There’s an App for that. So true. Now there are millions of Apps for just about anything. And it has become increasingly difficult to stand out from this ocean of Apps. More than ever it’s of paramount importance to get your App noticed by users and to engage them on a regular base.
One of our customers, Morawa, used to have a passive App with lots of interesting content (e.g., magazines in PDF format) and a link to the online-store. But unfortunately, there were no mechanisms for users to express their interests and more importantly no mechanisms to engage users. Content was basically put into an App and nobody was looking at it. The numbers of daily active users kept plummeting and the App was practically dying.
To overcome this sad state of affairs, we implemented a Seven + 1 (seven plus one) strategy for Morawa to create an active App:
1. We implemented a mechanism that let users express their particular interests and filter for interesting content in the App.
2. We used the existing CMS as datasource and created an automated content creation system for the App.
3. We transformed the content of the “PDF-Silos” and turned them into content that is easily accessible by users in the App. No more downloading PDFs.
4. We implemented a news stream in the app. The news stream contains information that users are interested in.
5. We implemented push notifications that inform users when new interesting content becomes available.
6. We integrated Call to Action in the news stream and in the push notifications. The Call to Action brings users directly to the store.
7. We seamlessly integrated the online-store into the App.
Embedded were these activities in a continuous design effort. We planned every implementation step carefully and always kept the focus on UX and design. This UX/design driven approach ensures that the implementation is driven into the right direction. It’s not about features, it’s about how to compose the right features in the best possible way.
This strategy stopped the free fall of daily active users practically at once. Within several weeks, daily active users had risen by over 400%. The Morawa App is alive (and kicking).
