How to build loyalty through mobile apps.

One of the factors most often having impact on a company’s success is its ability to keep existing clients, from building relationships with them and consequently strengthen them. Among the most effective methods of building loyalty is engaging users via a mobile app. It’s connected with how the medium is consumed and its characteristics, among which there are:

• personalization of communication — much greater than with other channels (chiefly considering the quality of information gathered)
• continuity and immediacy of contact — supported additionally by contextuality which enables full adjustment of the message to the circumstances the user is in
• comfort of use — much bigger than on a mobile web version, if only because of shorter loading time
• greater functionality — including also functions not available on the mobile web version (e.g. push notifications with personalized offers)

Below, we’re presenting an overview of the most common methods of building loyalty with mobile apps.

Loyalty strengthening mechanisms

1. Reward activity

Rewarding user activity is one of the easiest and most common techniques of loyalization, not only for mobile. Most importantly, rewarding your users doesn’t have to be connected with discounts. A good idea and an interesting alternative to discounts is to create a special in-app gratification system calling out to inner motivation. Challenges motivate users to regularly come back to the app and the achievements perform a social function — users can compare and compete with each other. An example of an app that works with this solution is Duolingo. The app rewards you for completing your language lessons daily in “streaks”, counting subsequent days when you’ve done your tasks. Headspace works in a similar way — it counts days when you’ve had your meditation sessions and rewards you with badges.

2. Introduce social features

Social apps are as popular among smartphone users as ever. It’s no different with apps which use social mechanisms as a support of key functions. Most often it is access to forums that let you exchange your opinion; on such forums you can show your badges and achievements (that come with your profile) and compare yourself with other users. Such functions work well in fitness club and mobile game apps. Apart from building loyalty to the brand, social features foster the creation of the so-called user-generated content, i.e. content created by third parties. Such content (e.g. Quora replies) commonly represent a large portion of site traffic, additionally increasing its popularity among new users.

3. Gamify

Gamification is introducing elements of a game to your app where your users can compete. An example of such element can be a consistent point system which enables users to compare their achievements — e.g. as general or thematic ranking boards. It’s very common in games (e.g. the popular Angry Birds series). A voting system can be alternatively used. Its most known implementation is the ‘like’ feature on Facebook. An even clearer example is Reddit, where users have the option to upvote and downvote. These points increase or decrease the user’s rank in the community, influencing their credibility and number of followers. In such a way, the gamifying function plays both the role of an element strengthening engagement and an internal quality control system (downvoted content is quickly superseded by better one).

In m-commerce apps, an example of a gamification function can be post-transaction comments (Allegro) and benefits from completing a given number of transactions within a certain period of time.

Summary: benefits coming from loyalty

As indicated by the data gathered by Invesp, acquiring a new user costs even up to five times more than retaining an existing one. At the same time, the probability of selling a product or service to a returning user turns out to be even 60–70% bigger; returning clients are also 50% more likely to give the products on our offer a chance.

The benefits of having loyal customers don’t only relate to e-commerce. The advantages of a loyalty relation can be optimistic also to businesses that don’t run direct sales (e.g. owners of platforms financing their business with ads and affiliations — e.g. jakdojade.pl). A big number of returning users also means growth of the business’ stability and limits its dependence on what the competition is doing.

For a long time, building loyalty with the mobile channel was associated with partner apps such as Everytap, Freebee, Kekemeke or TapOn. However, mobile loyalty 2.0 means dedicated apps enabling constant contact with the users and reacting to their needs in real time. According to the newest BrightEdge report, 57% of traffic registered on websites in 2017 came from mobile devices. Dedicated mobile apps enable brands and users to move the relationship forged this way to a whole new level.

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Originally published at appchance.com on March 28, 2018.