Unlock the Power of User Engagement – The Best Tools for 2024
Getting downloads for your new application is typically an uphill battle. But you know what’s even harder? Getting your users to stick around. In fact, the situation is quite dire if a report by the Business of Apps is anything to go by, indicating that 9 out of 10 users eventually stop using an app within just one month. In this article, we’ll look at the most serious problem that’s sending many apps to their early grave and that’s user engagement. So stick around as we discuss the best user engagement tools that can help you increase retention for your application.
How to choose engagement tools
You’re listening to your audience but are you really hearing them? Feedback and analytics become vanity metrics if you can turn them into actionable insights. This is why you should prioritize tools with valuable user analytics that you can actually put to good use.
That said, here’s are some important analytics to consider when choosing engagement tools for your app:
1) User sessions
First, your user engagement tool needs to give you important information about:
- Length of user sessions
- Where your users are coming from
- How many of them are visiting your website and so on
We recommend using tools like FullStory, Heap, Mixpanel and Google Analytics to get a proper understanding of user activities.
2) Engagement objectives
What does engagement mean for your application? Before you begin scouring for engagement solutions, you need to first of determine what’s important to you.
Once you’ve identified your particular engagement goals, you can then choose a tool that matches this need. For instance, let’s say conversions is your biggest priority. Here, you can use Optimizely and other A/B testing solutions to identify and correct conversion bottlenecks on your website.
Meanwhile, if conversions are fine but users are leaving barely days after downloading the app, then your onboarding process may be amiss. So you’ll need a tool to help fix this accordingly.
3) Skill sets
What are the skill levels of the team that’s going to use these engagement tools? That’s important because otherwise user adoption will be low and you’ll be out thousands of dollars on a tool that your marketing team can’t understand.
So you should factor in the skill sets of the target users when choosing app engagement tools. This will negate the need to upskill your staff while reducing the tool’s time to value.
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The user engagement tools you should prioritize
Now let’s get into the top user engagement tools, as we break them down into categories to help you improve various aspects of the user experience.
1) Tools for improving in-app communication
When users are stuck using your application, you want to be able to help them out with in app-messaging. In this regard, here are some of the tools we recommend for this purpose:
- Appcues: This no-code software is great to help you provide timely support around new features and new user onboarding.
- Zendesk or Help Scout: If your customer base is massive and growing, you’ll need tools such as these to manage in-app outreach more efficiently and satisfactorily.
- HubSpot, Mailchimp or Marketo: These user engagement tools are excellent if you’re keen to create more personalized and effective e-mail marketing campaigns for your app.
- SendGrid: To help get around email throttling or instances where your emails are being diverted to spam, you should use SendGrid or Customer.io.
2) Push notification solutions
When you get it right, push notifications can be a gold mine. They can help stimulate user engagement, personalize app experiences and increase your conversion rates. Here are a few great solutions for you to check out in this regard:
- Pushwoosh – This is particularly helpful if you’d like to create push notifications that are event-trigged.
- Twilio – With Twilio, you can create SMS driven push notifications to help reach offline users
- Leanplum or Airship – These are great to help you send out periodic notifications that conservatively check in on users without bugging them all the time.
3) Live chat solutions
When in-app communication just won’t cut it, live chat solutions come to the rescue. Here are some great options therein:
- LiveChat – Its highly desirable for its wide range of integrations, that enable you to diversify your user support communication channels.
- HelpScout – This platform comprehensively track’s each customer’s history. It also gives you the power to create a shared inbox to ensure consistent team communication.
- Drift – Bringing the power of AI into the mix, this tool offers you chatbots that allow you to automate engagement efforts and provide user support around the clock.
4) Survey software
Surveys are a great way to obtain quantitative data that can help you improve user engagement, and here are some options to consider in this category:
- SurveyMonkey – With customize templates for surveys, this is a great tool to help you understand your target demographic better and more effortlessly.
- Get Feedback – This also gives you mobile-optimized surveys with real time analytics to help you get into the minds of potential users.
- Zoho Survey – Another great survey platform for both web and mobile, this solution can help you address user pain points to improve retention.
Never stop listening!
Just like how user challenges and opinions will change over time, so too do you need to be agile with engagement strategies. Using the right user engagement tools is certainly an excellent cornerstone to start with. However, success truly comes when you consistently collect feedback. This will help you keep ahead of shifting customer needs and adapt before all is lost. So never stop listening and strive for the continuous improvement of your app. Doing so ensures that users keep getting value from your platform, which certainly goes a long way to nipping churn in the bud.
