How to Increase App Users: 9 Actionable App Engagement Strategies

It’s one thing to launch an app and another to have a sufficient number of users who will use it. While the former seems relatively easy to actualize, the latter is a serious challenge for several brands and app owners.

To ensure you always have engaged app users, you need to introduce some features your audience cannot resist. But it doesn’t stop there, as you’d have to go the extra mile to offer users an unalloyed experience. 

In this guide, you will find nine practical tips on how to increase app users seamlessly and efficiently, driving more sales and revenue. Let’s get started!

Why Is It So Challenging to Increase App Users?

One major reason users tend to slip away is oversaturation. Too many apps are vying for users’ attention in the digital space. Google Play, a popular mobile app vendor, has over 2.2 million mobile apps.

For some, their failure to track and monitor engagement metrics keeps them from growing. Beyond running ads and curating exceptional services for your audience, monitoring these metrics shows your weak points and helps you improve your marketing strategy.

Many brands also struggle with increasing their users because they don’t know how to captivate their target audience. Moreover, there are several trends in the market that users are trying to keep up with. These trends can affect your audience’s preference and determine user behavior. Therefore, an app that cannot adapt to such trends will struggle to retain its users.

Understanding App User Engagement

App user engagement helps developers monitor how often people explore their apps and features. A higher app user engagement shows that your app is successful, as it also comes with a higher retention rate, user satisfaction, and monetization.

There are several metrics you can use to keep track of your app activity and get accurate information on app user engagement; some of them include:

• Active Users: This helps you track the number of users that open your app within a specified period, e.g., every day (daily active users (DAU)), every week (weekly active users (WAU)), and every month (monthly active users (MAU)).
• Retention and Churn Rate: These are two sides of the same coin. Retention rate refers to the percentage of increase in app users, while churn rate refers to the decrease in users. These metrics are usually measured within a specific time frame, like 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, or even 90 days.
• Session Metrics: With this, you can monitor how long a user spends on your app in a single-use session. Session frequency also shows how often each user returns to your app.
• Page Views: By tracking this metric, you can identify the most common pages people visit and how often they visit them.

Although tracking these metrics may seem stressful, it is important because it can help you improve user experience by identifying those losing interest and making changes. It also helps you increase retention rates.

Not to mention the increased sales and monetization you will enjoy by having a loyal customer base. So don’t be left out; monitor these metrics to improve your marketing strategies and products and increase app user engagement.

9 Actionable Strategies to Increase Engagement of App Users

Growing your app user base is possible so long as you are intentional and put in the right effort. Let’s explore some practical tips you can use to boost conversion and increase app users:

Tip 1: Create a Smooth Onboarding Experience

One of the most important ways to increase app users and achieve immense success is to ensure you offer a seamless onboarding experience. It would determine whether the users would continue using the app or delete it moments later. 

It’s important to keep the process as straightforward as possible and not bore the users with unnecessary forms and details. If you’ve already gone through hassles to acquire new users, creating a good personalized onboarding experience should be a piece of cake. 

You can also add easy signup integrations using Google, Facebook, and other notable platforms on which your audience might have already created accounts.

Tip 2: Include Gamification

At least 89% of app users will spend more time on an app that is gamified. This is because they just can’t ignore the fun and several exciting rewards you have to offer. Gamification is another trusted mobile app growth strategy that will help you increase app users.

It simply involves introducing leaderboards, quests, rewards, and several elements you can find in games. The goal is to make your app more exciting and create a virtual reward system without compromising on the quality of your service.

The most common gamification feature you can introduce is a leaderboard that ranks users based on performance. Also, you can award users points for completing tasks or achieving milestones. Use these points to unlock badges or rewards.

Progress bars also encourage users to continue using your app by creating a sense of accomplishment. Another option is to create quests and challenges that will require users to complete specific tasks.

Tip 3: Use Push Notifications Strategically

Push notifications can help increase the engagement of app users; however, you need to use them strategically. You can use them to send important information and news about the latest updates to the app.

When you send too many push notifications, your audience can take drastic action, such as abandoning or uninstalling your app. To ensure each user opens your notification, you should send about 1 to 2 a week or only when necessary.

Research also shows that adding a user’s name to a push notification increases their chances of reacting by 4. For example, as an online store, you can send a push notification reminding the customer of the items they still have in their cart; this works almost all the time, especially for daily active users.

Tip 4: Provide In-App Support

You can’t talk about mobile app growth strategy without paying rapt attention to your customer support systems. When users see that you are willing to help them address their issues and concerns, they tend to stay loyal to your brand. It is an opportunity for you to create an enjoyable user experience, so use it to provide timely support to your audience.

You can set up in-app tutorials for specific features or functions in the app. You can even set up a live chat support where you can communicate easily. Studies have shown that 50% of the businesses that use a live chatbox tend to generate more quality leads.

Setting up automated in-app messaging or a live chatbox may be quite costly. You can opt for request forms or communicate via email if you have a tight budget. The goal is to ensure you address the client’s concerns and build trust while at it.

Tip 5: Personalize the App Experience

Personalization makes each user feel special as it shows great intentionality on your part. It also leads to increased user engagement, satisfaction, and higher conversions. You can increase app users by tailoring each content and feature to the user’s preference.

You need to use user data to make your personalization efforts effective. This provides a clear picture of their track record and gives you ideas of what they would like. You can take things further by allowing your users to customize their settings, themes, language, etc.

One of the most common tricks is personalized in-app messaging. Remember, your users are your focus, so you have to do all that is necessary to keep them locked in with your brand for a long time.

Tip 6: Try Omnichannel Marketing

For some brands, it’s all about being in their audience’s faces. So whether it’s social media, email, or even in-app messaging, they use every opportunity to contact their audience. This mobile app growth strategy has helped brands maintain consistent quality of service at all touchpoints.

You can start by integrating your app with other channels, like email, website, etc, to maintain a consistent voice. Also, set up a smooth transition from app to website and vice versa for those who may need to make purchases and carry out different transactions.

This method also offers you a great opportunity to introduce new features and increase the engagement of app users. In no time, you will have many monthly active users and an active audience that engages your product.

Tip 7: Engage Users Via Social Media and Email

Social media is undoubtedly one of the surefire ways on how to increase users on apps. As new trends emerge, your users are more likely to jump on them. So, it only makes sense to properly position your brand and leverage social media advertising to reach new prospects.

Using these channels effectively, you can build meaningful relationships, promote your app, and create user-centric content. Email marketing is also quite fruitful as it’s often targeted at the right demography that might have shown one form of interest or another in the nature of your app's services.

As an intentional mobile app growth strategy, you can offer existing and prospective users freebies requiring them to submit their email addresses and names to claim. This information will be resourceful in your personalized marketing while allowing you to keep them up-to-date with your latest offerings. Ultimately, when done properly, email marketing will help you increase app users in record time.

Tip 8: Encourage Key Features Use

In some cases, users may be unable to explore all your app features for various reasons. In this case, your best bet is to educate them about these special features. Let them know why they should upgrade to these key features and how to use them.

To ensure a smooth upgrade, you should try deep linking for the older generation, as they may not be able to spot those features easily. Tutorials and support resources will also give them much-needed guidance.

With in-app messaging, you can also attach CTA buttons to remind them of things they may have missed. That way, you will ensure that they don’t miss out on any key feature as they explore your app.

Tip 9: Gather Feedback

This is often one of the most underrated ways on how to increase users on an app. Despite how important it is to gather feedback, many developers tend to ignore it. Let’s face it: You may run the best ads and onboard new users often, but you’ll never achieve the app users' number if you ignore your customers’ opinions.

It’s not rocket science; when you get firsthand information from each user, you can analyze their unique experience and see how your app is faring.

Based on your feedback, you can identify churn triggers and onboard skeptical users through app retargeting. This will also help you restrategize your marketing efforts to ensure you are addressing your audience’s pain points.

You can use in-app surveys, social media polls, request forms, and other means to get valuable feedback. Even with app store reviews, you can kickstart your app store optimization process and increase your ranking, thus reaching more users.

Develop an Actionable App Growth Strategy With Reteno

If you’ve been struggling with customer acquisition and retention, Reteno is your trusted customer retention platform. We offer a robust omnichannel marketing automation feature to help you develop an effective mobile app growth strategy, run personalized campaigns, and reach the right audience.

Whether you want to reach your users through email or you love to send in-app messages, you can trust us to deliver these messages easily. We also help you gather accurate data that you can use to expand your client base and predict customer lifetime value.

So why wait? Get started with Reteno today to increase your ROI. Check out our features to develop a mobile app growth strategy to skyrocket your retention rates.

Final Thoughts

While it’s normal for brands to be intentional about increasing the number of users on apps, most people go about it the wrong way. If you can simply create an unforgettable user experience, your customers will be hooked. 

Beyond that, they’ll spread the good word to anyone who cares to listen and bring more clients to you. By implementing the tips outlined above, you’ll be well on your way to increase your reach and enjoy long-term growth. 

Remember, with patience and intentionality, you’ll start to enjoy tangible results in no time. You don’t have to struggle through the process alone; work with Reteno to enjoy quality service and peace of mind. Sign up now to get started.