13 Steps To Develop A Successful Mobile App
In a ruthless mobile app industry, develop a successful mobile app is a challenging process. Whereas the competition is tough, it becomes stressful to accomplish the goal. Therefore, you need to take every little thing into consideration.
For your help, we have created this step-by-step guide. It will prepare you to develop a successful mobile app.
Step 1: Come up with an idea
For develop a mobile app, you need to come up with an excellent idea. It’s the first step that leads you to app development. Now think:
- Why will consumers use your app?
- Does it solve any problem, provide a service, or entertain people?
- Will it make life easier?
- Does it has real value, or is it just a better version of the existing app?
These answers will provide you a better understanding of your idea. And gives you direction on where your idea is heading. While you think about your idea, define your target customers. If you think that it resonates with the target market, then move ahead. If not, then drop your idea. Because an idea of develop a successful mobile app without a well-defined target market is useless.
Step 2: Listen to your target customers.
It’s an essential step to get insights and feedback about your idea. Remember, in the beginning, your idea may get resistance at first. It’s common! Therefore listen carefully to people’s opinions. And then converse with those who aren’t in favor of your idea. It’s a healthy practice to highlight major issues in your idea. Besides, it will boost your confidence towards your idea while convincing them. But while presenting your idea, be passionate and confident.
In the initial stages of the brainstorming session, you might have several options. Write them down and consider the idea thoroughly that will work or not. Why are people going to use your app? Is it profitable? If you can answer these questions, then you can validate the idea.
Step 3: Analyze the competition.
You need to see who else is in the field of what you want to do. Then check and analyze their performance in the market. There are a number of ways to analyze the competitors. It includes quality of content, ease f use, pricing, navigational controls, availability, and furthermore. By this step, you can focus on the gap that competitors missed to leverage against them. And secondly, you can find out if your app category is saturated or not. It will help you to make a better decision for your business.
To analyze competition, you can check Google’s keyword planner. It’s one of the easiest and quickest methods. By entering keywords according to your idea, you can see the volume of searches conducted by the user. And get to know about the competitors that dominate this realm.
Step 4: Write your idea down
For develop a mobile app, this is an essential step that people sometimes overlook. You need to write down what you’re building. It will help you to stay focused in the future and avoid confusion. I’m not talking about a two-year vision or product roadmap, just a basic guide about your idea.
Once you get the guide, you can easily outline the business model. It will help you to identify your prospective revenue streams, allocate resources, payment for the development process, and furthermore. Moreover, while developing a business model, you should also select the app’s name. Make sure the app name is relevant and catchy. It needs to set a great impression about your mobile app on the target customers.
Step 5: Develop a prototype.
Developing a minimum viable product (MVP) is the next step for develop a successful mobile app. You need to select the basic features of the app and start prototyping them. The MVP allows shipping your app at a reliable cost. In order to test and see that is it accepted by adopters. It saves you from the hassle of money, time and effort.
There are several prototyping tools available in the market. According to mobile application development services, the most popular ones are Balsamiq, Moqups, and HotGloo.
Step 6: Validate
For mobile app development, validation is important as it shows that there is demand and interest for your app. You can show the prototype to the users and let them use it. Then you can take their suggestions and feedbacks. It’s different from step no 2 because now you have something working in your hands.
To gather feedback, you can make a list of questions that presents the features in which you need validation. Besides, you can create signup forms by Google Docs or Survey Monkey and distribute them via Facebook, Twitter or emails.
Step 7: Design the features and user flow
As your initial concept is prepared, now you need to figure out how you want consumers to use and engage with your app. According to the interface, you will design the user experience and features of the application.
Enlist the features you want to include in your app. Moreover, include how users will navigate the app from start to end. It will help the developer to understand your expectations and preferences better.
In addition, focus on the core value of your app idea. Therefore delete unnecessary features. There are certain add-ons and other features to make your app appealing. You can add them later on as future updates. It will help you to save costs and develop the end product faster.
Step 8: Develop your team.
For develop a successful mobile application, you need to hire a developer or a firm. The designer needs to be professional and passionate about the project. Before hiring, consider the following aspects:
- Check the portfolio.
- Their experiences matter the most.
- Talk with their previous clients.
- Ask about the technologies that they use.
- Their expected timeline.
- Designing process.
- App services.
- Your involvement & communication matter.
Step 9: Testing
Testing is the most prominent element for develop a successful mobile app. It will guide you about the elements that work well for you and what doesn’t. Therefore, you need to get a tester for your app that tries your app and gives feedback. Make sure to select the right people for testing so that you can enhance the user interface.
Step 10: Build momentum.
After technical beta testing, you can aim to conclude with marketing beta. You can distribute the app to various aspects. The aim behind this step is to test how the app is perceived. If everything is good, people will create buzz about your app. It will allow building a network of targeted customers for your app.
Step 11: Integrate analytics tools.
For mobile app development, integrating analytics tools are important. It helps you to track downloads, analyze user behavior, engagement for the mobile app. There are several tools available in the market, such as Flurry, Heap, Mixpanel, Localytics, etc.
Remember to select the tool according to the service you want. For example, if you want push notifications, you can use in-app feedback or crash reporting. Make sure to use the tool according to your app status.
Step 12: Launch your app.
It’s time to launch your app. You need to submit your app to Google Play or the App Store. It will take around a week for approval. At this time, you can market your app before launching to generate anticipation. For example, by collaborating with influential people to feature your app in their social media accounts. You can create teasers to increase the hype. Moreover, you can approach online publishers to increase app exposure.
Step 13: Focus on user analytics and Improve.
After launching, you can’t sit back and relax. It’s time to a keen focus on user analytics, monitoring downloads, and listening to feedback. View the analytics of the user because they will determine the lifetime success of your mobile application development.
Continuously improving is constant. Therefore you need to keep an eye on user feedback to keep building. You need to keep on iterating along the way after the launch. It won’t stop. On the contrary, focusing on iterating and improvement increases after the launch. In order to maintain the reputation.
Wrapping up
The process of develop a successful mobile app from the concept to the launch undergoes many crucial steps. Thus, it’s important for developers and organizations to understand all the steps clearly before getting started.
Furthermore, as we mentioned, you need an excellent idea, a high-quality prototype, and a professional team to develop an app. But on the other hand, you need passion, dedication, and strong will for mobile app development. Then only you can develop a robust mobile app.
