Mobile App Growth Strategies For 2023: How to Unlock Ongoing Growth

For any app publisher, the feeling of publishing your app on the App Store is monumental. All of your planning and hard work have finally paid off and you’re more than ready to begin scaling your users and your revenue. There’s just one problem: it’s not that simple (sadly).

Publishing your app for download is only the first step to creating a successful app. If you want your app to make an impact you need to implement growth strategies to develop its value and profitability. 

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Keep in mind that there’s more than one type of growth strategy you can and should be implementing! Find out why having a strategy for growth is vital to your app’s success in 2023 and what they consist of.  

The importance of scaling your mobile app

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According to Statista, there are more than 2 million apps currently available for download on the App Store in 2022. That’s 2 million apps that yours is competing against to win user attention and downloads. 

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Simply publishing your app and hoping for the best is not enough to guarantee that users will download it or even be interested in it. Your app is a product and, for it to flourish, you need to treat it as one, and that means applying a rigorous growth strategy to it. 

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Too often, app owners only focus on how to improve user acquisition but acquisition growth alone won’t guarantee your app’s success. User activation, retention, revenue and referral (AARRR) are equally important and play a role in sustaining your app’s growth. Let’s take a closer look at some strategies that can help you boost these growth metrics. 

Mobile app growth strategies

Get your app ready for growth

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Before you decide how best to implement growth strategies, you first need to determine if your app is ready for growth and scaling. If there are any existing bugs in your features or there are functionality issues within the app’s workflow, then it won’t matter what steps and hacks you implement for growth - they will eventually catch up and send your growth rate plummeting. 

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So be sure to get your app’s functionality in order before considering how to grow it! That being said, if your app is impeccable in workflow, interface and usability then it’s definitely time to start thinking about expansion. 

Determine what makes your app unique

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If you haven’t done this already, it’s vital to do so before trying to grow it. What makes your app unique is the value proposition that helps to attract users. If there’s nothing unique about its service, positioning or functionality, you’ll have a hard time convincing people to download it over a competitor app. 

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Take some time to determine what makes it different from competitors and what it offers that others don’t. Once you’ve determined its value proposition, you can begin working to grow its user base. 

Know your target audience

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Another essential foundation for your growth strategy is identifying your target audience. Knowing your users isn’t just about pinpointing them, but about understanding their needs, pain points and frustrations. 

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Having this information will allow you to create a better app that aligns with these needs and satisfies their requirements. Taking it one step further, you can then segment your audience, allowing you to tailor more relevant content that specifically targets each segment and drives better engagement. 

Utilize app store optimisation (ASO)

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App store optimization aims to boost your app’s ranking within the App Store’s search results. ASO does this by utilizing target keywords relating to the app itself and looking at things like reviews and ratings. It can be used to leverage your app’s growth by attracting more users to your app (keep in mind, however, that attracting doesn’t mean retaining) and encouraging them to download it. 

Elevate your customer lifetime value (CLV)

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As mentioned above, attracting users and retaining them are two different components of an app’s growth strategy, and need to be treated as such. An effective way of doing this is by increasing your customer lifetime value (CLV). CLV is a performance metric that measures how much net profit you can make from one customer over a specific period. 

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The higher your CLV, the more revenue each customer can bring into your mobile app business. Some ways to do this include improving your customer onboarding experience, providing more personalized content to users, and building user feedback into future developments.

Continuously measure and monitor results

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All your decisions relating to your growth strategies should be data-driven, meaning that you shouldn’t take any action without first analyzing the data around it, whether it's a competitor analysis, audience research, or assessing your in-app performance metrics. 

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This goes for strategies you do apply as well. You should constantly measure and monitor their results by reviewing the data and making adjustments where necessary. 

Ready to unlock consistent growth?

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Remember there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to implementing mobile app growth strategies. What works for another app won’t necessarily work for yours, making it essential that you select the right strategies according to your app’s service, positioning, audience and value. 

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At Appic, we’re veterans of growth strategy development and implementation for mobile apps. We can help you determine the best approach for growing your app and help you roll it out and measure its impact. Chat to us to learn how we can help you unlock unlimited app growth. 

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