Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid Before and After the Mobile App Launch

Mobile apps play a huge part in our lives today. Be it related to entertainment, productivity, or lifestyle, apps are benefitting us in many ways. We can read news, navigate places, order food and medicines, stream videos, and whatnot. Mobile apps have covered almost every business sector. Is there anything for which we don’t have an app yet?

The reason behind the upsurge of mobile apps has much to do with smartphones becoming way too technology-friendly. Over time, phones turned into smartphones and opened new opportunities for app developers. Every other month, there’s a new smartphone launch that is equipped with the latest technology. And to harness its benefits, more and more mobile apps compatible with that technology mark their presence in the app marketplace. The two largest app stores, i.e. Google Play Store and Apple Store account for more than 5.7 million apps today and hundreds of apps are pushed to the app stores daily.

Every business owner wishes to have a mobile app for their brand and looks for an app development company for that matter. But just having an app isn’t enough. The job doesn’t end if your app is ready to be rolled out. Many appreneurs make certain mistakes before and after the app launch which you must strictly avoid for your app to head in the right direction on its road to success. Let’s first take a look at the pre-launch mistakes.

Mistakes to Avoid Before the App Launch

The app development cycle comprises mainly the development, design, and testing stage. While developers do ensure that the app remains bug-free throughout the cycle and functions smoothly, certain other points should be addressed which would be effective if done before the app launch. Let’s take a look at what they can be.

1. Not Gathering Enough Information About Target Users

Building an app for your business simply means building an app for your target audience. It is therefore important that you have a fair bit of understanding of the users who are going to use your app, their likes and dislikes, and most importantly their requirements. Address users’ pain points like what kind of issues they are facing with other similar apps available in the market and how your app is going to address those challenges. You might have an awesome app but it would be of no value if it is not serving the target audience. So before you proceed, make sure that you have enough information about your target users.

2. Not Doing Beta Testing

Beta testing is a kind of user acceptance testing where a set of target users are provided the product/app before the app launch in order to evaluate its performance and get valuable feedback from the users, which can be incorporated into the app before making it public, thus reducing the possibility of app failure and increasing user satisfaction.

Beta testing is performed at the final stage of the app development process when the app is all set to launch, and it is done in real environments, not lab ones. You might have done a wonderful job from your end but it is the users ultimately who decide whether the app is worth the purpose or not. This is why beta testing is important. It provides you with an opportunity to actually know what inconveniences users are facing while using your app and which are the areas they feel can be improved or worked upon. Knowing this beforehand through beta testing can be of great help and allows you to adjust those changes in your app before you launch it officially.

3. Not Utilizing Pre-Launch Opportunities

Kick-start your marketing activities even before the app release. One of the common mistakes that app owners usually make is they start their marketing efforts too late. Don’t wait for the launch. Start promoting your app early among the target audience. Spread a word about it to your users through email or by putting this information on your social media pages, and even your website homepage. Do whatever it takes that gets people talking about your app. This could create curiosity among users and would grab more attention when you launch your app officially.

4. Not Keeping a Check on the App Store Guidelines

To launch your app successfully or list it on the app marketplace, it’s imperative that you abide by the app store guidelines. Both Google and Apple have their set of guidelines for their respective store that must be followed in order to avoid getting your app rejected. For example, the app should be thoroughly tested, match the design standards, etc. Make sure you have tick-marked all the guidelines and cross-verified that the app doesn’t violate any of them.

5. Inadequate or Poor App Store Optimization

The goal shouldn’t be just launching the app on the app stores but to ensure that it reaches the audience it is intended for and starts capturing downloads. But getting your app noticed in a crowded marketplace is indeed a challenging task, the least you can do is optimizing it perfectly for the app stores. The keywords should be well-placed and in an inadequate amount. The title should be catchy; something that clearly strikes the users’ minds what the app is about. The description should be apt that clearly defines your app. Besides, adding some nice screenshots of the app that provide an overview could also be of great help. The better the app is optimized, the better are its chances of getting displayed to the right audience and getting a higher rank in the app searches.

6. Not Having A Release Date

Do not make the mistake of releasing your app on a random date. Keep a check on the upcoming tech events and then plan a release date for your app accordingly so that it doesn’t coincide with any other event and you get proper media/press coverage. This would also keep the users well-informed about the release date.

Mistakes to Avoid After the App Launch

Now that we have gone through some of the pre-launch app mistakes, let’s take a look at post-launch app mistakes.

7. No Regular Updates

An app doesn’t remain the same throughout its lifetime, it goes through several updates. What Facebook was a decade ago is completely different from what it is now. Updates are important because new technologies keep embracing the tech sector. Besides, users’ demands and expectations also keep changing with time. You need to incorporate the latest trends and technologies into your app so that your users enjoy the latest experience. It also helps you stay competitive in the market. For example, Dark mode didn’t exist until a few years ago but today almost every other app supports Dark mode. So you need to catch up with the trend, see how you can further improve the app experience of your users, and address areas that might compel users to uninstall the application.

8. Poor Customer Support

Users aren’t much drawn towards an app that lacks quality customer support. A user can encounter N number of problems while they browse your app, and if they find trouble reaching out to customer support, it can degrade the app value and hamper your brand image. To avoid leaving a bad influence on your users, make sure the app provides various means for users to get their queries resolved, such as through live chat, phone support, email, social media support, and FAQs.

9. Not Paying Attention to the Users’ Ratings and Reviews

Whether or not a user will download the app is mostly decided by its reviews and ratings. If the app has a significant amount of good reviews and an overall good rating, users will most likely download that application provided it’s the kind of app they were looking for. Positive reviews encourage future users to install your app while you can consider the negative ones as feedback to analyze why users didn’t like the app. Reviews have a great impact on the app ranking as well. The more positive reviews you have, the more are the chances of the app ranking higher on the search results.

10. Not Tracking The Key Parameters

There are different sets of parameters assigned to track an app’s performance such as the bounce rate, conversions, number of people visiting the app, etc. These parameters need to be looked upon regularly to understand which sections of your app are the most useful for your users, which are the most and least visited, and more. This way, you can work on the pain points of the app users and also improve the app functionality.

Conclusion

With consumers relying heavily on apps for most of their tasks, there’s no denying that the mobile app market is going to experience staggering growth in the future. And if you want to stand out in a crowded app marketplace, you must avoid these pre and post-app launch mistakes.