Do you know last year alone 226 billion mobile apps have been downloaded? Well, from this stunning figure you can easily make out the size of the opportunity for a business brand. But sadly, about the exponential growth in mobile app users and engagement the rate of business conversion is still insipid.
Less than 10% of downloaded apps are paid that translates into increasing dependence of companies on alternative mobile app monetization avenues. For a vast majority of businesses which include mainly e-commerce and retail stores, the primary avenue of monetization is still in-app purchase. But still, a vast majority of businesses including many e-commerce marketers lack the grasp on aspects that can allow them to utilize in-app purchase avenue to the full potential. While mobile app developers and designers these days are focused on accommodating in-app marketing better within the app UX, the marketers need to optimize a few things.
How can they optimize their efforts There's no magic bullet to make this happen, but there are a few steps every company can take to help drive in-app purchases.
1. Knowing from the cross-channel behaviour of customers
Customers remain engaged across various channels and without knowing them by grabbing the right user data across different touchpoints, you have no way to know what works and what does not work. You need to have a solid understanding of the customer's cross-channel behaviour. This is crucial to design your marketing messages to guide the customer in the purchasing journey. This also helps to determine whether the client really needs to be addressed with messages. The cross-channel customer knowledge about customers helps you prevent churning to a great extent.
2. Focus on different marketing channels with deep linking
Mobile marketing requires a more dynamic approach that is geared to combine various marketing campaigns over a variety of channels. Some of the effective channels that instantly come to mind include email marketing, paid user acquisition, content sharing, etc. In spite of their difference in effectiveness and scope of revenue generation, all of them have one important common attribute, that is to say, they all offer deep linking. As experience goes by most app marketers, deep linking across various channels plays a crucial role in boosting purchases and retention.
3. Deep linking with mobile email
Among the various channels with deep linking we have discussed so far, we singled out email marketing simply because it is the most matured and time-tested channel. If we remember it right, email marketing has served e-commerce businesses for years in both boosting sales and re-targeting customers. These days emails are mostly opened on mobile devices and naturally mobile marketers are keen on taking this opportunity by inserting deep mobile email links to boost in-app sessions. While the process of mobile email deep linking has been slow for many marketers because of scalability challenges, email service providers and automation tools came as a big relief for them.
4. Onboarding experience with immediate value proposition
It does not take an expert to say how important a role app onboarding experience plays for business conversion. The role of a highly effective automated onboarding is of paramount importance to inspire purchases and keep users engaged for a longer period. Highly effective onboarding experience will incorporate user contexts and situations to boost customer interactions. As a marketer, your objective is to guide the user as far as possible towards the purchase or in steps that guarantee repeat visits. For instance, a customer providing the payment information within few days of using the app for the first time is very likely to return and become a repeat buyer.
5. Personalized approach to messaging and almost anything
Personalized messages enjoy at least 5 to 10 times more opening rate compared 'one size fits all' messages. As individual preferences are increasingly becoming a factor to engage customers, so-called regular messages devoid of any personalized elements just fail to make an impression on the mobile users. On the other hand, based on the user data corresponding to a favorite brand of customers, location and many such aspects you can deliver messages that enjoy higher penetration and engagement.
But the personalized approach to serving customers right just does not end with personalizing the messages, but it demands to add such elements throughout the app environment.
- Personalized recommendations based on the earlier customer behavior, location, and demographic data allow catering UI and shopping experience to the client preference.
- Personalized content based upon the profile and category of users can allow catering more relevant materials to them.
- Personalized push notifications can be sent based on the customer data and contexts.
- There is the further scope of personalization based on the client's location and local weather, events, etc.
6. Doing more with a bucket of tools
A marketer always needs to do more by involving as much as channels possible. Here below we describe in short a bucket of tools and variety of marketing channels sufficient to boost in-app purchase.
- App indexing through over Google's Firebase is crucial to get discovered as the majority of searches now happen on mobile.
- Paid search through deep linking can be useful in reducing the cost per install as they would focus on content advertising more than the app.
- Social posting of app contents in a timely and regular manner can increase the app engagement by double.
- Through incentivized referrals and influencer sites apps can generate more conversion.
- Partnering with another app and by allowing the app to app experience sharing the apps can increase retention and engagement.
- Through enabling sharing of deep-linked content, more app links can be shared allowing more scopes of engagement and revenue.
7. Timing the communications
Perfect timing is crucial to engage customers with messages. A well-timed promotion quickly drive sales while a wrongly timed one just fails to attract any attention. It is critical to know when the customers are most likely to engage. Once you know the preferred or most response-friendly user moments, your messages can generate engagement a few times higher.