Mobile applications have increased in popularity as the demand for streamlined, instant, and automated lifestyle rises. Think of any well-known brand, and you will see that they have a mobile application that you can download.
In business, almost every company nowadays, especially those in the food, service, and hospitality industry, primarily makes applications for clients. From a marketing viewpoint, a mobile app is a practical approach to help raise your sales.
Since it is easier to connect with your client through a mobile app, it has become a popular marketing strategy worldwide. With this said, there is a high chance that mobile apps will become very critical for selling your services or products.
This leads to a primary question, how do you build a mobile app? Check out the article below to learn how to create an app through six simple steps.
Get an Idea
Every app building process begins with an idea. Your idea doesn’t need to be brilliant, prominent, or ground-breaking. A vision of what you want is enough. Sketch your concept using a pen and paper to make it tangible. Characterize how your application functions and what the highlights are before you begin developing it.
Begin sketching and create a rundown of application features. You need to check whether your idea is understandable when put on paper. It is more efficient if you divide the app features into two categories: needs and wants. Needs are features that your mobile application can’t run without, while the Wants are features that would be great to include but are not essential.
All in all, you need to create the first and simplest form of your mobile app, which is the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
If you center around your app’s essential features, you can help speed up your mobile app’s development process. Moreover, if the basics are intact, your app becomes more secure against setbacks.
Create a Wireframe
If you have never tried building a mobile app, a wireframe may be unfamiliar to you. Luckily, it’s effortless to make. A wireframe is a preliminary format of your mobile application.
You can make it using a digital wireframing tool, on a whiteboard, or a piece of paper. A wireframe’s purpose is to simply represent the primary components of your application and layout schemes. In short, it is a more specified illustration of your idea.
Don’t stress over the application design components in a wireframe because it is not a visual representation of how the app’s final look. Instead, your wireframe should be more focused on the flow and structure of your mobile app. It maps out the function from a client’s perspective.
For example, wireframes will show what will happen if users click on a particular button. A wireframe can also help give your team the same perspective in terms of the app’s flow and function.
Create a Design
After you’ve got the essential components of your mobile app intact, you can start bringing your app to life by designing how it will look for the launch. You’ll need to make a graphic design that illustrates the final overall look of the application.
Graphic design proposals can be used in introductions to market the app to potential partners or investors. It can also be used by developers to incorporate the visual resources into the project.
The user experience and user interface (UX/UI) of the application will be influenced mainly by the decisions you make in this step. Thus, your app may turn out better if you hire the services of a professional front end developer.
If you want your app to look professional and sleek, choose one who has significant experience designing mobile application UIs. Once you have your app design done, you can proceed to develop your app.
Hire a Developer
Look for a mobile app development company that has a promising development portfolio and a reliable team. Before hiring a development company, check their credibility online. You must keep an eye on the ratings of the previous apps they developed.
Once you’ve confirmed the developer’s credibility and you like the apps included in their portfolio, odds are, they are the right development company for you. After you’ve hired a developer, their team will do all the work in your app development, and you’d only need to wait for the final product.
Launch your App
If you want to make sure that people will know about your mobile app, opt to begin your promotions before launching. Make a landing page that will primarily work to collect emails.
Having a collection of emails will help drive reviews and downloads as soon as you launch your mobile app. Also, note that popular mobile applications do not gain popularity due to algorithms. They go viral due to the people who took an interest.
Thus, before launching your app, you need to build connections with your target audience and the media. You can achieve this through marketing outreaches in different social media platforms, online forums, and web journals. After you’ve done all the pre-launch precautions, it is time to launch your mobile app.
However, your work doesn’t end here. You need to make sure your mobile app will still be noticeable in the app store’s sea of applications. Fortunately, you can use the process known as App Store Optimization (ASO).
ASO will fine-tune your application listing to enable your target audience to discover your app.
Maintenance and Support
You need to understand that you’d have to deal with never-ending maintenance to keep your mobile app in top shape. Thus, you must keep your development team intact. Aside from constant app version upgrades, you have to ensure that your application is compatible with Android and IOS’s newest software updates.
Compliance levels and guidelines also frequently change. As your application gains more popularity, you ought to get ready for customer support. Ultimately, you must ensure that you have a plan and a budget prepared for maintaining your mobile app.
Takeaway
In today’s age that demands for automating almost everything, the mobile application market is growing significantly. As an ever-increasing portion of our online lives is shifting towards mobile devices, creating a mobile application for your business is becoming a necessity. Thus, mobile marketing techniques are getting more competitive.
To guarantee applications’ success amongst numerous competition, mobile app creators should have a practical mobile app development approach.