Bring more attention to your News apps

As the mobile app industry continues to grow, marketers need to stay on top of all current trends. With the pandemic, we’ve seen a huge impact on all industries. The rise of digital content is unprecedented and continues to bring new numbers.

Publishers can now cater to the mobile-first audience through mobile apps. These integrate with the user’s smartphones and provide them an experience that is frictionless. These apps remove the need to open the browser to search for content. The apps may contain push notifications, alerts, and daily programs that readers can tune in for. However, as more media publishers bring impressive apps, how does one ensure the reader's satisfaction with their mobile apps?

1. Personalization

It’s no big secret that personalization can significantly increase engagement with audiences, and boost revenue. Paying attention to user behavior can help bring out their needs and preferences which will, in turn, help you make content much more valuable and desirable.

With all the tools that are currently available today, it’s easy to create a sense of a personal touch in each of your social media and blog posts, emails, push notifications, RSS feeds, and in-app messages.

Making use of social media, geotagging, dynamic content formats, etc are effective ways to cater to your wider audience. Users are more likely to spend time on your app if the stories presented are of interest to them.

2. Depend on your loyal readers

Your organic traffic can be directed to your app. Provide your mobile-first audience the personalized experience they need. It may be tempting to bring a larger and newer reader base to your app however your regular readers are more likely to want to download your app. Push notifications and app benefits your regular readers. This gives the readers a better experience while giving you numbers you can depend on.

3. Be smart about newer users

With the rise in the importance of user privacy, it is no longer in trend to track every move of your user. However, you do still have a record of the user's on-site behavior. With new users, you want to be careful about your messaging. Use compelling messages, smoothen the onboarding process, do not bombard users with app reviews or purchases immediately.

Motivate them to stay on your app and involve them in benefit plans and other member-specific interactions. This helps with retention.

4. App Speed

If your app is slow, you’ve already lost the battle. Speed is everything in digital publishing. Your page speed is just as important as SEO for ranking. When it comes to apps - it’s important that your app loads quickly and works on low internet speed as well. This ensures that your app users have an advantage.

As the fast internet becomes common and more publishers begin to speed up their platforms it’s important to keep up. Speed is a common point of friction for many publishers - it hinders the user experience. Other apps compete for users’ attention too, you need to stand out.

5. Cross-channel approach

The power of networking needs to be reckoned with. Does your app allow users to share stories easily? In this day and age, social media is one of the most popular platforms for the consumption of news. You need to build an app that can help users to easily share and carry conversations about. Does your app allow users to post on social media? Is your app linked to user’s social media, are you using shareability features to your advantage - are some of the questions that can help you improve your news app marketing.

6. Readability

User experience is very important on digital platforms. There are always new trends emerging to ensure that users have an enjoyable experience on the internet. As a mobile news app publisher, you need to give your users a wholesome experience on your platform.

You can improve readability through

- Adjustable font sizing for easy reading

- Dark and light mode to avoid straining of eyes

- Ability to turn on and off notifications

- Bookmarking pages

- Offline access to promote reading

News apps integrate with the user’s smartphones and give them a seamless experience of your content. This also helps you ensure user retention and loyal readership. While it’s easy to get swayed by properties, it’s important to evaluate your goals. Prioritize user engagement over user acquisition - if your present reader is not happy, you’re in more trouble than you realize.

Your App performance is key to acquiring and retaining your users. Invest in building a good app or find solutions that will help you develop a future-proof solution. Do not underestimate your organic traffic, direct your website readers to your app to get the best results. Remember to keep updating your app to help readers maintain readability and to get them to visit your app back.