Importance of Market Research in Mobile App Development

So, after months of in-depth discussions, brainstorming sessions, and a hell lot of inspiration, you have come up with a brilliant application idea.

Kudos! Identifying the pain points of users and bringing a mobile app development solution deserves appreciation. But what happens most of the time to businesses with genuine determination is an unexpected turn of events due to inadequate market research.

Understanding and analyzing current mobile application development trends and the competitive landscape, hence, becomes a critical part of the overall project.

Traditional market research was mostly about inviting a group of people, showing a promo video/slideshow, filling out forms, and handing out surveys to different focus groups.

But now, in the third decade of the 21st century, you can't make decisions about the app you are going to build based on surveys, as there can be selection bias. Will the participants buy the product, or they just like it? People definitely like new mobile app ideas, but when it comes to spending a nickel, they fall back.

So, what we are going to do in this blog is to take a different approach to market research as an integral part of mobile app marketing strategy. You will learn some battle-tested strategies to conduct that research and create an efficient application development roadmap ensuring success.

Put the Sherlock hat on and keep reading!

Why Should You Bother with Mobile App Development Market Research?

"Bad news sells papers. It also sells market research."

- Byron Sharp, Professor of Marketing Science and Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, the world’s largest marketing research center.

Byron Sharp pretty accurately hit the nail on the head. If you want your app to be successful in the market, you first have to understand what your users will get excited about, which is, based on our development experience, what they are concerned about.

For example;

• What keeps your target audience awake at night?
• What are they missing on?
• What customer demographics are you targeting?
• What are the age group, race, and employment status?

You can validate your mobile app ideas by finding the right answers to these questions, and that will happen only through extensive market research.

But there’s more.

According to a research report, there have been 35-36 billion app downloads. However, the mobile app market is constantly changing.

The mobile app market is constantly changing. So, even if you have a great digital product, getting maximum customer adoption depends on finding the ideal market niche with the right strategy and at the right time. The collapse of Vine and Yik Yak are two such examples of failed mobile app marketing strategies.

In short, proper market research helps you understand, by all means, what your customers need at this moment and what features they could pursue in the future.

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How to Go about Research Strategies for Mobile Application Development?

Good market research is already half the battle (won). You will learn how to set the building blocks right and dive headlong into the action.

But we will not allow you to go empty-handed.

In this section, we have jotted down a few not-so-common research tips and tricks for successful mobile app development. Take a look:

1. Don’t Stick with Just One Idea

Here are some words of wisdom from a fellow developer of Radixweb - “Kill your darlings.”

Creating a mobile app means selecting from tens of other app projects you could possibly develop. Trust us when we say that are countless mobile app design ideas that have gone untapped. A lot of market segments have not been explored yet. So, how do you ensure you are choosing the correct project to work on?

Let me explain.

Great applications strive to solve a particular problem, whether it is an individual organization or millions of ordinary people. Thus, unless and until there is not a single existing problem, you are not out of credible app ideas.

So, basically, you come up with a number of application ideas and play by the “kill your darlings” rule – rather than moving with one hypothetically great idea, you start with ten, do your research, figure out the best one, and eliminate (kill) the rest.

Here's one of our experiences with it:

When our development team started working on a new app, we came up with a few ideas:

• An app with inspirational and motivational quotes
• A day planner app like ClickUp
• A to-do list app like Todoist
• A journal app like Day One

Personally, I have a thing for to-do list apps, which is why I was emotionally invested in the concept of creating my own stunning to-do list app. However, I was also aware such an app without a distinct selling point wouldn't succeed in app stores.

What happens next is crucial: I started seeking evidence that each of these mobile app ideas was the worst rather than trying to prove that one of them was the best. I wanted to get rid of these thoughts as soon as I could! I carefully considered each of the app ideas instead of secretly hoping that my preferred app idea would beat the others.

Is the idea resourceful? Is it technically feasible? Would your audience, your users, get something from the product? If not, kill the idea and move on to the next one.

2. Work on Social Media Listening

Even if you are not a big fan of social media, you cannot deny the fact that it is now a way of life. As a matter of fact, almost 50% of the world's population is using one kind of social media site or another. These platforms are like treasure troves that can have surprising rewards and benefits for your mobile app market analysis.

How do we make the most of this wealth?

Here comes social media listening. When performing market research, keeping an eye on social media activity that is relevant to your company is crucial. By doing this, you will learn more about how customers interact with apps similar to yours, as well as what potential bottlenecks and pain points are.

For an instant, check out Twitch and Discord if you're planning to create a gaming app, or consider joining Facebook telehealth groups if you're working on a healthcare software development project.

There are also Reddit and Tumblr to provide you with essential insights on mobile app promotion strategies. You might want to use a few trendy social listening tools like NetBase or LocoBuzz.

Don't only take information, though. Share your knowledge and reach out to people who you can help. This, in turn, will help you gain credibility and authority for further mobile app market research. Additionally, people will talk to you about their pain points more freely if there's cooperation from your end.

For all these reasons, social media listening is ideal for researching your competition as well as your user personas.

3. Google Trends to the Rescue

The next stride in our market research involves a valuable Google tool. Whenever our product consultation team researches an app idea, Google Trends is their first stop. You can explore various trends of any time in history through graphs, such as:

• Comparing the popularity of technologies like AI and ML
• Discovering emerging topics like the rise of mobile app development for business
• Finding immediate market needs, like when people are searching for online services

So, how do you validate your mobile application development idea?

Well, you type your search topics and compare their popularity. Keep in mind that your search term reflects exactly what you are looking for, and you set the time range according to your research requirements.

In our case, here’s what we got on mobile app industry trends:

• Quote apps first made an impact in the market, but after 2015, they started to flatten out. Although it may not be permanent, it would be a risk to invest in such mobile app ideas.
• 2010-2013 saw a rise in to-do list apps, but since then, it's been a sinking ship. Hence, there was no way to go ahead with this idea.

In the end, we got journal apps and day planning apps with steady growth. And that led us to this brilliant idea of building a hybrid product with these two categories. As per the Google Trends graphs, we discovered that journaling is a growing market niche, and if we couple it with the buyers' trends of planning applications, the app could be a winner, at least theoretically!

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4. Make the Most of ASO Keyword Research

App Store Optimization tactics offer actionable insights about the future of your app and the market you actually want to scope out and finally dominate.

ASO research will help you so by presenting the most useful keywords to you. What do people search for in reality? This is where you can begin the mobile app competitor analysis, evaluate the searches, and pinpoint potential growth areas.

Remember that having a humble attitude is crucial in all the stages of mobile app development, including the market research one. We have a tendency to think we know everything and understand what our customers desire. However, there are situations when the keywords we think are best aren't actually the best.

You can also observe whether it is basic keywords or longtail keywords that are driving traffic. If there is an abundance of longtail keywords, it might be a clear indication that users have a clear idea about what they desire.

Allow me to explain; take the keyword ‘food’ for example. It is extremely broad. Perhaps "order food online" or "food delivery" are some of the most popular searches. This will give you a good idea of the mobile app market size and how to tap into the market by implementing your app idea.

Organic traffic already exists. So, the rule of thumb is that you want to be aware of the current demands. To put it another way, you don't want to generate demand for your mobile app if it has a completely original idea. Like dumping a raw steak in a tiger cage, you want to drop your product into a pool of customers that is in dire need of your mobile app solution.

5. Find Your Inspiration in Questions, Pain Points, and Stories

Okay, you had enough of checking out the market from home (or office) with boring articles and cold research tools. Now step out of your ivory tower and get your hands on practical questions, pain points, and stories.

The most powerful tool to research market mobile and business drivers for mobile applications is empathy.

So, you now know where to look, thanks to social media listening and Google Trends. However, that doesn't guarantee that your app idea will be successful!

Even if you've ruled out a few concepts, the real test is when you show your app to someone who is experiencing the challenge your product aims to address. If you see it can get the ball rolling, you are good to validate your application idea.

And here comes the good part! Assemble the related phrases and keywords and:

• Use them on discussion boards and social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, Product Hunt, Quora, Hacker News, etc.
• Search them on Google and find out a ton of information on similar products, competitors, blogs, case studies, etc.
• Along with conducting internet searches, explore more about these search terms in the Google Play Store and the App Store.

In return, you will get actionable insights into the mobile app development industry, such as:

• Question people ask related to the existing problems your app is going to solve
• Pain points they face, like what they would want to be fixed right now
• Stories they share related to the pain points and what solution they are looking for

You will learn a lot, more than you could ever, by reading tutorials or watching videos if you try to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience.

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Market Research about Mobile App Ideas in a NutshellMarket research for mobile application development is not a new phenomenon. To determine whether an idea will succeed in the marketplace, it must pass a litmus test. It is one of the primary sources of inspiration for market pivots, new business prospects, and even feature additions. As a result, performing market research should be must-do activity in the app development lifecycle.As a leading mobile app development company, we put a lot of effort into developing and devising improved methods for doing app idea research for our clients. We've been fortunate to create MVPs into successful mobile apps and beyond for a number of businesses since market research demands cross-market understanding to recognize opportunities that could thrive in other industries as well.Just take the leap to reach out to us, and you will have the confidence and expertise to transform your app idea into a groundbreaking product. Let's talk!