Whether you work as an independent app developer or as a part of a startup or a software agency, creating engaging content for your code is crucial. After all, the end-users will likely be interested in the front-end content engagement far more than the back-end you’ve worked so hard to iron out. Let’s presume you are a fencing company, you could go the niche path and create a great Skilled Fencing app that will provide content to any user about fencing.
That’s why according to statistics published by Blue Corona, 51% of interviewed users claim to use mobile devices to discover new products and services, with 69% stating that they are likely to engage with content that answers their concerns directly.
This makes it pivotal for developers and content creators to curate their app’s offering carefully. With that in mind, let’s take a look at several steps and guidelines which can help you create engaging content for your mobile app for better conversion and retention rates across the board.
- Start with Brand Identity
For better or worse, no mobile app exists in a vacuum when it comes to competition. This makes your brand identity pivotal in terms of its positioning inside your mobile app. Just as Google places its logo and visual elements across the Play Store, so you should do the same with your brand in the mobile app itself.
You can refer to copywriting platforms such as Rewarded Essays and Hemingway if you need assistance in creating a legible, catchy brand identity for further use. Once you have established your brand standards, you can proceed to the content creation process itself.
- Establish a User Profile
No two users will experience your mobile app in the same way – that is the beauty of customer engagement. However, it can be difficult to create engaging content without knowing who your users are in the first place.
Tools such as Google Analytics can help you determine the optimal profile your end-users might have when it comes to content expectations. Youth and millennials have vastly different reading and browsing habits than elderly users do. Make sure that you are clear on who your audience is in order to maximize the effect and engagement of your mobile app’s content.
- Outline a Customer Experience Roadmap
Every mobile app serves a purpose in its niche. Whether that purpose is GPS guidance, food order and delivery or on-demand music streaming, the customer should be clear on what to do and how to do it.
In that regard, your customer experience roadmap should be a priority in terms of writing engaging content. Every screen, option and context-sensitive button should feel as if it belongs to a whole in terms of writing.
Instruct your content writers or UX designer to focus their efforts on writing content that clearly steers the user to the “a-ha” moment within the app. That way, you will achieve high conversion rates due to the user-friendly nature of your mobile app’s interface and the writing that accompanies each UI element.
- Short Form Works Wonders
Even though some users may engage with your mobile app through tablet devices, most will do so through smartphones or Apple devices. This means that your content should be short-form, especially in terms of UI design.
Focus on short, direct writing with informative and actionable calls to action for your users. Don’t use big words or comprehensive, niche jargon which will be unfamiliar to most people.
This is especially important if you opt to localize your mobile app into other languages and push it into the international market. Platforms such as Is Accurate, which is a translation review website and Readable, can help you create well-organized and legible writing across the board.
- Implement Content Creation Tools
It’s rarely a good idea to create mobile app content without any curation tools present in the process. In that respect, let’s take a look at several platforms readily available for your content creation needs:
Despite its namesake, this platform is able to provide you with outsourced content writing for numerous aspects of your mobile app. It can help you create UI writing elements, blog posts and other forms of interactive content depending on what type of app you want to build.
Centralized content creation is a thing of the past thanks to cloud-based services. Evernote is a representative example of a writing platform which can be used across a plethora of devices including PC and Android. It can make your mobile app writing creation and optimization much quicker and easier.
Once you have established a content creation routine, you might need help with editing or formatting of your mobile app content. This platform is perfectly suited to fill those needs in terms of ongoing revisions and to spruce up your content before implementing it into the app itself.
The overall legibility and clarity of your mobile app’s writing is an important hook for new users. Make sure that each of your content segments is understandable and easy to read with Grammarly. The tool will quickly analyze your content and provide you with actionable tips on how to make it clearer and more concise for the end-user.
Lastly, if you don’t have a writer onboard and focus solely on coding and programming aspects of your mobile app, this is the platform for you. You can engage with a multitude of writers available to create suitable error-free content for your app in very short timeframes.
- Address the User Personally
Due to the nature of mobile apps, your users will likely engage with the content individually. This presents the perfect opportunity for you to tailor-make the content by addressing the reader personally. One way that you can do this is through app localization, where you suit every element of the app – from language to imagery – to the end-user. That way, every piece of writing present in your app will feel closer and more believable to the user without coming off as distant or robotic.
This type of approach to content creation can also affect your user retention in a positive way due to the engaging nature of your app. Make sure not to overstep your boundaries as a developer, however. Remain as respectful and professional as possible throughout the content you deliver.
In Summary
Creating engaging content for a mobile application is highly subjective depending on who your audience is comprised of. Make sure to research your target customers adequately before investing time and resources into content creation based on popular trends. Once you establish an understanding and a line of communication with your users, the mobile app development and update process will become much smoother as a result.
Bridgette Hernandez is a Master in Anthropology who is interested in writing and planning to publish her own book in the nearest future.
She finished her study last year but is already a true expert when it comes to presenting a text in a creative and understandable manner.