The lights in the city have been switched on, festive songs are now popping up on the radio and the infamous John Lewis advert is the talk of the nation. There’s no denying it, Christmas is on it’s way! Perhaps that’s why whilst having an office discussion about app maintenance our Managing Director coined the brilliant and apt phrase ‘An app is for life, not just for Christmas’.
A short while ago we published a blog post entitled ‘7 simple tips for marketing your app’. In it we claim that you should put in just as much thought to your marketing strategy, as you did in creating the app itself. This is also true of analytics and maintenance.
Many people think once the app is on the app stores, the jobs a good’un. However, this is far from true. Without ongoing analytics and maintenance, you run the risk of your app laying dormant in the vast, crowded sea that is the app store. There are 1.2 Million apps available and people are not sentimental if your app doesn’t work and theres a thousand others out there that could replace it.
You should view your app being published as just the beginning of the journey and here are our five main reasons why.
1) You need to respond to your customers.
After a while your app will no doubt start to receive reviews and ratings. This function is there for a reason; to help other shoppers decide whether or not your app is worth them downloading it. A tirade of poor reviews will undoubtedly mean your app will struggle.
You should value your customers, listen to what they have to say and respond accordingly. As long as your app is in the app store, you could be getting reviews which need a response. This is an ongoing element that many people seem to neglect and one that, if goes unaddressed, could devalue all your hard work.
2) Analytics can tell you things, and you should listen
No matter what, you will not know how people are using your app unless you look properly at the analytics. Just glancing at your download figures every month isn’t analytics.
You know that really important button you built that has a great function? Maybe no one is pressing it. Analytics will tell you this, and much like responding to customer reviews you should fix it.
3) Mobile updates all the time
This one is perhaps the most obvious reason why you need ongoing maintenance. Mobile is an ever changing landscape. iOS and Android update their operating systems most years and your app needs to change with them to make the most out of new features, hardware and designs.
More fundamental than that, with every update comes the risk that your app will simply break. An immortal app is just impossible and no one can predict what update will cause it to break. This is why you need constant eyes on your app to ensure it’s still working at the very least.
4) Things change
You never know what’s around the corner and it would be a crying shame to not make the most out of any opportunity to improve your app. You may want to theme it to the seasons. You may have had an amazing idea that’s going to make the app 100 times better. Maybe you’re rebranding your company and you need the app to change to reflect that.
Conclusion
These are all very real and important reasons why you should be doing constant maintenance and analytics for your app, but the reality is that peoples time restrictions hinder this. Not just this, for many people having an idea for and creating an app is really exciting, the constant number checking afterwards…. not so much! Many people are eager to get going on the next project and as such don’t have the time or enthusiasm for the things we talk about above.
For all of the apps we develop at Calvium, we can offer these ongoing services so you can carry on with the next project whilst still getting the most out of your last. Even if your app wasn’t developed by us, we could still have a chat about how we could help you. Feel free to give us a call to discuss your app and how you can be getting the most out of it.
