Jumping into product development without research and strategy will ultimately lead to failure

Jumping into product development without having conducted previous research and developing a thorough strategy will ultimately lead to failure. Entering prematurely into execution happens very often due to the developer being enthusiastic about seeing the final product while forgetting to define crucial elements of the app itself. Skipping the objective definition and planning process will almost always lead to erroneous products that have a small chance of success.

Therefore, you need to learn how to set objectives and organise them effectively in order to create an app that will be successful. This article will provide you with the key objectives that must be defined before developing a profitable product such as an application or service.

Setting the main objectives

1. Define your target audience

The first factor you have to consider before you start planning your app is the type of audience you are targeting. You need to be sure that the app comes with features that your users want. It should provide answers to customer questions and match their desires and needs. If you fail to consider your audience before you kick off, you will end up developing a product that’s not useful to a wider group of people.

2. Find a potential customer base

In order to get around this, you need to define a potential customer base. Dig deeper by analysing their demographics and psychographics — their interests, personalities, and lifestyles, and what characters they have in common. Then, streamline your product development objectives, strategies, and features in line with their common needs so as to target a wider customer base.

Target Audience Defining Techniques

As mentioned above, you need to identify the potential target audience for your product so that you don’t waste your efforts on reaching the wrong customers. If you fail to reach the right customer, you will have a lower conversion rate.

Also read: 8 things to consider when choosing a mobile app development platform

These are the 3 basic techniques you need to employ:

1. Define audience demographics

Demographics is a statistical strategy. It is one of the straightforward techniques you can use to identify your potential audience for your marketing campaign. Demographics serve as the market indicator that separate customers by some factors, which include gender, age, average income, and education level.

Having the demographic information at hand, you will be able to determine the right group of audience that you need to develop your product to make it profitable. You can get the demographic information on the internet.

2. Define audience psychographics

Psychographic information of your target audience will help you design a product that will meet the needs of the majority. Therefore, once demographics have helped you define the right audience for your application, consider their psychographic segmentation.

You will have to understand their opinions, personality, interests, values, inclinations, aversions, and lifestyles. In order to do this, you can join your target audience in their local forums and explore the relevant posts. You can also create your personal posts on the forums and analyse their responses. From these, you will be able to discover their psychographics and needs.

3. Keep an eye on the competition

In any market, every marketer strives to take the lead forever. This is the reason why you need to identify your potential competitors and be prepared to compete with them. You can do this by analysing different aspects of their apps in order to know why many customers go for their apps and their monetisation strategy.

Moreover, read through their customer reviews to discover their app pros and cons. When you have enough information, you will be able to set your objectives to develop an interesting user interface and experience for your app.

Compile your app marketing strategy

Taking your time on creating a marketing strategy for an application or product entails setting the objectives on how to monetise your app unless you want to develop a free one. If you are not making your app free, you need to have an effective monetisation strategy to provide significant revenues in exchange for your inputs.

The traditional app direct sales in which the user makes a payment before they download or install the app is waning. Therefore, other strategies are springing up. The current top app monetisation strategies include in-app purchases, the premium model and paid per click for displaying third-party ads on your app.

However, the type of monetisation strategy you will choose chiefly depends on the type of application you are planning to create, your target audience and the potential competitors.

Technical feasibility analysis

Having known the design plan and the features you want your app to offer your target audience, the next objective is to define a solid technical feasibility platform. It’s important to research the technologies that are in high demand at the consumer end and define the platform you want to adapt your app to by following the guidelines of each.

It’s a good idea to have a curious approach while setting the objectives and ask yourself questions that lead you to objectives. You may also hire a qualified expert that has the deep knowledge of app modeling and development technology to carry out the studies for you, but you need to be in control.

Also read: How can privacy-focussed apps step up amid a world of data breaches?

Communication channels for promotion

The last objective you have to set is the channel you will use to broadcast your app. There are different app marketplaces, but you need to consider the market that is right for your case. If you are developing an iOS app, the App Store is suitable for you, but consider their review guidelines for your app to be approved. Google Play Store is a free market to launch your app, but the apps in this market are Android apps. In short, consider your app platform, the app market review processes and guidelines, and how much you need to spend on publishing your app before you decide to enter your app in the market.

Sponsored campaigns

One very result driven method is using cost-per-install campaigns where publishers create ads distributed into a wider media range in order to boost app downloads by advertising an application. So a good way of promoting your app in the eyes of your costumers is an incentivised CPI installation.

It’s obvious that a sponsored campaign can help your app be more visible and stimulate your audience to download it and the more the downloads the higher you go in the ranking list. Once again the methodology of setting the target comes into play, where you expose your app to your potential users and the number of installs increases quickly.

User experience/Behavioural patterns

Interests vary among diverse audience segments and this depends on their widely accepted technological inclinations. For instance, some communities prefer Android devices while there are others that have strong aversions towards Android devices but prefer other platforms. Therefore, once you identify your audience interests regarding their behavioral patterns, you will be able to decide whether they are your target audience or not. You will also need to tailor your app design UX to fit in with their inclinations and the standard of the platform.

Some assumptions you need to make

If you want to create an app that will be profitable, there are assumptions that you have to make for guiding your objectives. These assumptions are the questions you need to ask yourself and have suitable answers for before you begin development:

1. App backlog

With a backlog, you will define and prioritise the functionality requirements of your app. In addition, you will also consider the non-functional requirements. This implies that you will not leave each of the features open-ended. Each feature must come with functionalities that are capable of stirring intuition among users.

2. Monetisation

Unless you intend to make your app free, you will have to create a very effective marketing plan. The things you need to consider include the cost of related apps, which offer similar features, in the market and what are the most effective monetising strategies for these.

2. The budget

If you will hire an app development agency to create an app for you, you know you may have to pay substantially for this. So you need to consider if you have the sufficient budget for creating the app before you embark on this mission.

3. App update and maintenance

Technology is ever evolving and undergoes changes every day. So an application is not built just once. In order for it to be functional all the time, it needs to be updated at least once a year as new options and features replace the existing ones. You need to be updating your app in response to the latest trends as well as the needs and comments of your customers to keep up with your competitors.

Also read: 7 military principles you should apply to your business strategy

Conclusion

Once you have set your objectives right, you will have clues about developing a unique and formidable app that will be successful in the marketplace. Pointing out objectives carefully and being cautious every day by gathering new insights as your research continues may take longer but it offers you a secure walk on a solid ground where you take secure steps that get you closer to where you’re destined and avoid unpleasant surprises.

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