The app

Purpose

Your app should help solve some kind of user "pain". That is the single most important question, because if your app does not solve a problem, nobody will use it. The problem can be anything — from boredom to home automation, a social network or help for people with disabilities. Then you have to work out how you will solve it.

Precisely because, if you cannot answer that question, you do not have a clear idea of what the app is. It is also worth thinking hard about the goal you want the app to reach. The moment you decide to build it, you run the risk of building something aimed at a problem that is only yours. That is why it helps to involve other people in the concept. Either way, building it for yourself can be positive: it deepens your involvement with the product, which helps in the long run. 

Target audience

The key to a successful app is user retention, not download count. Both the App Store and the Play Store look for quality, not quantity, when they determine search rankings. So be persistent and patient — being an instant hit can cause even more headaches, because you then have to scale and adapt very quickly to support a suddenly larger user base, which is complicated and hard to do.

As with any product or service you sell or create, pay attention to the target audience. If your target users are young adults, the approach differs from one aimed at middle-aged people. If you are after creative users, they value different things from people focused on technology. Understanding not just who your users are but what they want is perhaps the most crucial part of building an app.

It can also be the hardest. You have to find a balance that appeals to your target audience and to the wider public as well. Otherwise your app may have limited room to grow.

Support for the app

Platform

Will your app need ongoing maintenance and support? If it needs no continuous involvement from you, wonderful — nothing to worry about. If it does, you need to think through the costs and the processes involved. 

Another thing to consider: which devices do you want your app to run on? The best-known platforms today are iOS, Android and Progressive Web Apps. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. With PWAs, for instance, anyone with a browser — on a phone, a tablet or a computer — can use the app, but PWAs cannot be submitted to the Apple Store or the Play Store. So get to know the niche and what each platform can offer your app, and weigh the pros and cons of each. 

Privacy and security in your app

The best way to keep your users' data safe and private is to store only what is absolutely necessary. That limits what can be exposed in a breach or a leak. Storing data such as location, for example, is unnecessary depending on the niche and the purpose of the app — and having access to that information turns not only the user but the app itself into a target for attackers. 

Security is a good deal more complicated. Hardware and software that apps depend on regularly present new vulnerabilities, and those vulnerabilities give attackers new ways into data and systems they should not reach. The security of your apps therefore has to keep evolving.

Which means always following well-documented best practice — enforcing strong passwords, for example. If your app requires users to create accounts or interacts with proprietary or third-party APIs, it is advisable to consult someone with experience in security.

Innovation and usability (UX)

Knowing the competition is part of every product and every business. You need to know what they are doing, how they are doing it and what it is returning. There is nothing wrong with building something someone has already built, as long as your app brings some innovation. Research, in fact, will always be part of your app-building journey.

As trends shift, technologies evolve and new competitors appear. You have to adapt to stay ahead. Your app does not only need to look good: it has to carry out tasks efficiently and simply for users. So your app should work well before you put effort into making it beautiful — which does not mean ignoring good design altogether. Users decide quickly whether they like something, and that decision is heavily influenced by how the product looks.

So pay attention to user experience (UX) with a view to improving it, and to the user interface (UI) — the care put into how a user interacts with a site, a layout or a product. That part is far more objective and controllable. In short, your app will not succeed if it is slow, if it has irritating and pointless animations, if it keeps throwing errors and does not deliver what the user expected.

5 benefits of having your own app

1 — A direct marketing channel

With an app of your own, your business gains a direct marketing channel to its customer. You get a place where you can give customers all kinds of information, free and targeted, thanks to geolocation. And through push notifications you get active, direct interaction, reminding customers of the services and products your company offers. 

2 — Stronger customer loyalty

Through the app your customer always knows where to find your products or services. With the same payment methods, exclusive promotions and easy access, customers tend to feel more connected to your business — and less likely to interact with the competition.

3 — A better customer experience

With a dedicated app the customer can find everything they need, with intuitive navigation and more comfort. The app also lets you personalise the customer experience (UX), bringing what is relevant closer and streamlining certain features. It makes announcing and accessing exclusive promotions easier for whoever has the app.

4 — Visibility

With this tool, your product or service is always in the customer's hand. Your company becomes more visible, because the app is installed with an icon that catches the eye in a good way. An icon tied to your company's image reinforces the right association, and over the medium and long term you consolidate your brand and your signature across all sorts of places and platforms. 

5 — Practicality

Here practicality pays twice. Besides being easier for your customer to reach your business, the service itself becomes more practical for you. With a well-built app you can centralise customer service in an automated way, guaranteeing not only quality but faster results. With automations you can review the replies and contacts customers make, measure the service and keep tighter control of the products or services sold.

What Manáry brings to your growth 

So now you know what to focus on to build your app. But how do you make it happen? Manáry Digital also builds apps, did you know? We specialise in content creation, in professional and corporate website development and in e-commerce. And it does not stop there: we run social media campaigns (Meta Ads) and Google Ads, alongside visual identity.

services. In other words, everything your app needs to be built well. And as we said above, an app can be a great ally for your business's marketing — much like Manáry Digital. Our team is multidisciplinary, we deliver quickly and efficiently and we produce many kinds of content, so your organic results are amplified more effectively.