What You Need to Know About Mobile Apps Before Creating Your Own

Mobile applications can be exciting, even essential tools, but the majority fall short when it comes to getting consumers to download them. Is the hype greater than the apps themselves? My company wanted to find out, so it recently conducted a national study to help marketers better understand who uses mobile apps and what makes an app a "favorite."

Our study revealed that even though apps are the new "it" in the world of marketing, retailers should carefully consider whether investing in these new technologies is the right move.

The Study
Sixty-one percent of the survey's 7,000 respondents own a smartphone, and 52 percent said they use mobile apps. Mobile apps provide a high level of connectivity with consumers and offer fun technologies, engaging interfaces and sometimes-effective brand experiences. Because of these reasons, 300,000 apps have sprung into existence in such a short time. However, only a handful of apps achieve high adoption and dominate the market — leaving 299,900 fighting for an audience.

On average, smartphone users download 30 apps to their iPhone, iPad, Android or BlackBerry. Even then, they tend to actively use fewer than half of the apps on their phone.

The most popular apps, according to our study, are highly functional, unique tools. Apps that appear in the top 10 lists for both men and women include Google Maps, Facebook, Pandora, Weather, Twitter, Words with Friends and Shazam. All are available for free.

While Amazon received a few mentions, as did retail location apps such as Around Me, no retail apps made the top 10.

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
Male and female app users diverge in some interesting ways in their top 10 lists — essential information for retailers who tailor products to one group or the other.