CREATING
MOBILE APPLICATIONS
WITH PURPOSE
A USER NEEDS TO FEEL AS THOUGH THEIR MOBILE
APPLICATION BENEFITS THEIR LIFE. THIS TALL
ORDER SHOULDN’T BE IMPOSSIBLE. THE ANATOMY
OF A MOBILE APPLICATION TAKES A CRITICAL VIEW
OF “WHO,” IS THE USER AND “WHAT,” THE NEED OF
THE MOBILE APPLICATION IS.
WHO USES MOBILE
APPLICATIONS?
BUSINESS
APPLICATIONS
Billions of people use smartphones. And millions
of people use mobile applications. Heavy users, as
defined by Flurry the analytics platform, open mobile
applications more than 60 times a day, which is six
times more than the average user. According to
Flurry, 176 million people are heavy users, which
is up 123 percent compared to the same period
last year.
Another area for growth are business applications.
Companies are adopting mobile applications for
internal use in their business more and more.
It’s a popular belief that millennials are glued to their
mobile devices. Indeed, a trip into any city centre
would turn you into a believer, especially considering
that two out of three millennials use mobile
applications while shopping in-store. But millennials
are not alone in their mobile addiction, according to
comScore Mobile Metrix data.
Additional evidence proves that the average app
user is slightly older than the twenty-year-old
persona that many brands use to develop their app’s
communication and messaging strategies. A study
commissioned by Neilson estimated that 85 percent
of the time spent on smartphones is in mobile apps.
This backs up recent research undertaken by Nice
into the mobile generation gap and where brands
should focus their efforts. In fact, Gen X, Y and Z
are all incredibly important target markets for brands.
However by taking an attitude-based view of a
desired audience type creates a much more aligned
view between these three different markets.
According to a study conducted with over 700
companies, only 4 percent said that they use mobile
applications to help with such things as supply chain
management, logistics, purchasing, maintenance,
service or sales reports. This number is very low, but
the study also found that 100 percent of participants
believed that the number will jump to at least 50
percent in the next two years.
This trend might be fuelled with the data that shows
that 17 percent of businesses, in the US, save
between $25,000 and $100,000 annually
by switching from web applications to internal
mobile applications.
DEVICE OWNERSHIP
Mobile device ownership in general is slightly higher
for people between 25 and 34, with 81 percent
owning a smartphone. The 18-24 age group is slightly
lower at 79 percent. These numbers represent the
income difference between both demographics.
This theory is supported when you see that the
average annual income of the iPhone owner is
higher compared to that of Android users. The same
study also found iPhone users engage with their
smartphone a full nine hours more per month than
Android users.
THE OPPORTUNITY: Include an older
audience (ages 25-34) when developing
personas for marketing. Make sure that the tone
of voice speaks to the millennials and Gen Xers,
because they both make up your audience.
THE GENDER
LANDSCAPE
New app profiling tools have made it possible to
get a demographic breakdown that sheds light on
a question that haunts many marketers: Who is
downloading mobile applications? Much of the data
indicates a clear gender bias in content preferences,
according to App Annie data accrued from their
Audience Intelligence:
•
Two-thirds of iOS travel applications were
downloaded by men in a recent 12-month period.
•
On-demand transit applications such as Uber are
even more skewed towards downloads by men.
THE OPPORTUNITY: This data gives brands
ideas for a holistic mobile app strategy that
speaks to both genders’ shopping behaviour.
Offering the user vouchers and price
comparisons is an effective plan for drumming
up more engagement. One way to get your
message out is through mobile messaging and
push strategies. According to Urban Airship
both techniques can significantly improve
mobile engagement by up to 21% and user
retention by double and ensuring you can by
hyper targeted to specific audience segments
and gender.
•
Women primarily drive photo and video app
downloads (think Instagram and Snapchat).
But when it comes to fitness and health, women
spend twice as much time as men in this category,
while men outnumber women in news, music, sports
and maps.
•
Sports applications, including ESPN
SportsCenter and Yahoo Sports, are heavily
skewed toward males — with over three-quarters
of downloads coming from men.
It’s crucial to obtain user data and segmentation —
as quickly as possible to understand how you should
be shaping your content for your user base.
Overall, women spend more time using mobile web
and/or applications, and one-half of women versus
one-third of men use social media applications in
a typical week, according to a study conducted by
Burst Media.
The breakdown of this survey gives us a high-level
view of popular mobile destinations for each gender.
The differences between men and women’s
mobile app behaviour don’t end there. Shopping
is approached very differently between the sexes.
Women are more likely (one-half versus 37.1 percent
of men) to access vouchers in a retail location, while
men (42.6 percent) are more apt to compare store
brand prices (37.4 percent) with their mobile device.
Remember, most applications are deleted six months
after they’re first downloaded.
THE OPPORTUNITY: There are many
different strategies that you can take to
thoughtfully engage both your male and female
app users:
•
Use audience segmentation to send
personalised messages
•
Track a customer lifecycle to get an
overall view of a user’s experience from
the day they launch to the present day
UNDERSTANDING USER
MOTIVATIONS
When it comes to mobile applications, everything you
need is in your pocket, which is why people check
their phones up to 150 times a day, according to a
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s annual report. The
capacity to connect and be productive is an attractive
driver for app usage. According to a study conducted
by InsightsNow for AOL and BBDO, there are
seven basic motivators that drive people to using
mobile applications.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Self-expression
Discovery
Preparation
Accomplishment
Shopping
Socialising
“Me” time
Think of these as story telling methods. If you
were to tell the story of your user, who would their
character be and what would they do? For example:
Molly wakes up and checks her weather app before
hopping out of bed. She slowly trudges to the shower
while looking at her news app. After getting ready,
she takes a look at her map app for traffic updates.
Once at work, she takes a peek at her social media
app before starting her day. At lunch, Molly orders
a sandwich through a local restaurant’s app. As she
walks down the street, she takes some pictures
capturing the beautiful weather and posts them on her
photo-sharing app. To her delight, her sandwich is as
huge and delicious as the review on her restaurant
guide app said it would be. She takes a picture before
posting it on her social media app with the hashtags
#livinglarge #SoLucky #TryGyroHouseSub. Before
heading back into work, she adds her lunch to her
food diary app. After work, Molly texts her friends to
see if they want to meet up. Her friend, Paul, wants to
try a new place so she looks up a good review on a
restaurant guide app.
Before confirming with him, she glances at her bank’s
app and transfers some money. She finds a cool
place across town and accesses her bus app to find
out the schedule. Once on the bus, she listens to
her music app and plays a game on her smartphone.
Molly remembers that she is out of dog food and
orders a bag on her grocery app to be delivered.
Right before meeting her friend, she posts on her
social media app where she is to see if anyone wants
to meet up with them.
These are mobile moments.
We see situations that reflect “self-expression”
time (posting pictures of the weather), “discovery”
(finding a new hangout), “preparation” (getting a bus
schedule), “accomplishment” (filling out the food
diary), “shopping” (buying dog food), “socialising”
(social media), and “me time” (listening to music and
playing games). Use this exercise when constructing
your brand’s mobile app strategy. If you don’t know
who your consumer is or what their motivations are
throughout the day, it will be hard to engage your user
or find out what kind of content to send to them.
WHERE AND WHEN PEOPLE USE
APPLICATIONS
Did you know that peak mobile app hours are
between 8pm and 9pm?
People aren’t using tablets or laptops when they’re at
home at night as mobile is the primary consumption
device, with the main focus being around mobile
devices while dual screening or multitasking in their
down time. The timeframe before sleep is often
enjoyed as “me time.” It’s during this time social
media, gaming and entertainment see an uplift. Most
“heavy duty tasks” that need to be performed on
a laptop aren’t needed during these peak hours at
night, which creates opportunities for mobile.
What other types of application receive heavy traffic
during the day? The morning sees heavy mobile app
usage for news, weather and travel in the morning.
Daytime usage shows a preference toward music,
business and finance.
In fact targeting users grey time in a strategic way can
significantly increase app engagement and usage.
WHAT’S OUR
TAKEAWAY?
Mobile app users exhibit a pattern of usage that
shouldn’t be ignored. You can pair engagement
strategies such as in-app messaging with push
notifications to meet users while they are following
these daily patterns. This approach makes your app
more effective, engaging, and relevant to the user. As
far as creating the ultimate user experience, be there
for when your user wants to engage with your brand.
WHAT DO MOBILE APP
USERS EXPECT?
There are some basic needs and wants that
mobile app users have come to expect from their
mobile application:
SOURCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
•
Speed: 78 percent of people expect their mobile
app to launch faster than a mobile website
•
Easy Browsing: Users want an app that is simple
to navigate
7.
•
Access to Information: Basic details about
products and stores should be easy to find
8.
•
Help Planning Trips: Users prefer utility travel
services
•
Make Life Easier: 50 percent of mobile users
feel like applications are more convenient than
websites
•
Relevant Information: You must deliver something
of value to get people to think of your app
•
Functionality: Users want to easily browse an app
and take action with an intuitive interface
6.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
WHY CREATE AN
APPLICATION?
Brands need to go where customer trends are going
— on mobile. Building a strong mobile presence is
the most effective way to drive engagement and,
ultimately, revenue.
Mobile is the here and now and the next. Companies
that have already invested in this area have already
seen an increase in awareness, affinity and growth.
The key elements behind a successful mobile app
aren’t a mystery: audience understanding, valuable
content, ability to communicate, and functionality.
Keep in mind that this association is not one-sided.
Foster a relationship between you and your consumer
that serves you both.
15.
16.
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18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
CONCLUSION
Mobile, in many ways, is better equipped to fit our
on-the-go culture than desktop. Applications serve
our constant need for relevant content in a way that
is more effective than mobile web. Brands must
seamlessly shift to mobile applications for their
consumers in a way that creates value and purpose
for the end user.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
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Urban Airship Autonomy Report
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