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target audience

Researching the Target Market and Competition

With around 3.8 million apps being available to Android users and upwards of 2 million on the Apple App Store according to a most recent statistic, you don’t want your app getting lost in this Amazonian-sized jungle without a map. According to CB Insights, in their post-mortem on the death of 253 startups, 14% of the startups went under due to failing to find their target audience. Fortunately, there is a way to successfully navigate this jungle and it starts by finding your apps target market. How to Find Your Target Market There are two mediums you need to tap into when searching for your target market: If your app is an aggregated list of equestrian services based on location, it’s probably safe to assume that your target market is heavily concentrated in the Midwest and not in Midtown, NYC. Perhaps I should’ve called this one “common-sense”, but common-sense is a loose term and definition seems to vary from person to person. So, ask yourself. The business space is filled with market research services that promise to dig up priceless information and act as a matchmaking service between your app and its target audience. However, this comes at a price, a weighty one at that. If you’re a large enterprise, go ahead, make it rain, by all means; but if your still a slim startup looking to put on weight, such costs are out of the question. Market Research Strategies that won’t leave a dent in your wallet Fortunately, you can dig out useful market insights and still keep change in your pocket. Here’s where to look: On Statista you can find loads of handy data on app usage per industry. This will provide you with a scope of your potential market. Google Adwords and Trends will provide you with an overview of what’s hot and what’s not in terms of search history. If you realize that interest in your topic is fading over-time, either you come up with a sensible answer to why that is. Worst case, you’ll have to ditch the idea, but it’s better to recognize reality at this stage than one week before launch. Another great way to seek out market insights is to simply read the questions that your potential users have been asking. Forums like Quora and Reddit reveal what’s on people’s minds and respective answers will contain insights you can work off of. Validating Your Idea Build an MVP (Most Viable Product) version of your app, with a few key features and gather user feedback from your relevant communities. Google search will reveal various user communities—e.g. Early Bird, Pre Apps, and Launchsky. Let these testers break you down. You may get offended, be prepared to get hurt; in the long run, you’ll be thanking these early criticizers as it will only make your app stronger. Know Your Unique Value Proposition Competitive research is about dissecting your competition to their strengths and weaknesses. Building an app that’s already on the App Store is like being on a road to nowhere. A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) explains how your product solves problems and benefits the user; it needs to convince customers to choose your product over the competition. How to conduct a Competitive Analysis It’s imperative to constantly be on the lookout for innovative ways to learn from your competitor’s tactics and employ that information to grow your own business. These are the questions you should be asking: Business Details App Store Usage Data Marketing data PR Coverage Browse through your competitor’s website; search their name in Google. What kind of coverage have they received? Keep these particular publications and bloggers in mind; when the time comes for you to market, they may be interested in writing about your app. Content Social Media It’s crucial to know how competitors are using social media to promote this content. Look at their Facebook page, their Twitter feed. What is the strategy they are pursuing on these social media giants? SWOT Analysis Based on the information you’ve gathered from the previous step it would now be wise to perform a SWOT Analysis. SWOT is a framework that evaluates the competitions competitive position by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These are some of the questions you need to be asking: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Conclusion Successfully finding your people and disassembling your competition will provide you the confidence necessary in order to progress your idea. Upon researching the market and competition you may discover holes in your idea. Once you’ve patched everything up, you may step back and realize that your idea is unrecognizable from its conception; this is ok, this is natural. So many ideas have skipped over this stage in a rush to get into development. And where are they now? What have they become? A CB Insight statistic no doubt. Don’t become another statistic. Do your homework. Blog Source- https://messapps.com/allcategories/strategy/researching-the-target-market-and-competition/

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Tips on How to Identify the Target Audiences for Mobile App

So, you have completed the mobile app development and planning to proceed to the next stage, which is launching it. But just wait for a minute! Have you done a proper and thorough research on your target audiences before releasing the app? If yes, then you are on the right track and if not, then first you have to identify who your potential customers are and then go ahead on the way. Well, don’t take the research work casually because your ultimate aim is to get more users on your app. In fact, one of the studies reveal that about 14% of the startups failed to get any user attention because they ignored users and indulged in poor marketing strategies. All this happened because they did not know properly about their target audiences. This is the age of sternest competition where you have no room for creating an error. Once the users churn your app, he would barely return back again. So, why should offer such an opportunity. You may have a great app idea and you think that could entire large number of customers, but let the audience decide whether that idea is really unique or not. You can get familiar with the taste of the users only by conducting a research. So, first you have to take some time out and decide firmly on your potential users. In fact, it will also help to save much of your time and money and developing the app would rather be uncomplicated. How Identifying your Audiences Can Prove Useful Well, as said that if you define your target audiences in advance even before starting to develop the app, it could prove highly beneficial. It improves the chances of achieving success becomes higher. In addition, it will allow you to add the app features and functionality according to the needs, taste and preferences of your audiences. Apart from that, it will also help to develop the optimum monetization scheme and prepare the best app specification. It also allows you to launch an effective marketing campaign. The Initial Steps of Conducting Research on Target Audiences Today millions of people are using Smartphones and various gadgets, having an access to N numbers of apps on both Android and iOS platforms. The consumers are looking something exclusive and unique in apps. For instance, if we take about the eCommerce apps, then according to one of the surveys, 85% people want to avail discounts on products similar to the ones last purchased. So, it would be more suitable if you divide your findings into two parts; general understand and secondary market research. The General Understanding In the general understanding you get to know the first nerve of your audience and you actually gather knowledge on the initial lines of market. For instance, if it a grocery app, then your target audience would include almost all people belonging to different age groups. However, since grocery shopping is largely associated with homemakers, your specific focus would be on women living in a particular region or state. But you cannot say that only women are your potential customers as men, students and others also use the app to buy items. Secondary Market Research Well, in the secondary market research, you have to go with a broader prospective and approach as it is a deep exploration. You must not forget to keep your eyes intact on the competitors and give special attention on people who would use the app more than others. Taking the grocery app example, you should concentrate on how often people order products from grocery app and what are the common items they buy, what is the popular mode of payment etc. You also have to consider the app reviews and ratings as well. Converting your Marketing Strategies More Effective Hiring the Services of Marketing Agency If you go to the Google, you would come across a number of local and offshore marketing agencies who are willing to offer their services to the client. You just to contact the professionals, explain what kind of app you have and pay their chargers. The big corporate houses can afford the price but for startups and small business, it could prove costly. So, Why Not Adopt the Cost-Effective Method Well, the best option is choosing the market research strategies that won’t pinch your pocket at all. To tell you more, there are a number of ethical and reliable websites and online statistics available, which could prove to be more than handy. When you search on the Google, you would get across many such as the Statista. It contains most valuable information, stats and other figures related to mobile apps, markets and revenues etc. You can draw a lot of info from there. Similarly, you have App Annie, which also provides important numbers on marketing insights. A lot of other websites offer figures and stats on different app categories. The Google Adwords or Google Trends will help you in getting familiar with who are currently online and what they are searching at present. For instance, if you find they are specifically searching for a particular product, you can add that into your category list. Then, there is Reddit that assists in figuring out what the target audience actually wants. Understanding the Demography, Behavior and Audience Lifestyle Well, you want to set best output from your efforts through research then you have to understand the demographics, lifestyle and behaviors of your audience. It is important to identify their gender, age, location and culture. This becomes more imperative if you have a travel or a restaurant app. Conducting Surveys In surveys, you directly go to your audience and ask about their preferences. Well, there are different ways in which you can conduct a survey. The first is combining landing page with Facebook advertising. In this method you develop different pages for different types of target audiences and connect them to a landing page, which contains the details of your products and services.

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