Look at your phone right now, how many apps do you have? Social media, banking, shopping, games and those are just the start! There are apps for turning your lights off, apps for communication, entertainment, news, photography, just about anything you can think of – there’s an app for that!
According to Statista.com worldwide app downloads in 2016 are projected to reach 2.52 billion and 268.69 billion in 2017- that’s a lot of downloads! Statista.com also forecasts that mobile app revenues will reach 50.9 billion USD in 2016 and estimate that the sales will climb to 101.1 billion USD by the year 2020.
Have an idea for an app? Does your company not have an app yet? Here are the key steps to turning your idea into a reality! First, you must define your app’s purpose. After you determine what your app will be used for, you must select a category to place it in – this will help you during the next step which is conducting market research. What are similar apps doing? What kind of features do they have? What are the trends? What can you do differently/better? Look at these factors along with the app ratings and feedback to determine what kind of features you want to include in your app.
After you construct a blueprint for your apps purpose, it’s important to think of which app store you want to put it on. It’s imperative to know the fees involved with having your app on the market. The market standard for how much app stores can take from your income is 30%. Depending on the app store you choose to go with your payouts will be different. Some app stores will require you to meet a certain threshold before they release your share of the money. Some just make you wait a certain period of time before getting it.
Once you’ve picked where you want to put your app, it’s time to think about how to make money off of it! There are a few different ways to make money off of an app such as subscription fees, in-app purchases, in-app advertisements, and sponsorship. Some of these techniques are more favorable than others, it all depends on what works best for you and your app.
When all of the planning is finished, it’s time to figure out how you want your app to look. You can sketch out your ideas on a piece of paper or create it using a wireframe. You should create the overall look you want to go with as well as a navigation bar. This will give you the specifications you need to begin building the app.
The next stage is development. You’ll need to find a company or developer to go forward. The developer will take your ideas and create the UX or user experience of the app. They will develop a more detailed wireframe of the app to show the visual design and flow. Once the app design is approved it will move into the visual design where the theme, colors, and fonts will give the app it’s own personality.
After the UX is finished the developer will start building the app from data storage to UI development. This part of the process takes some time. In the development stage, you will receive the progress of your app as it’s being built, at any time during this process you may add or subtract features, however, this will affect the time it takes to finish and cost of the app.
After all of that, the app is finally ready to launch! It’s important that the proper marketing strategies are put in place to promote the app. Just having it just sit on the market is not enough. It’s also important after the app launch that you collect user data/usage as well as assess feedback. These will help you fine tune your app for future users!
I hope this article has inspired you to start creating an app of your own! If you have more questions about building an app for your business, our mobile app design team here in New Haven would love to answer them for you! Please visit knockmedia.com for more information or call our office!