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Romana Kuts
Romana Kuts

Posted on • Originally published at gtm-plus.com

Mobile Development Strategy Checklist

The term ‘mobile development strategy’ relates to how you align the development of your software to your business needs.

In other words, an effective mobile development strategy is what aligns the latest mobile technologies, your business goals with customers needs so that they have the best experience.

Remember, mobile development isn’t just about creating mobile applications for smartphones, it’s about doing any type of development for any type of mobile device. At the same time, mobile development strategy implies not only app development but also the responsiveness of web platforms on mobile devices.

Nowadays, more and more people tend to use mobile phones instead of computers. This is why it is highly important for any business to switch to mobile development.

As a matter of fact, according to LaptopDiscovery, in November 2019, the mobile market share was 52.03% whereas the desktop market share was 45.17%.

It means that more and more people now prefer using their smartphones for communication, shopping, watching videos, etc. instead of using laptops. Therefore, if you want your business to stay alive, you need to make it present in the mobile industry.

So, now, let’s consider how to plan your mobile app development strategy:

  • Step 1. Outline the company’s overall strategy

Identify your company’s mission, vision, goals, and targets. It will help you to understand how your app will meet your customers’ and company’s needs.

  • Step 2. Identify your target users

Developing a business plan for mobile app also requires a thorough analysis of your target customers. This analysis should be based on their age, gender, preferences, needs, and pains. For instance, if you want to launch an app for learning new languages, your audience will consist primarily of young people motivated to learn new foreign languages.

  • Step 3. Analyze your competitors

One of the most important elements in the app development business plan is an effective competitor analysis. Due to the fact that app stores are crowded by numerous applications of similar types. By analyzing the apps that have the same purpose as yours, you will know what are their strong and weak sides.

  • Step 4. Decide on a type of app you want to create

Choosing the type of app you need is one of the most significant stages of app development. Keep in mind that native apps support only one platform while hybrid apps can work on several platforms but with limitations on the functional side.

  • Step 5. Decide on development methodology

You can choose between two methodologies: Agile and Waterfall. If you stick to the Waterfall methodology, you decide on the parameters of app development at the very beginning and develop the app step by step, but it’ll take longer until you’ll see the first prototype of the working app. With Agile methodologies, you can develop several sections of an app simultaneously and introduce changes at any stage of the development process.

  • Step 6. Create an effective marketing strategy

The last, but not least, point in mobile strategy is marketing. If you want to make your app visible, think about the platforms that you want to target, and how you will measure the convergence. For instance, in the case of app development, your tools will include the number of downloads, sales, app analytics, etc.

There are a lot of tools that will help you to promote your app. One of them is app store search optimization, which makes your app visible to the users. With the same aim, you can use search ads in app stores. You can also use such a tool as AppMachine, which will help you to advertise your app among your clients. Finally, one of the most effective and powerful tools is social media advertising (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok etc.).

Without an effective and thought-out mobile development strategy, it would be impossible for your business to become visible online. Thus, before you decide to create an app for your business, elaborate a step by step strategy that will make the process planned.

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