An App Engagement strategy is critical for your business as research shows that US consumers time on apps makes for 90 percent of the time spent on their mobile devices, which has grown by 35 percent in Q2 2015, over Q2 2014.

Facebook accounts for 19 percent of the time spent on apps, where social media and messaging apps make for a third of the time spent on Apps. Key trends from Flurry Analytics report shared by BI, shows that the mobile audience are loyal to a few apps.

• US consumers averaged three hours and 40 minutes on their mobile devices per day in Q2 2015, which represents growth of 35 percent from the same quarter in 2014, when US consumers averaged two hours and 42 minutes on their mobile devices.
• Despite the growth of overall minutes spent on mobile, the time consumers spent on mobile browsers continued its descent. While US consumers spent 20 percent of their mobile time on browsers in Q1 2013, that share dropped to 14 percent in Q2 2014, and just 10 percent in the most recent quarter.
• For every three hours and 18 minutes a US consumer spends using apps, 22 minutes will be spent in a mobile browser.
• Social and messaging apps are catalyzing this trend more than other app categories. Time spent on this app category grew 51 percent in Q2 2015, from 45 minutes a day in Q2 2014 to one hour and eight minutes a day in the most recent quarter. This means that one-third of all mobile time spent in Q2 was spent on social and messaging apps.

Segment Your  App Audiences

Developing an effective app engagement strategy for your brand requires knowing your existing users well to target the segment effectively, as research shows that getting more users similar to your existing users is likely to deepen your engagement.

Audience that has a high take-up for your App can be analyzed along the value and frequency of use for your business app to identify the core target audience. As the app usage varies for different segments it is important to arrive at the core target audience that delivers value for your business and at the same time uses the app frequently. To arrive at customers who use your app frequently and boost revenue for your business, it is important to tag customers based on value of purchases made and the frequency of app usage.

Map Your App Marketing Initiatives

For each of the segments identify the core marketing tactic that will help you deliver the campaign results and goals. If you are targeting the installers that are high value but do not use your app frequently, the Mobile Engagement Campaigns are the way forward as that will create recall for your App and increase frequency of App Usage.

For Apps that offer rewards a threshold value reward could be an effective way to build engagement. An example of an app that builds on frequency is Starbucks with frequent updates on how far the customer is from reaching the next reward level.

Introduce Targeted App Enhancements

After you know your core target audience, you can arrive at the persona of your App Loyalists and see the App features and offers that are currently key to driving usage. Introducing app enhancements linked to the App features can help you target similar audiences better.

Starbucks has enhanced its app offering for the frequent high value customers by rolling out an App feature that allows you to order and pay for the coffee prior to reaching the store, helping you skip the line completely.

In a similar enhancement, the App from Home Depot lets you see the merchandise in your Home’s setting to get a preview prior to ordering an upgrade or purchasing goods from the store. Moreover, to create a customer wow the store allows for same day pick-up for the App users.

 

Messaging and Media

Creating awareness for your App with the right messaging is critical as that will help you source more users that are likely to be Loyalists. Generating awareness with product offers that are targeted at Installers can help you increase customer value, with messaging that is likely to turn them into purchasers.

Thus right messaging to the right audience segment can help you achieve campaign goals. To increase awareness with each segment identify the core metric that i important for delivering your business objective. Once you identify the core metric you need to go with the most effective tactic such as offers, contests, sweepstakes, rewards or UGC that is most likely to work with the audience segment.

 

Factor in The Content Eco-System

As important as it is to define the target audience segment it is equally vital to look at the content eco-system of your audience to get to similar audiences effectively. With the increased usage of social media apps if your targeted segment is younger audiences then you need to look at the social media apps used by the younger audiences and the content Eco-system that your app users are most familiar with. Once you have the detailed audience insights, engaging and targeting audience segments you can create app engagement campaigns that are likely to reach the targeted audience.