Is Your Mobile App Targeting the Right Customers?

There are many steps in the development cycle of a mobile application. And as a leading iPhone app developer, we don’t take this lightly in saying that any mobile app an organization brings to market is doomed to fail if your company doesn’t know its target audience. Perhaps before it even launches. The best – and perhaps only – way to avoid this dire outcome is to ensure you are targeting the right customers for your mobile application.

 A quick internet search will reveal words like target audience, market research, or target market. These are all important when researching the customers for your mobile application As a prominent app developer in San Diego, and a presence in Seattle, San Fransico and other key tech hubs, we feel it’s valuable to really dig into what’s required when targeting your key audience.

Know Your Audience 

There are several ways to determine the correct audience for a mobile application. Perhaps the most important factor is clearly understanding the mobile application’s value. Or in other words, why do you want to design, develop, and launch an app? If you can answer that question, it becomes much easier to know the type of customers that would want, need, or benefit from the mobile app. It is important to note that knowing the value offered by the mobile application isn’t the same as explaining what it does or what cool features it may have.

Instead, ask questions such as:

• What will the mobile app do (or problem it will solve)? And why?
• How will the mobile app provide value to your potential customers?
• Why would anyone want to download your application?

 Perhaps the answers to these questions come quick and easy. If so, then consider yourself lucky. For most – and even if you can answer the above questions instantly – conducting market research is the next prudent step. Market research for your target audience includes essential demographics such as age, gender, education, location, and device usage. Conducting market research may also provide insight into what mobile apps already exist in the app store.

Market Research 

Market research is the organized and concerted effort to gather as much information about your target audience to understand their needs better. When you know your customers and define their needs relevant to the mobile application project, this information acts as the focal point for nearly all decisions.

 It may come as a surprise but conducting market research is not a ‘one and done’ proposition. Getting to know your customers begins either before or shortly after the concept of a mobile application. However, as your mobile application project grows and develops, revisiting what you know about your customers, and the challenges or pain points the mobile app intends to address, helps focus the project development.

 Speaking to your potential customers is a great way to gather information. If you have a built-in customer base, polling them with questions about your potential mobile application provides valuable data. Another method is analyzing market trends of similar mobile apps or a competitor’s mobile app offering. Potential customers may not be the only place you conduct research. If applicable, merchants and brokers are excellent sources of information gathering.

 Conducting market research defines your customers’ problems, understands what your competition offers, and helps develop a marketing strategy.

Reaching Your Customers 

Ultimately, providing value or solving a problem for your customers is the end goal of a mobile application, often referred to as the value proposition. Once you know who your customers are and the mobile application’s value proposition, it’s never too early to create an effective marketing strategy. Sure, many steps come before it is time to market your mobile application to your target audience. However, waiting until late in the development lifecycle to formulate a marketing strategy could prove disastrous.

 Building a customer persona is a great step, especially early in the development process. A buyer persona identifies potential users by creating a fictionalized customer. This fictionalized customer stems from the information gathered and studied in the market research.

 Creating fictional personas is essential, particularly if your app appeals to multiple demographics. Marketing your mobile app to young adults takes on a different style and tone than the marketing angle for older generations. Building the different personas of potential customers that will use your app identifies these differences.

Dogtown Partnership 

Dogtown Media understands the importance of targeting the right customers for your mobile application. We have extensive experience conducting market research and will help ensure we create the right app to solve your customers’ problems. Take advantage of our free consultation to speak to our experts. We are happy to answer any questions you have about our market research process or any other questions related to mobile application development.