Let’s assume that your acquisition campaigns paid off, and you got high download rates for your app. But what happens if most of these users are dormant users or the churn rate is very high?

Now you will essentially think about active users and how to convert the dormant users to active users. Here’s where user retention strategies can come to your rescue. After acquiring users from different campaigns, it’s of utmost importance to develop the best user retention strategies that will work for your product.

Before diving into further details, let’s talk about “what is retention”?

Retention - is the percentage of an app’s users who return to the app within three months of their first session. This definition is as per the industry standard, but it can vary concerning its nature and can have an individual purpose of engagement as retention.

5 Top User Retention Strategies to Improve your App Engagement

1. Tracking the data and user behaviour analysis

It's essential to understand the various obstacles the user is facing in your app. The ideal approach can be doing the cohort analysis to create different groups of users based on their behavior in a given time frame.

The main idea here is to identify the various reasons why the users have stopped using your app and then take the relevant action to retain the users in each of these groups.

Another way of conducting user behavior analysis is through heatmaps to visualize the users’ touch gestures, observe the screen views and session lengths, etc.

2. Easy and Effective Onboarding

Ensure that your onboarding process for the app is simple and comfortable so that users can experience a hassle-free entry.

Here are a few tips to make the onboarding process easier:

Allow the registration/sign up process in fewer steps. Using multiple registration options like Facebook and Google will help to achieve this.
Use tutorials to help new users understand the app's functionality and features.
Use omnichannel nudges like Push, IAM, emails, etc., to make them aware of the app’s features, content, and product/services.

User retention - Upshot.ai — Source: Freepik

3. Rewards as a part of Gamification

A rewards program can be an excellent way to make users come back to the app. It can also be useful in increasing familiarity with the app's functionalities.

For example, a reward program can be designed in a way that users need to explore or complete a set of activities and make them engage with the app to achieve those reward points. And most importantly, providing tangible benefits for redeeming these rewards will also play a crucial role in getting back the users to the app, essentially making them daily active users.

To attract new customers, most companies will also employ discounts and offers for first-time users and limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency. The benefits can be two-fold; the limited time offers can improve the conversion rate and motivate users to return to the app/website to make another purchase.

4. Push Messages

The primary form of communication for any engagement plan, push notifications are of great help to get user attention to your app.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind while creating the push notifications:

Deep linking the push - Rather than just sending the push notifications, redirecting the user to a specific screen will help to relate the purpose of sending the push.

Frequency of Push Notifications - Too many pushes can lead to uninstalls; it’s good to follow the quality principle rather than quantity. While coming up with the push campaign plan, observe the active session times, creating different segments based on the user behavior and campaign requirements, which will essentially turn into a good conversion.

5. Personalised Engagement

Personalisation - Upshot.ai — Source : Freepik

Personalizing the nudges will be an effective way to increase app retention. This starts effectively listing out the data points we are capturing at the user level. It can be caught right from the location data to the user name, language, content preference, etc.

For example, sending a push message based on location is one way to drive engagement. It can provide massive value for the user because it reminds them of your app and contextually connects them.

Personalization can be done differently, right from addressing the users with their usernames to localizing the content; it depends on the user level data and the effective segmentation based on user behavior.

Closing thoughts

In conclusion, following the practices mentioned above will undoubtedly help you improve your app’s retention, sales, and most importantly, help convert your hard-earned users from your acquisition campaigns to active users.

But implementing these strategies with the right kind of engagement and analytics tool will help you achieve the results faster.

The ideal engagement platform will give you the data and provide actionable insights and ease to create omnichannel engagement campaigns backed up by the data.

Also Read: What is customer lifetime value and how to improve customer lifetime value in 2021

About Upshot.ai :

Upshot.ai is an omnichannel, user engagement, and gamification platform that helps digital product owners and marketers improve their product adoption and conversions. Fortune 1000 companies such as GE, UHG, Puma, Sony, ITC, Tenet healthcare are using Upshot.ai and observed a massive increase in product adoption YoY increment in revenues.

Book a demo of the most comprehensive user engagement and gamification platform to achieve your digital product goals. Join our communities for more insights, guides, and best practices that keep you updated with proven strategies and tips to supercharge your campaigns.

5 Best User Retention strategies that will boost your App Engagement

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