A couple of weeks ago I’ve talked about how to get your readers in love with your publishing app.
The core idea was simple.
Create an emotional stake for your mobile users, make the app as simple and fast to use as possible and give your readers and mobile users the possibility to personalise their app and experience with it.
But just like love, you also need to know where you’re going and how you can get there.
To put it simply, if you want your readers to fall in love with what you’ve got, you need to keep cool and in control of your content.
More specifically, you need app functionalities that empower you to do that.
Let’s take a tally.
The cool part with these functionalities is that they enable not just to steer your publishing app but also your events app.
For example, Stiri360, a publishing app developed by Appscend, grew organically with 2000 unique users per day and a 20 min average session length, with roughly 2-3 sessions per day.
How did we reach this number?
We created an array of reader-friendly features and functionalities and we were always in control of the app’s elements. Elements that in the end, made it possible to enable content publishers to engage their audience as fast as possible.
Appscend leveraged analytics tools and push notifications, alongside with a clean interface to keep readers coming back for their favorite news and stories.
Take The New York Times app, which followed the same rule.
Elegant and simple interface structured into categories of interest that delivers all the juicy stuff in an instant.
You open the app, read the news, check out the latest happenings around the world, and the application realizes a simple and crucial goal.
Fast content = engagement.
Too many publishing apps have fallen into the digital edition trend and they try to render the same format into a mobile screen, which often times ends in in the magazine torpedoing its own efforts.
Important rule of thumb? You deliver the news, and your analytics will back you up to do it better.
Don’t try to be flashy, try to be simple and effective and remember it’s all about the content on mobile which gives you extra advantages.
As Ralf-Gordon Jahns once wrote : ,,Furthermore the capabilities of smartphones and tablets, having additional features such as Instant photo and video, accelerometer, augmented reality, voice and navigation and many more, greatly differs from PCs or paper copy. People pay for these features and they expect to a certain degree that apps incorporate them.”
Publishing apps aside, the same thing applies to applications catered for events, conferences and meetings.
The Webit conference app and the SDL Innovate app (Keynotes: Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop.com and founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures, and Kerry Bodine, Forrester Research, Inc.) follows the same principles.
These apps are structured around the idea of constantly being in control of your content and how simple and intuitive they’re built.
So what’s the bottom line for apps tailored to events and publishing?
They’re built around the simple idea of always being in control of your content.
By going for simple and effective functionalities, augmented by actionable metrics and analytics, you can focus on what matters.
And that’s engaging your audience, providing a valuable service and getting your name written in your customers’ hearts.
Got something on your mind and want to share your take on mobile apps and how they change the world? Want to develop a mobile app or see what they can do? We’re here to listen, help and get you started. Stay tuned and our newsletter is baking cookies for you as we speak.
If you liked this, you might also be interested in:
Solving the App Development Conundrum for Small Magazines
Are mobile apps the salvation of the publishing industry?
