7 Things to do before you decide to get an app built

Thinking of getting an app built for your business? Great! But have you ever thought about the preparation that goes in even before you start your build? Well, there are various factors that need to be considered. From minor things like the colors, logo, etc., to the most significant factors such as revenue, cost-effectiveness, etc., everything needs to be kept in mind, and examined, and after analyzing each and every outcome, a decision has to be made.

We need to set a few goals for why we are building an app, what our expectations are, who would be our target audience, etc. Let us go through them in brief.

1. Talk to your target customers

This is a super important thing! Now that you are getting your app built, you need to know who your target customers would be. Sit down with your team, list a few assumptions, and set your target users. After this? Talk to the target users. Hear what they are expecting and what they would want to see from an app belonging to your specific business sector. The reason why you need to talk is simple! You can’t build your app based on your assumptions. That would be completely non-reliable. Once we hear out their expectations or problems, we can move to the next step.

2. Market research

It is always better to conduct research and then develop your app. It will help you gain in-depth knowledge about market fluctuations related to your sector, the current market scenario, and your competitors. It will also help you in analyzing various strategies, the rights, and the wrongs made by your rivals/competitors, which will enable you to come up with a better plan.

Extensive market research should help you discover the following:

• Who are your competitors?
• What is their strategy?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• What are their customers saying in the reviews and on social media?
• What is their unique selling point?

3. Choosing the right platform

When settling on the right choice of platforms for your application, like Android or iOS, think of a holistic UI that you can deliver precisely to your application. It won’t just affect your choice of company/developers, but whole together affects the flexibility and usability of your application.

The decision should also consider what most of your target audience use. Definitely, you can go for multiple platforms, but you need to keep your app budget in the picture.

4. Choice of the right company

The right company will help you save up a lot of surplus money. So be sure to look through various portfolios and choose the developer that has the most experience with similar cases.

Remember the first factor? Let us consider that again. After talking to your target customers and hearing them out, you will come to a conclusion. Now, those feedbacks would still be assumptions but of better value and outcome. The reasons for this are expectations don’t remain the same as the technology is forwarding. Also, customers might not always say what they would actually want to see on an app. So how to go on with these assumptions? Here is the solution to it!

5. Build an MVP you need

So what is MVP? It is a Minimum Viable App — a product or an app made to satisfy only the early customers so that you can hear back from them and further improve your application. It consists of only quite crucial features, and your main motto for building an MVP should be to test and scrutinize your features and usability. It comes in different levels, and it will help you in different steps of testing.

What does it do? It skips the fancy elements and concentrates on the essentials in an app that delivers critical benefits.

How does it help you? It helps you realize if your analysis was right or wrong and if you could continue further! If it is correct, then you can go ahead and add more features to it, even the fancy elements.

You can also release beta versions of your app to receive public feedback, and further, you can go on to create a marketing strategy! You also need to concentrate on the pre-buzz marketing, i.e., marketing done before releasing your app to increase the crowd and engagement.

Now let us discuss the factors on which all the other factors depend. Cost-effectiveness!

6. Determine the cost of an app

The cost depends based on your platform, features, number of developers working on different aspects, and choice of your company. By choosing the right company and the right features that are needed for your application, we can achieve lesser cost. You can also eliminate the fancier features initially and concentrate only on the vital beneficiary features. Do not forget the fact that you will also invest in the stable maintenance of the app, as this isn’t a one-time investment!

7. Monetization strategy

Making revenue through various methods/strategies on an app is called a monetization strategy. Now, what role should your app play in your business model? How do you wish to make money through your app? Let us look at a few monetization strategies.

• Freemium apps/Subscriptions: These apps are free to download, but certain features and contents are locked, and they can only be accessed through a purchase.
• Paid (premium) apps: The user needs to purchase the app from the app store in order to use it. Because of the cost barrier of this model, a mobile marketing strategy is critical to demonstrate the unique, superior value compared to the free apps.
• In-app purchases: This model uses the app to sell digital or physical products as a mobile commerce sales channel.
• In-app ads: This is possibly the simplest model because there is no cost barrier for the user. As with any advertising space, it’s important to never sacrifice user experience in order to gain more ad space.