To achieve business success in the digital age, your company must embrace enterprise mobile app development. Yet, even when some businesses do, they don’t follow recommended procedure. They get lost in the process, which is why we’ve created this step-by-step guide of the 10 best tips.
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1) Know Why You’re Doing This and Where to Start
Why have you chosen to have a mobile app developed for your enterprise? What will be its purpose? What segment of your audience are you trying to satisfy?
Regardless of whether you’re just starting out with enterprise mobile app development or continuing with experience, it’s essential you know the answers to these questions. These are two of the many questions that you need to answer when the defining the requirements of your enterprise mobile app.
2) Do the Necessary Market Research
Briefly study what other businesses, such as your competitors, have done with their own mobile apps. Read their reviews and even try out their app as a user.
- What are they doing right?
- What isn’t working for them?
- What are they doing that you can do better?
When you know these elements of your competitors’ apps, you’ll be more informed and in a better position to meet your users’ needs.
3) Have One Primary Purpose for Your App
Many times, businesses in the midst of enterprise mobile app development can become tempted with all the possible features they can include. However, it’s important for you not to make this mistake.
You should always know what the one primary purpose is for your app and build around that. It should always revolve around solving the user’s problem and fulfilling their need.
4) Understand Your User’s Motivations and Needs
Similar to having a primary purpose for your app that solves a problem for your users, you should also be aware of what exactly are your users’ needs.
- What utility do your users’ need to accomplish a goal that your businesses mobile app can provide?
- What are your users’ motivators?
- How can you apply that to your app?
Only after you truly understand your target audience should you proceed with your app development.
5) Build an App That Improves the User Experience
Now that you know who your target audience is and what problem you need to solve for them, it’s time for you to start brainstorming as to how your app is going to benefit your users.
Your app should always provide at least one of these six elements:
- Better productivity
- Entertainment
- Empowerment
- Convenience
- Community
- Savings
The bottom line is that your app should be designed to improve the user’s life in some way. Keep that in mind when discussing your design ideas with a mobile app development company.
6) Always be Willing to Innovate
Innovation is absolutely critical. Technology is changing faster than ever before, and with that so are the expectations and behaviors of consumers. It’s crucial you don’t just copy what others are doing or build upon existing ideas. You also need to be the one that goes beyond what already exists, building an app that doesn’t already have a presence in the marketplace.
You don’t want to be one of the laggards in the app market, feeding off others’ ideas. That’s more like being a laggard than an innovator: someone who adopts new, fresh ideas instead.
Be unique when designing your app, and see the impact it’ll make.
7) Seek Input from Potential and Existing Users
It’s tempting and natural to have your own bias in terms of what you think your users will want, but you need to resist this bias. The best way to do so is to receive input from your target audience and current version users.
Take the time to test out your app using beta testers. Ask them and any existing users to provide feedback. Once you have that information, you must listen and learn from what they say. Your next step should be to apply any necessary changes based on those reviews.
Direct feedback can be one of the best ways to improve your app, so take advantage of this opportunity to get it from your users (existing and potential).
8) Incorporate Push Notifications
Something that is missing from many business mobile apps is the availability of push notifications. Or, the notifications are not set up in a way that provide value to their customers.
Users want to receive relevant notifications from the apps they rely on. If you want your app to be one of those, give users this feature. It helps your customer use your app to find the utility they need, and more importantly, it helps them remember your app.
9) Test Everything Before Making a Final Decision
Testing is something you have to do no matter how confident you think you are in your app. You may love your features and functions. The design may look great to you.
Unfortunately, you’re not the end user, are you?
The best way to determine whether your app is working on both a functional and feature level is to test everything. You’re more likely to see benefits in this when you use A/B testing, comparing two changes at one time.
A/B test your onboarding methods
- Login process
- App preview option
- Call-to-Action button
- Progress bar
A/B test your app version updates
Every time you decide on a new feature or function for your app, test it before finalizing the idea.
10) Have a Plan for the Future of Your App
You’re not done with your app once it hits the market. You likely already know it’ll need improvements and fixes, but there’s more to consider than that.
- What are you going to do to measure your app’s impact on your business?
- How are you measuring your users’ path from the beginning to a sale?
- What will you do to make the changes you need to in order to continue the success of your app?
You’re always going to have reviews to consider and changes to make while your app is in market, so have an established strategy for how you’re going to handle that.
Ensure a successful app by issuing an effective mobile app RFP, using Stuzo’s own guide and template.
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Let’s Recap
- Know why you’re doing this and where to start
- Do the necessary market research
- Have one primary purpose for your app
- Understand your user’s motivations and needs
- Build an app that improves the user experience
- Always be willing to innovate
- Seek input from potential and existing users
- Incorporate real-time notifications
- Test everything before making a final decision
- Have a plan for the future of your app
What Next?
You now know the 10 most important tips for enterprise mobile app development, so what will you do next?
Our suggestion:
Contact us to set up a consultation where we’ll discuss your plans and ideas for a mobile app for your business. We’re a digital product innovation company that specializes in building mobile apps for Fortune 500 companies, and we’re here to help you bring a successful app to market.
