How to level up your mobile customer engagement? [2023 Edition]

In the age of digitalization, customer engagement has become a buzzword for businesses worldwide. With the rise of mobile devices, customers have become more accessible than ever before. However, it takes more than just a few push notifications to keep them engaged.  Effective customer mobile engagement strategies go beyond simply providing a good product or service. They focus on creating personalized experiences that meet the customer's needs and preferences, and that make them feel valued and heard.

Customer engagement is essential for businesses that want to succeed in today's competitive landscape. By creating a strong bond with their customers, businesses can differentiate themselves from the competition and build a loyal customer base that will support them for years to come. In this article, we will explore how to level up your mobile customer engagement in 2023 and give you some tips to help you stand out from the crowd.

Importance of understanding user behavior and preferences

To truly level up mobile customer engagement, it's important to go beyond basic interaction and understand individual customer behavior and preferences. Utilizing data and analytics is one approach to gaining deeper insights. By analyzing click-through rates, app usage patterns, and customer feedback, valuable information about customer likes and dislikes can be obtained.

For instance, observing that many customers use the mobile app for weekend shopping can lead to the implementation of weekend-only promotions to boost engagement. Similarly, identifying popular product categories enables targeted engagement-based marketing campaigns tailored to drive sales.

However, data alone has its limitations. To truly comprehend customers, it's essential to empathize and place yourself in their shoes. Questions such as their motivations, challenges, and how to enhance their experiences must be considered. Combining data analysis with empathy and a human touch enables the creation of genuinely engaging customer experiences.

5 ways to boost your customer engagement

Implementing personalization and customization

Once you understand your customers and their preferences, or at least you think you do, it's time for personalization and customization to step into a game. For a long time, personalization and customization have been widely used terms in modern engagement-based marketing. However, marketers have developed a habit of using these terms interchangeably, despite their different meanings and implications. Here is some useful information to help you understand the difference between personalization and customization.

Personalization involves tailoring customer experiences to individual users based on their behavior, interests, and preferences. By leveraging data analytics, you can gain insights into your customers' interactions with your brand and use this information to create customized experiences that meet their specific needs.

Customization, on the other hand, involves giving customers control over their experiences with your brand. By allowing them to personalize their interactions with your mobile app or website, you can increase their engagement and loyalty to your brand.

Many people wonder: why are personalization and customization so important in mobile customer engagement? The answer lies in the fact that customers today expect personalized experiences from brands. A recent study by Accenture found that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers and recommendations.

Implementing personalization and customization doesn't have to be complicated. It can be as simple as using a customer's name in email marketing campaigns or offering them the ability to choose the type of content they receive from your brand. Just remember, the key is to make sure that these experiences feel meaningful and relevant to each customer. So, don't be afraid to start small and experiment with different approaches to find what works best for your customers.

Enhancing in-app communication and interactions

We live in a mobile-driven world, where customers expect seamless and intuitive experiences from the apps they use. They want to interact with brands in real-time, get quick responses to their queries, and receive relevant recommendations and offers. Enhancing in-app communication and interactions can help businesses create an engaging experience that meets these expectations.
 

One of the key benefits of enhancing in-app communication and interactions is that it allows businesses to provide timely and contextual messages to customers. For example, a food delivery app can send push notifications to customers with personalized offers based on their previous orders and location. This not only helps the app stand out in a crowded marketplace but also enhances the overall customer experience.
 

Another critical aspect of enhancing in-app communication and interactions is to make it easy for customers to provide feedback and engage with your brand. This can be achieved by using chatbots, personalized messaging, and other interactive features that encourage customers to share their opinions and thoughts. By doing so, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can help them refine their mobile engagement strategies further.

Leveraging Push Notifications and In-App Messages

In-app notifications have become an essential tool for app developers to engage users and improve retention rates. With their ability to deliver personalized and targeted messages, in-app notifications can provide users with valuable information that keeps them engaged with the app.
 

One of the biggest advantages of in-app notifications is their ability to deliver personalized messages to specific users. This means that developers can send tailored notifications to users based on their interests, preferences, and behavior within the app. By personalizing the content of push notifications, it is possible to increase open rates by four times, elevating the average open rate of 1.5% for generic notifications to a more impressive 5.9%.
 

Another benefit of in-app notifications is that they can be used to gather insights about user behavior. Developers can analyze how users interact with notifications and use that information to gain a better understanding of what features are most important to users. This can help developers make data-driven decisions that improve the overall user experience.
 

However, it's important to use in-app notifications judiciously and avoid overwhelming users with too many messages. 28% of people uninstalled apps because of too many ads and notifications. Developers should focus on providing relevant and timely information to users and avoid sending notifications that are irrelevant or annoying.

Gamification Techniques for Engagement

Gamification plays a vital role in enhancing retention by harnessing intrinsic motivation and leveraging human psychology to heighten engagement and enjoyment in activities. Through the integration of rewards, competition, and progress tracking, gamification instills a sense of accomplishment and cultivates a lasting enthusiasm for ongoing participation. Gamification can also be used to teach users new skills or reinforce existing ones, making the app more valuable to the user.

When done correctly, gamification can be a powerful tool to attract and retain users. One study claims that game-based motivation increases user-engagement by 48%. This is a testament to the effectiveness of gamification in creating an interactive and engaging user experience.
 

Introducing gamification to your app users can be effectively achieved through the use of in-app stories. These personalized and interactive stories can feature all the key elements of gamification, such as quizzes, polls, leaderboards, and more. 
 

Here are some possible examples of using gamification mechanics via in-app stories:

• Quizzes and Trivia: Incorporate interactive quizzes or trivia questions within your in-app stories. Users can answer questions related to the story's content and receive immediate feedback on their performance.
• Decision-Making Games: Create interactive decision-making scenarios within your in-app stories. Users can make choices that impact the outcome of the story, adding an element of gamified engagement.
• Progression and Rewards: Implement a progression system where users can earn points, badges, or virtual rewards as they progress through the in-app stories. This can incentivize users to engage with more stories and aim for higher achievements.
• Leaderboards and Competitions: Introduce leaderboards or competitions where users can see their rankings based on their performance in completing or interacting with in-app stories. This fosters a sense of competition and encourages users to strive for better results.
• Collectibles and Unlockables: Incorporate collectible items or unlockable content within your in-app stories. Users can discover hidden items or unlock additional content by exploring and engaging with the story.
• Time Based Challenges: Introduce time-based challenges or limited-time events within your in-app stories. Users can compete against the clock or participate in time-sensitive activities to add an exciting and time-driven aspect to the gamified experience.

While gamification has been proven to be a highly effective way to increase user engagement and retention, it's important to note that not all gamification efforts are created equal. Poorly executed gamification can have the opposite effect and drive users away. This is why it's crucial for companies to carefully consider which game-like elements to include and how they will enhance the overall user experience.

Measuring and Analyzing Engagement Metrics

To understand how well your mobile app is performing, it's important to measure and analyze various engagement metrics, but it's crucial to note that app engagement is not just a single number. Instead, it's a complex combination of different metrics that collectively reveal how users are interacting with your app.

Measuring engagement metrics can provide valuable insights into user behavior and preferences. Each metric illuminates a different aspect of user engagement, giving developers a complete picture of how users perceive their app. Let’s break down 5 most significant ones:

• User retention rate: The percentage of new users who continue using your app after a specific period of time, indicating their potential as customers.
• User churn: The number of users who abandon or downgrade from your app within a specific period, highlighting potential issues with user experience.
• Active users: Daily and monthly metrics that measure user engagement and frequency of app interactions.
• Average session length: The average time a user spends interacting with your app during a single session, indicating user engagement.
• Conversion rate: The percentage of users who become paying customers or complete desired actions within the app, directly impacting business goals.
   

Case Studies of Successful Mobile Engagement Strategies

Tele2 

In August 2021, Tele2, a telecommunications operator, introduced a game in their mobile application's Stories feed, inspired by classic Soviet-era Elektronika electronic games. The game's objective was to help a schoolboy compose an essay about his summer holiday memories by capturing various summer artifacts with a notebook. Players earned points for each artifact captured and had two attempts before the game ended. The number of points determined the type of prize players could win, ranging from books to training courses or account credits.
 

Within two weeks, the game attracted over 171,000 unique players who played it a total of 422,000 times. The highest score achieved was 97 points, and 150 players scored over 80 points to win the grand prize. On average, each player played the game 2.3 times, with the most dedicated player engaging in it 203 times. This game's success highlights the appeal of gamification in capturing users' attention and fostering engagement. By incorporating a nostalgic design and offering tangible rewards, Tele2 effectively attracted a significant number of players and motivated them to actively participate in the game multiple times.

DODO pizza

Dodo Pizza, an international pizza chain, launched the Dodomania sales promotion campaign, featuring a game in their mobile app's Stories section. The game, developed in collaboration with InAppStory, aimed to enhance customer engagement and experience. Players had the chance to win prizes such as a car, vacation tickets, and a year's supply of pizza for the top performers. The game, inspired by Candy Crush, utilized pizza ingredients as game elements and attracted 162,000 unique users, accumulating over nine million views and 315,000 games played within four weeks.

Building on this success, a customizable Match 3 game is now available to all users through the Game Center. With similar addictive mechanics and high engagement potential, this new mini-game allows businesses to bring the same level of excitement and competition into their own apps.
 

This game comes with two dynamic modes:

• Instant Win Mode: Quick matches that lead to points and prizes, keeping players engaged with every session.
• Leaderboard Mode: Players can climb the ranks, encouraging repeat play and fostering competition.

Fully adaptable to your brand, you can set specific goals, retry options, and rewards that align with your business strategy. Whether you’re looking to boost app visits, drive sales, or create loyal users, this Match 3 game offers the perfect solution.

Want to see how Match 3 can supercharge your app engagement?

The game's success can be attributed to its addictive gameplay, simple onboarding process, engaging sound effects, and competitive leaderboard. Players were motivated to purchase more pizza to earn additional game attempts and improve their chances of winning. The game also attracted new customers to the mobile app, with some users becoming more frequent app visitors even after playing the game. Dodomania game exemplifies how a carefully crafted mobile app game can effectively promote a business, attract new customers, and drive increased engagement among existing ones.

Conclusion and Future Trends

After considering all of the points mentioned above, it becomes evident that all user engagement elements are interconnected. Without understanding your audience, it is impossible to create the desired personalization that users crave. In turn, without personalized in-app notifications, users will be less engaged, leading to reduced interest and app usage. It is critical to implement all of these factors to maintain user interest in the app.

Fortunately, Inappstory provides developers with the ability to incorporate all of these tools, helping them create captivating and exciting content and experiences that users will enjoy returning to. With its advanced features and tools, Inappstory enables developers to keep users engaged and coming back for more.
 

If you want to witness the full power of these instruments and learn how they can increase your app engagement at least twice as much as before, feel free to sign up for a free demo trial. This will give you a chance to explore the platform's capabilities and see how it can help you drive user engagement and take your app to the next level.