app

By Harnil Oza

When you have a business, you might be going through the process of deciding whether you can face the challenges and expenses of creating a mobile app. A lot of businesses today have mobile apps, so it is not uncommon for questions about this to come up. But much like everything in the business world, there are some good parts, and there are some bad parts.

Besides the expected look every app should have, the mobile apps work as a tool that fosters a long-lasting relationship between the business owner and his customers. As a business owner trying to create your mobile app, you have to understand and take advantage of the need for users to be digitally dependent on a lot of things in their lives. The mobile devices in the hands account for a lot of shopping, socializing and work that they do.

Regardless of the platform, you decide to launch; there are several things you need to cover in your plan. You can try focusing on solving a business problem, get customers to get much done by doing so little. You should also cover the interests of your target audience.

Importance of ROI on Your Mobile App

You can use a measured ROI to strengthen the marketing campaign efforts you apply to your business through push notifications and more. You can harness the power of social media to spread the word about your brand. Through social media referrals and other similar mediums, you can directly or indirectly get in touch with more potential customers. It allows you to focus your resources on the features that are more likely accepted by users. You can also monitor a customer’s behavior and responses to the services provided by your app. Some indicators suggest the impact of your app in the lives of the people who use it.

ROI Measurement

When looking to invest in mobile app development for your business, you also need to consider the return on investment. If you don’t carefully take this into consideration, you might make the same mistake a lot of mobile app developers have done before you. You don’t want to fail to meet your revenue generation plan. And you also don’t want to miss out on achieving your profit goals. Here are some of the steps you need to follow to optimize your return on investment.

Step one: Budget and overall cost

This is a very critical and crucial part of everything. Though you have calculated how much revenue you will get back on a customer level, you still have to evaluate how much you will continue to spend and what it will cost you. Development costs is a significant fraction that includes the cost of design, as well as development and implementation. But besides the initial spending cost, you have to bear in mind that after the app has been developed and implemented, there will still have to be maintenance as well as support which will incur further developmental costs. Further costs can include expenditure in marketing, customer retention, and others.

Step two: Create a good measurement plan

Knowing what you want your app to achieve, it is then left for you to set up tactics and strategies to meet the objectives, and you should have a method of measuring success. Some of the ways you can measure the success include first documenting your business objectives, work out the tactics and means to support your documented objectives. Choose metrics that will be your key performance indicators (KPIs) and also choose a target for your KPIs. And choose how to segment the data. Whichever business your app is made for, you have customers who generate revenue for you at some point. If the app alone has no revenue source of its own, you can consider the customer’s touch points and outline how the app contributes to them. A good measurement plan allows you to compare your performance with the trends and make necessary adjustments where needed.

Step three: Create actionable metrics

The metrics you have established to measure the performance at first should be put into actionable plans. For example, you may want to find out if your app is bringing in new customers and retaining old ones. Or you can use the measurement tools to evaluate the effectiveness of campaign strategies you have employed.

The more you analyze metrics from your app, the better it becomes to determine the value of success. It allows you to see campaign efforts from different points of view. You can use this to maximize the results in any way you prefer. Measuring your apps ROI is a way to ascertain where you are and where you are going with your app. There are so many things to look out for including changes in customer needs and wants, changes in technologies and how you can adapt, and more. As a result of this, your mobile app development should always be changing to go along with these changes.

Step four: Understand that users are different

You might be trying to evaluate just how much you stand to benefit from your mobile app. But bear in mind that not every single user will be equally valuable to your business. This single truth is vital, and it has its own way of affecting your ROI. As users come from different channels, they also have different patterns of consumption. Sometimes it could be that the customers you acquired from a channel like social media are more loyal, but sometimes it is the other way around.

If you really want to delve into this, it is up to you. But you should at least separate your acquisition sources and obtain a cost per install for each source. Don’t forget to acknowledge cross-platform and cross-channel acquisitions too. It could be that a user was persuaded to install your app after several touches. It is also relevant how you attribute cost to those channels.

Investors and business owners have to take the gains and profitability of the complete and implemented app. This is done while taking into account the cost of changes as proposed by the app development company or the mobile app developer to optimize the code from time to time to get the best out of it. It is possible for an app development company or investor to fail to acknowledge that a mobile app developer has to continuously meet the changing demands like platform integration, newer functionality, UI and UX-related issues, among others.

The benefits of ROI in mobile app development for your business are great especially if you want to grow your business and expand. 

Harnil Oza is a CEO of Hyperlink Infosystem, a mobile app development company having a team of best Indian app developers who delivers best mobile solutions mainly on Android and iOS platform. He regularly contributes his knowledge on the leading blogging sites. Follow him on Twitter @harniloza.