Making A Good First Impression
Turning app downloads into users.
Photo by Triggertrap user David Hopley
The iOS App Store has over one million apps, so it’s no surprise developers focus on making their app stand out from the crowd. But, what use is all the work if the app only gets downloaded to sit on the home screen for a while, forgotten about, and then deleted? None!
One of the easiest ways to prevent this is to serve the content your consumer wants, when they want it.
Second to recommendations, the majority of the apps I install are on a whim. I’m usually lying on my sofa, browsing the App Store, an app icon will catch my eye and I may end up reading more than the title and tapping through to the description page. A quick view of the screenshots, and a skim read of the description may be enough for me to download the app. Then what?
Most likely, I’ll hit the back button and continue browsing the App Store. Unless the app made a really good impression I’m probably not going to use it there and then. So, it will sit somewhere on my home screen until I remember about it.
It may sit there for a while, I’ll subconsciously see the app icon from time to time. But, that great looking design that initially tempted me to tap on it, and ultimately led me to download the app has lost its appeal. The app is now just taking up space. And, if you’re anything like me you get those urges to clean up your home screen from time to time. So that’s just what I do. The app gets deleted, and all I have to show for it is an allocation of data on my next phone bill.
Yeah, that’s all well and good. But, you were never interested in using the app anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
That’s the general response a developer will have to this scenario, but there are things you can do to improve your chances of acquiring a new user.
Make a good first impression!
Your app has a golden window of opportunity and if you’re lucky it’s about two seconds at the most! Those two seconds start ticking the moment the download button is pressed. Your potential user’s gaze is still on that download button and the best thing your app can do is strap on some rocket boosters, gets its ass into gear and put itself front and centre right where your user is looking.
Turning this
Into this
That’s it. Easy. All you have to do is make your app download in that golden window, before a user gets bored and goes away. And, there’s only one way to do that. Reduce your app bundle size.
At Triggertrap, that’s exactly what we do. And from time to time, we add a ticket to the backlog to improve things further. In the latest update to one of our apps we managed to shave off 7MB. Not bad for an app that’s been through this process a few times. Well at least we think so, in a geeky kind of way.
A megabyte here or there might not seem like a big deal, but for anyone waiting for that app to download, it’s a big deal, and therefore a big deal for your potential sales. You know what to do!
