How apps drive customer engagement effectively

Here at The Distance, we started developing apps way back in 2009, so we have a pretty good idea what makes them such a powerful tool for engaging new and existing customers. We tend to break the benefits into five key areas when explaining the value of apps to customers. They are:

1. High user time – OFCOM research shows that smartphone owners spend an average of 4 hours and 48 minutes everyday using mobile apps (BBC News). Remarkably, that’s a third of their waking hours. Higher user times mean more time spent with your brand.
2. Smoother UX – Generally, compared to other digital channels, such as websites, mobile apps offer a far superior user experience (UX). This is because apps are more malleable and open to creative design than other channels. Our designers and developers know how to create dreamy user experiences and those experiences ensure customers stick with your brand.
3. Convenience – One of the main hurdles mobile apps must overcome is the initial download. It takes more encouragement to get a user to download an app than to open a browser and visit a website. However, once you clear that hurdle and they download the software, apps are super convenient. This convenience gives you an edge. Once a user downloads an app, they are more likely to choose it over a competitor’s service.
4. Data analysis – Modern marketing and product design are built on data. We target specific groups of customers, tailor features to user needs and design marketing channels based on the data we collect. And there’s no better source of customer data than mobile apps. 
5. Better access to high-quality leads – Users only download an app if they’re already interested in your products and services. This makes them high-quality leads. Apps focus these high-quality leads in a channel that enables easy and regular communication, giving you unprecedented access to valuable potential customers.

Having examined why mobile apps are an excellent customer engagement resource, let’s turn to the specifics of how we use them to improve engagement. Based on more than a decade of app-building experience, these are our top tips for driving greater engagement with your apps.

As we mentioned above, mobile apps are a high-use channel. Users spend a significant amount of time on their mobile devices, meaning your app is always just a tap away from engaging them with your brand. As developers, we must focus on leveraging this constant accessibility to drive higher customer engagement.

One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by integrating app features that encourage repeat usage. These features might include publishing fresh content regularly, offering exclusive rewards for frequent users, or running limited-time promotions that are only accessible through the app.

By offering valuable features that motivate users to return, you can build habits that encourage long-term engagement and brand loyalty. Regular app interaction is the foundation of all thriving apps, so we optimise every aspect of your app to ensure it creates a loyal, active user base—an essential element of any successful app strategy.

1. App usage data – this is data that tells you how users interact with your app. We typically use it to refine app performance and enhance the user experience. It can inform when and how often you send push notifications or whether we should drop a particular feature from your app. In this sense, app usage data has a big impact on how effective the other methods included in this guide will be.
2. Customer data – this is data relating to the customer. It includes information like location, gender, contact details and personal preferences. It is useful when segmenting customers and you can apply it across your entire marketing operation. Though it’s collected via the app, you can still use it to tailor email and social media outreach. It’s also valuable information for personalising services (more on that later) and creating buyer personas.

Push notifications are a powerful tool for increasing user engagement and re-engaging inactive customers. Though they can be tricky to get right, they are one of mobile apps’ many secret weapons. When done correctly, they can significantly increase your app’s interaction by delivering targeted messages directly to the user’s home screen, making it much more likely that they’ll read, acknowledge, and act on the message..

Push notifications are a fantastic way of re-engaging customers and getting them back using an app. Although Android has now enabled push notifications from websites, iOS has not. This means the vast majority of push notifications are sent via mobile apps. And they have a significant impact.

Research conducted by Invesp shows that push notifications increase app engagement by 88%. When push notifications are enabled, 65% of users return to an app within 30% days. Additionally, you’re approximately four times more likely to retain a user with push notifications enabled than a user who disables them.

However, push notifications’ success depends on how you use them. Sending too many messages or at the wrong times can lead to users disabling notifications or even uninstalling your app altogether. Industry best practices suggest that sending notifications during lunchtime or in the evening, outside of traditional work hours, is the most effective approach.

We also recommend sending just one push notification a week. Send more, and you drastically increase the probability of users disabling notifications or deleting the app.

Personalisation is another key factor in making push notifications successful. Tailoring messages based on user behaviour, preferences, or past interactions increases the likelihood of engagement. For example, Netflix excels at this by sending personalised notifications recommending shows or reminding users of new releases based on their viewing history.

By carefully managing frequency, timing, and personalisation, push notifications can become a valuable strategy for driving engagement and increasing user retention within your mobile app.

As app developers, we want to create apps that encourage engagement across all channels, not just the app itself. One of the ways we achieve this is by linking email communications to particular actions in the app. Consider Strava, the fitness app. When someone adds you as a friend, comments on your activity or gives you kudos, Strava sends you an email telling you what happened.

Emails are an effective way of reminding users to engage with the app, as communication occurs via a second channel and is no longer restricted to the app. You are now communicating on two fronts. By broadening communications to encompass more channels, you increase the customer’s exposure to your brand and app. Increased exposure to your brand encourages familiarity and makes customers more receptive to it. Eventually, a customer prefers your brand simply because it is familiar. This is known as the Mere-Exposure Effect or the Familiarity Principle.

We can integrate various types of email outreach into your app, ensuring you can engage and re-engage users in diverse ways. These include:

• Activation/sign up emails
• Event invite/notification emails (e.g. in-app sales)
• Educational emails (e.g. guides on how to use certain features)
• Customer feedback surveys

Capitalising on convenience is crucial when we design mobile apps. Statistics show that 46% of users are less likely to shop around when they’re using a company’s app (ITProPortal). That means apps help reduce competition and accelerate your sales funnel. By reducing the likelihood of customers looking for alternatives or running price comparisons, we move them a step closer to completing their purchase.

However, this depends on our ability to keep the customer in the app. We achieve this by crafting seamless in-app experiences that remove barriers to purchase. This includes minimising external links that could take users away from the app and ensuring the app can handle every step of the purchasing process, from product browsing to payment.

Delivering a smooth user experience is key to customer retention. The goal is to guide users through the app without unnecessary distractions, only redirecting them when absolutely necessary. In those cases, the app should link directly to the relevant page or resource, not to a generic homepage. For example, if a user needs additional information from your website, the link should take them straight to the answer they’re looking for. Otherwise, you risk creating friction, giving users a reason to look elsewhere, or comparing products from competitors.

By focusing on convenience and a streamlined user experience, we can help you reduce drop-offs and ensure customers are more likely to complete their purchases within your app.

Mobile apps often allow for a certain amount of aesthetic personalisation, too. Users can set up the app to reflect their own needs, adjusting their preferences and choosing between different shells to create an app that feels more individual and in keeping with their own personal tastes.

Our final expert tip focuses on omnichannel app design, which ensures a seamless customer experience across multiple channels. An omnichannel approach eliminates silos and allows customers, employees, and data to move effortlessly between platforms. Modern consumers often begin their customer journey on one device and continue it on another—sometimes using four or five different devices before completing a task.

Apps are one (admittedly, very important) element in a much larger digital ecosystem. For optimal customer engagement, apps must integrate smoothly with other channels, such as websites, social media, and customer support systems. This integration ensures that every touchpoint contributes to a unified brand experience, rather than functioning in isolation.

Customers may start their journey in the app but could complete it through other channels. As experienced app developers, our goal is to design apps that facilitate these cross-channel interactions, ensuring users can transition effortlessly between touchpoints without losing momentum. Whether they’re moving from your app to your website, or from in-app browsing to an email offer, we ensure a frictionless customer journey that drives conversions.

Our expertise lies in creating seamless transitions between channels, reducing disruptions and removing obstacles that could hinder a customer from completing their purchase. Whether you want to shape the journey through push notifications, personalised emails, or website integrations, we’re here to optimise the entire digital ecosystem.

At The Distance, we’re app specialists. We understand the vital role apps play in encouraging customer engagement and use that knowledge to develop apps that build your brand and keep customers coming back. We also recognise that apps are one aspect of the customer service system and we need to design them to drive engagement across the entire business. As a result, we take a holistic approach to app development, maximising benefits to your business.

If you want to know more about how we can help increase engagement by developing a world-class mobile app, don’t hesitate to get in touch.