Town of Babylon Guide

Description: 

Town of Babylon – Long Island, NY

Find out information for the Town of Babylon at the palm of your hand.

Information Includes: News, Calendar of Events, Public Notices, Contact Information, Useful Links, FAQ, & More!

Screenshots:

Check out the app on the App Store for FREE here!

Do you have an app idea that you want to bring to life? Contact Pioneer Mobile Applications!

Check out Pioneer’s latest client urbanhail! They just released in the app store!

App Name: urbanhail

App Description:
We are the Kayak of ride-hailing for Boston.
Compare real time prices – including surge! – and driver ETA for Uber, Lyft, and local taxis to find the best option for your unique trip. A single tap takes you to your choice, and you’re on your way!

Screenshots:
 
Download Here

Often times, hiring someone to develop an app can be expensive. To solve this issue, the founders may choose to develop the app themselves. This can be extremely tough to do, but the founders of Bounce were able to accomplish this task successfully!

“Bounce is a new social app for neighbors. Join & grow neighborhood communities – called homepoints – and bounce home with them later in the night. Chat with your neighbors directly, plan hangouts, and get to know what’s good in your hood.”

Check out Bounce here!

Where did you come up with the idea for this app?

When I (Robin) was a freshman, I used to head out to parties early in the night with my roommate, and we’d run into other friends, and end up going separate ways by the end of the night. I found myself asking everyone around me if they were also headed to the same dorm (South Quad), and would collect the phone numbers and create a group chat of all of the people from South Quad. Then, I’d plan my night around leaving with the new dorm-mates I had found, because I didn’t want to walk home alone. I noticed that if there was a way to pre-group my dorm-mates, even strangers who live in my dorm, I wouldn’t have to leave with the intention of sticking with my one roommate all night, and technology could make it very easy to find out which of my dorm-mates were nearby, when I was ready to leave. In this moment, technology would have given me the independence I so badly wanted.

What problem is this app trying to solve?

When getting home, you consider three factors: price, safety (comfort-level), and efficiency. Many students can’t afford to use Uber every day, so we resort to walking home alone while often feeling scared, or planning our stay around how long our friends want to stay, so that we can walk home with them. No easy way exists to get home with neighbors, either for cheaper rideshares or safer travels. Bounce groups you with your neighbors who are nearby when you’re out late, so that you can walk/uber home with them, without actively searching for your roommates or sticking to their plans.

How big is your team? What are the positions/experience of each (ex. Computer Science senior at Michigan State)

We’re a team of two people, both Computer Science juniors at the University of Michigan. Robin interned as an iOS Developer at VSCO this past summer, and Steven interned as a Web Developer at Weebly.

Did you receive any outside support for this app between development to promotion?

Yes – we received a grant and mentorship from the Thiel Foundation, and a grant from competing and winning the University of Michigan’s OptiMize Social Innovation Challenge. We’ve had some great mentorship from wonderful people at both organizations along the way.

Did you develop this app in house or hire someone else?

We spent the summer working hard and developed it ourselves!

What were some of the biggest struggles you have had over the course of developing your app? Did you have to learn new APIs? How much experience did you have?

We didn’t have any iOS or UI/UX design experience before starting this app, and we had to learn it all. We started this at MHacks 5, a college hackathon at the University of Michigan. The pressure of having to finish it in two days was a great stimulus to get started bootstrapping things quickly. We had to learn Objective-C, Swift, and Parse since we use it extensively in our app.

How long did development take? What factors influenced the development time?

Development took every minute of our free time this summer, so about 3 months. We were also working full-time internships, so we would come home and work some more. It was hectic, but motivating knowing that we were trying to solve a real problem.

Did you have a beta tester process?

Nope! We wanted to get this in users’ hands as soon as possible, and have been refining it quickly. So far, everything works as expected!

Are you available on Android too, or just iOS? If just iOS, why iOS first?

We’re working on an Android version right now, and it’s coming in a few months. We chose to develop for iOS, because we’re all decked out in Apple products. Also, we had also been dabbling in iOS prior to getting started with Bounce.

How are you spreading the word about the app?

We wanted to try something different, where we spend money on good, rather than marketing – we created a Facebook post for our launch, and we donated $1 for each share to the Day of the Girl campaign by Save The Children, a cause that we both care deeply about. We ended up getting almost 15,000 views using this technique! We’re still experimenting with other techniques in social media other than word of mouth. Spreading the word is definitely a challenge.

What are your future goals and aspirations for this application?

Our ultimate goal is to make neighborhoods safer and more social. Homepoints do a really great job of doing that, and we have a lot of ideas to create new functionality for these neighborhood groups, once we see them growing.

Why should people download this app in one sentence?

Go out anywhere – come home with neighbors.

Word of advice to people looking to have an app built?

In terms of development: It’s really, really helpful to know how to code. Often your users will need a feature or a bug fix after releasing your app, and you should be able to deploy it to them quickly. Also, use Parse if your app needs a backend – it can save a lot of development time and hence a lot of money if you’re not making it yourself.

In terms of everything else: Having a solid cofounder you can trust is awesome. You’ll need to depend on each other when times are rough, and it’ll help you gain perspective with all of the choices you are going to have to make.

Recently we posted a survey asking people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds what their most used app is on their smartphones! Here’s what we found:

Results based on 130 responses.
The survey on which the results are based on can be seen here

About Pioneer

Pioneer Mobile Applications is a one stop shop for bringing your app idea to life. It is our mission to provide personal, affordable, & reliable app development for individuals, organizations, and businesses by being with our customers from the idea stage to launch and everything in-between!

With several years of expert mobile app development experience, United States app design and development company, Pioneer Mobile Applications is committed to the success of our clients. Whether your business is at the idea stage, currently in development, or already has a million users, Pioneer Mobile Applications can help create an affordable, reliable, and beautiful experience for your users. As a United States app design and development company, Pioneer Applications prides itself on being a full service development agency. We don’t just make apps, we will take a simple idea and create an application personalized for your business. Our goal is to ensure that our clients are succeeding. We accomplish this by providing idea conceptualization, market validation, app design (user experience & user interface), iOS, Android, and web development, testing, and marketing! We are constantly keeping up with new technology as it comes along to be sure that your app is using the latest, most cutting edge tech. United States mobile app design and development agency, Pioneer Applications is a United States based organization that is a team player on every project both small and large.

We have over 5+ years experience working with all different types of clients such as BuzzFeed, UMass Amherst, All in One Music Applications and many more! Our strategic process provides quick turn around times which lets us keep development costs down, saving our clients money!!

Services

iOS & Android: We have multiple developers on hand to build your iOS and Android Applications. The code we create is always clean and easily understandable by other developers.

UI/UX: Design is a very important thing. Our User Interface and User Experience developers make sure that your app is beautiful and easy to navigate through. We’ll help you out with branding and ensuring your app is recognizable!

Project Management: When there are a bunch of different moving parts, things can get messy. Our project managers makes sure everyone is on the same page and getting their work done as efficiently as possible.

Sales & Marketing: We don’t stop once we’re finished developing the app; we want to make sure that your app gets users on it and help you get featured in the App Store. Our sales and marketing experts will help you get the word out and acquire users!

Our Process

Conceptualize, Validate, Brand, Develop, Test, Launch, Promote