All successful apps begin in the same way – as innovative ideas. However, having a great app idea isn’t enough. If you want to bring your app idea into life successfully, here are some points you need to consider:
- Who will use your app?
- What is the right product to build?
- Is the app idea compelling to customers?
To find answers to these questions, you need to validate your app ideas with market research.
The fundamental starting point is to first identify an audience, or target market. This might be a large or small segment, each of which presents unique pros and cons. While a greater target market gives you a larger pool of potential customers, you’ll also face more competition. Alternatively, a micro niche won’t attract as much traffic, but it can be designed to more specifically meet the target audience’s needs, resulting in higher conversions.
Researching the size and shape of your market is a critical step in influencing the direction of your app idea. Is your target market broad enough to support an app funded by advertising? Or is it perhaps niche enough to generate word-of-mouth recommendations and community loyalty?
Seeking out similar apps is an easy way to start, but you don’t necessarily need to identify existing competitors to prove that you’re building something that people want. If you can’t find competitors, you can alternatively look for people blogging about problems that the app idea solves, or discover if people search for topics related to the app. Luckily, there are more research tools and data sources freely available to do such research than ever before. A dead simple way to validate your idea is to see if people are actually searching for your app. Using the Google Keyword tool, you can discover the number of searches your idea generates. When using this tool, you want to make sure you have the keyword match set to “exact”. This will show you the number of searches there are for your exact keyword phrase.
You can also use App Store Optimisation tools like Search Man or Sensor Tower to help find the right keywords for your app. The keywords can then be optimised based on search locations to see the average number of local and global monthly Google searches. This is a good indicator of market demand and, in turn, the validity of your app idea.
Don’t rush building your app. There are millions of abandoned apps because people don’t want or don’t understand how to use them. Though time consuming, these are worthwhile steps to ensure the success of your app. We are happy to talk to you about these, and other, processes with which we can help you to bring your app idea to life.