Post-launch product development activities for a successful app

So you have successfully released the app to the market. Congratulations, it's time to take an interest in what actions you need to take to make your product a resounding success and boost your business even more. In this article you will find practical advice about post-launch activities supported by the experience of the Project Manager and CEO of FiveDotTwelve.

If you’d like to go back to the key matters during the pre-release phase, jump to this article. 

Post-launch phase of your mobile app development

Once the app is released, the work on it is not over. There are many things you can do to make your product serve users better and better. Apart from just coding new features for updates, it is worth checking after a while where the application stands in terms of meeting the original scope, verifying how much time in your team is allocated to specific tasks and what value this delivers. In general, you also need to establish the level of quality of the app and determine how to keep it great or improve it.

Verify your product

The article is divided into three sections: product, business and market verification. The first is about your product and the steps to be taken after release to ensure that it remains in the best possible quality, and to increase this quality. All that will ensure your long-term success and its continuity. 

Hear the app users

They aren’t always unwilling to share their opinion. So do hear people sharing their thoughts on your app. It's very important to constantly be in touch with your users and to always take their feedback, rates and reviews into account. Let the user feedback be a guide to changes and improvements to the application.

Warning: positive user feedback is a sign that your app is doing great on the market, but it’s not a sign that you should do nothing more. No matter how satisfied you are with the results of your app launch, always keep planning your product development process to make it better or at least to keep the quality on a high level. 

Gaining the user feedback 

And how do you encourage users to share their insights? There are many ways to do that. For the start, you can set up new app’s accounts and target the social media marketing also to activities that encourage users to leave rates and reviews. 

Secondly, you can implement push notifications to remind users how important their insight is. 

Finally, a reward strategy is always a good idea to make users more willing to give feedback in return to a certain benefit!

Don’t forget to ask new users to share their insights about their first impressions. Yes, the most important thing is to make the app useful on a long-term basis but this first impression pushes the decision about keeping or deleting the app.

Set up mobile app analytics

Another very important thing is to start capturing, tracking and analysing all the user behavior data. There are different tools to help you do that, like Firebase, Mixpanel and Amplitude. User behavior basically focuses on metrics such as signups, activation rates, feature usage and impact, funnel drop-off for in-app purchases, and retention rates. 

If you want to know more about different metrics to measure in mobile app analytics, jump to this article. 

Do a UI/UX audit

A fresh approach to the UI and UX of your app might be a great boost for it. It’s a good idea to consider doing a UI/UX audit with a designer to assess what can be improved or optimised according to current standards. Then you can plan the product development process based on the results of the audit. 

User testing

You can also carry out product tests with users. That is, you can provide interested users with a trial version to test whether the app is intuitive and meets its purpose, to catch bugs and share their opinions.

Verify your business

Now it’s time for business matters to take care of in the post-launch phase. Any software development is done primarily for your business. Let’s not forget about it and do everything to keep it profitable. 

Back to the basics

Take a step back and rethink your business fundamentals. These are for example:

• The user persona/user personas – to assess whether they’ve changed/modified or whether you succeeded to meet their needs
• Competitive analysis – to constantly check where you stand among your competitors 
• Unique Value Proposition – to check if your assumptions about what you can deliver in terms of your product and offer are still relevant

Discuss a strategy with the marketing team

It can be really useful to rethink your marketing strategy in order to be ready for changes that favour the development of your product. When it comes to broad marketing activities, it’s a good idea to take a holistic approach by building a community in a thematic category that relates to your app. 

For example if your product is a fitness app, ensure that your content marketing is geared towards people interested in sport, fitness and healthy eating. This way, you can expand your app's user base. 

Monitor your user acquisition channels on an ongoing basis to maintain a good level of metrics or improve it. That’s how you make these channels increasingly effective.

Find 7 ways to promote your mobile app here.

Product Hunt

Product Hunt is a US-based site for sharing and discovering new products. Consider posting your app also there to make it even more visible to the public. Publishing on any other ranking sites is also a good idea.

App Store Optimization

You should customise your app page in mobile app stores (Apple App Store for iOS apps and Google Play Store for Android apps) in accordance with the App Store Optimization methods. 

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a very important process for all app owners to improve the visibility of their apps in these stores. Another purpose of ASO is to increase conversion rate, click-through rate and the number of app downloads, so that users who notice the app in the app store actually decide to see the details and download it. 

This process includes adding information to the product page such as its name, description, app screenshots, a video, keywords etc. 

Product development process

Post-launch development is another matter that will be current all the time. As you already know, the published app is not the end of the work on it. You listen to the users of the product and make analyses of the results in order to make the app better and more useful with the app updates. 

With new app versions, the features that most users are hoping for should appear. The next mobile app updates should also be promoted in user communication channels. 

Optimising the process

If you’re not sure about your results, you can also try to optimise the product development process and the sales processes by reaching out to a software development company with an experienced development team. If you already work with one, maybe it’s a good idea to ask another company about their ideas for your business. 

For example, if you weren't happy with the amount of time it took to create the app, it's useful to have someone experienced look at your company's processes and help you sort it out.

Verify the market

Let’s jump to the third big matter that needs to be discussed: verifying the market. The market research itself is often defined as the steps taken prior to the development of an app to assess whether the product has a chance of entering the market and what to do to find the target audience and meet their needs. 

However, the truth is that it is very important to stay tuned at all times and to verify market needs on an ongoing basis. 

Observe the trends on the market

Generally, it’s very important to keep up to date with all the news from your industry. Keep an eye on marketing solutions used by your competitors, what are the trends on the market and especially among your target audience. 

Competitors’ solutions

Above all, it is important to verify competing solutions. Observing the market allows you to be on track when it comes to similar apps, and in the first stages of product development gives you the chance to modify and adapt solutions that bring new value. 

That’s why, even if you know all the competitors, it’s recommended to verify their products regularly and look for new features, components and solutions implemented there. 

Verify the feedback on competing apps

You should also check the user feedback on competing apps. Their opinions can tell you a lot about what you can also improve in your product and overall solution. A great part of competing apps’ users is also included in your target audience. 

Conclusion 

Post-launch activities are just as important as those executed in the pre-release phase. Keep fighting for the best possible quality of your product, the profitability of your business and position on the market and conquer it by following our hints! 

Check out also: 8 ways to boost mobile app downloads & user engagement