Mobile App Development: How to find the perfect target market?

Mobile App Development: In the current highly competitive environment, most app makers are worried about being successful and getting a significant share of the market. However, it is common for these app makers to not thoroughly research who their target audience is going to be, which leads to apps being created without necessarily providing the service or product needed by this specific audience.

For upon |This article is going to highlight the importance of finding the most fitting target market for your mobile app, as well as provide the readers with some tips on how to efficiently do the market research and find the audience that will lead your app to success.

The process of developing a mobile application from top to bottom is hard enough. However, understanding some of the things you will have to think about beforehand is something that seems even more challenging for many app makers, mostly because these are things they do not necessarily think about right away.

Before even starting to develop your app, we recommend you do all the research necessary to make sure that the time, money, and energy you are about to spend will be worth it and lead to something fruitful and lucrative. Figuring out who you are building that app for, what are their customer pains and how your product will contribute to getting rid of it is probably the most important research you will have to do during the beginning stages of your mobile app development process.

Market research and the findings you get from it will be extremely important since it will allow you to have a better understanding of how your customers think and what they will expect from your app. A study from CBInsights has revealed that around 14% of startups were not able to get the attention of their users because they did not have enough information about the market they were targeting. Mobile App Development.

In the highly competitive environment, the mobile app industry is currently in, making these kinds of rookie mistakes can quickly cost you your part of the market. Having a clear understanding of who your customers will be before even providing them with a product will therefore be very important if you hope to be successful.

In this article, we will explain how to figure out the perfect target audience for your mobile app.

The advantages of knowing your audience:

• Creates a product your audience will need, rather than create something you think they might need
• Increases your chances of launching a successful and lucrative app
• Allows you to effectively and efficiently launch marketing campaigns in the most appropriate and fitting channels
• Get the best app specifications ready by helping you develop your best monetization scheme and strategy

How to conduct target market research:

Because of how popular smartphones have become over recent years, millions of mobile apps have been created, all to allow users to accomplish different tasks and improve their daily lives in different ways. Because of the large number of apps already available in the market, it is not surprising to see now how users are actively looking for something cutting-edge, innovative, and different from what they already know and have experienced.

In the context of e-commerce, 85% of people wanted available discounts on similar products to ones they had previously purchased according to a Clutch survey. It is therefore recommended to divide what you find into two separate parts: one called general understanding and the other one being the secondary market research.

General Understanding:

The general understanding section allows you to gain some general insight regarding who your target market is going to be and what kind of demographic they are going to be a part of. Having a retail store app, for instance, will probably mean that your target audience will include different types of people in different demographics.

However, in the context of retail stores, you will have to also understand that shopping activities are largely associated with and done by younger women, who seem to shop more often than men do. While you shouldn’t state that your target audience is younger women, it could be an advantage to keep that in mind while still being accessible to other demographics.

Secondary Market Research:

Secondary market research allows you to have a deeper understanding of your target market. Because it is done by looking at data that already exists such as company reports and existing surveys, you will also be able to learn more not only about your audience specifically, but also the market in general as well as your competitors.

In the context of the retail app, you can for instance focus on how often people log into the app to look for new clothes, what kind of items they gravitate towards the most, what kind of mode of payment is used the most often, etc.

Audience demographics and behaviors:

When doing the research, it will be important for you to identify certain details about your target audience that will allow you to identify them more easily such as gender, race, location, age and even socio-economic status.

Knowing these specific details might be more or less important depending on the nature of your app.

Surveys:

Conducting a survey is done by talking directly with your target audience and ask them questions about what they like and most importantly, what they do not like. However, there are different, yet all efficient, ways to conduct surveys:

Combining landing pages with Facebook advertising allows you to develop different pages for different types of target audiences but also connect them to a landing page containing details regarding your products and services. Add some images and a button with a call-to-action to see which demographic interacts with it the most.

Combining both a survey and an interactive prototype is the second type of survey you can do. By creating an interactive app prototype, you will be able to draw people into your app where a survey inquiring about what they like and do not like will be waiting for them.
Combining mobile MVP with feedback for the user is another way of doing a survey. This can be done by gathering a lot of information about your target audience. Not only will you be able to collect feedback from different groups or communities, but you will also be able to submit your mobile app so that it can be reviewed by different groups.

Here are some other marketing strategies you can follow that will allow you to properly research your app’s target audience:

• Create and get insight from focus groups, which will give you a clear idea of what your users will want
• Partner with influencers on social media to see what their audience think about your product
• Build strong app monetization policies as well as advertising

​In-depth and thorough research on your target market during the mobile app development process is vital if you wish to gain an important part of the market and have a successful and lucrative application. This research is important because it will give you a proper understanding of the people who are going to use your app, which will allow you to create the best and most efficient product for them, and while what the users want seem to be constantly changing due to technology and cultural shifts, in-depth research about your potential target remains one of the most important factors that will determine the future success of your mobile app.

The article was originally published here.