Ok, a bit of a mental gymnastics - imaging you’re holding a smartphone in your hand and you’ve just purchased it. You’ve unpacked it, turned on and now browsing through its default apps and checking out its features. You’re consciously taking mental notes on features that tick off boxes for you - that is the rational part. Right, but don’t you notice that holding that phone in your hand makes you feel good?

We, human beings, are driven by emotions, even on occasions when you feel like you are strictly rational, your decisions are still influenced by your emotions.

Now, this episode stands out the rest, because with the exception of the episode with Joe Schaeppi, CEO of Solsten, where we talked about the psychology of app user acquisition, we haven’t touched emotions in app marketing.

But we’re going to change it now today by having Naksha and talking about driving app engagement with empathy.

• Naksha''s background
• What is UserTesting
• What is empathy and how it is different from sympathy
• Connecting with brands - how it works and why it's important
• How to assess how well or bad your app connects with its users
• Customer Experience First approach
• Takeaways
• Android or iOS?
• Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Naksha miss most?
• What features she would like to see added to her smartphone?

• Naksha Ruiz (Ghirardelli) on LinkedIn
• UserTesting
• Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry

"Yeah, I think that's a very, very good point, especially now in the digital age that we were talking about how technology brings brands more closely. I guess that would be the best way to say it. I think, at this point, consumers have endless options and it's very important to create genuine connection, to build a difference, to be a differentiator from all of the brand offerings. So ultimately, when we think about brands, brands sell, experience or sell, sell, sell you those feelings that then you can empathize with."

"I think from a business perspective, sympathy is what you will have the whole time. You're trying to keep it in mind, and the empathy will be something that you will connect to every now and then."

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

• NYC – 27 Jun 2024
• San Francisco – 26 Sep 2024
• Berlin – 5 Dec 2024

Today, of all business models the subscription model is the one that rules the world of mobile apps. Long gone the times when you hear the word subscription in a conversation about mobile apps you could only think of apps for content streaming or online media. Today subscription apps are everywhere.

On this episode, Léa will share with you best practices for subscription apps monetization. She will cover things like product-market fit, language-market fit, framing the prices, and more.

• Léa's background
• Monetization benefits for subscription apps
• Product-market fit: what it is an how to achieve it
• Language-market fit
• Framing the prices
• Building trust
• How to prevent users churn for subscription apps
• Takeaways
• Android or iOS?
• Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Léa miss most?
• What features she would like to see added to her smartphone?

• Léa Samrani on LinkedIn
• Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry

"So, you know, it's not enough to have an amazing idea and an amazing product. You also need enough people that think this is a great idea and a great product. So you need enough of the market as well for it to work. So those are the three things that I think are very much like minimal at least that you really need to start getting some level of product market fit and start building traction. And then there's how you measure that, which is some decent activation and engagement metric, you know, around activation and maybe retention. And if your product have some sort of habituation into it, you can also look at things like stickiness."

"In a way before subscription app, one of the best way to get new customer was a referral. It was the word of mouth. You trust a lot more when a brand or a product, when it's endorsed by someone you trust. The exact same principle applied to subscription app."

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

• London – 25 Apr 2024
• NYC – 27 Jun 2024
• San Francisco – 26 Sep 2024
• Berlin – 5 Dec 2024

We passed the Equinox a couple of weeks ago - the spring is here and, in kind of celebrating spirit, I want us to take a look back at 2023, a bird-view on the app industry via the one and only State of Mobile report from Data.ai.

The app industry is on scale of millions of apps used by billions of people, apps permeate the entire world economy. By now, you just can’t find an industry that hasn’t been influenced by mobile.

Competition is high, new technologies emerge and from time to time we all need to take a step back and take a holistic view on the industry to check out on the trends and understand how well we fit into this picture.

• Lexi Sydow's background
• Big data points from the State of Mobile 2024 report
• How much time people spent in mobile apps in 2023
• How much money people spent in mobile apps in 2023
• Apps vs. games - where do people spend more time?
• Mobile advertising growth year over year
• AI & Mobile - the increasing popularity of ChatGPT4
• The influence of Generative AI on top apps growth
• Top Apps & Games of 2023

• Lexi Sydow on LinkedIn
• The State of Mobile 2024 report
• Data.ai
• SensorTower
• Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry

"We saw 257 billion app downloads in 2023 alone, which is a roughly flat year on year. And that's sort of what we'd expect to see given more maturity in the market. These are completely net new installs. And it equates to about almost half a million downloads every minute is what that equates to you globally"

"$171 billion being spent across iOS, Google Play and third party Android stores in China. So the top five markets are China at $52 billion being spent alone. That actually is down 10% year on year. Number two is the U S, up $45 billion, and that's up 6%. Japan at 18 billion is our number three kind of market on mobile, up a modest 1%. "

"And in 2023, we saw $64 billion annually being spent in the non game sector, and that has grown roughly 6.5 X from 2016, where it was only $10.3 billion. So just a huge growth in like the last seven or eight years there. "

Business Of Apps – connecting the app industry since 2012

• London – 25 Apr 2024
• NYC – 27 Jun 2024
• San Francisco – 26 Sep 2024
• Berlin – 5 Dec 2024