What launch strategy for your application?

The mobile application market has experienced continuous growth for several years, confirming that launching an app represents a real opportunity to diversify revenue streams.

However, launching a mobile application is not trivial. Often, we tend to distinguish two phases: creation and then launch of the application. Indeed, the launch is perceived as a pivotal event, which comes after development and initiates a viral spread of the application. It is, in fact, a succession of events concomitant with development that unfold over time. 

The article proposes some best practices for a successful launch, by analysing the strategy of the Jock application, a gay social network developed by Galadrim.

Disseminating product-related content on social media helps initiate and maintain a dialogue with your community ahead of the application's launch. The jock.life pages on Facebook and Instagram have allowed, thanks to relevant content, to prepare the application's launch by forming an initial base of potential users.

In parallel with social media communication, Jock created an online store. The store not only helped generate revenue but also strengthened its visibility by promoting products likely to interest future application users. 

The strategy of maximising the number of downloads during the initial launch is risky. Indeed, the application is rarely mature at this stage, and we know nothing about user behaviour on the application. 

In Jock's case, the launch went through different phases: an internal beta version, an initial publication on stores without communication, followed by targeted communication campaigns. This gradual launch of the application allowed for the optimisation of the application's overall performance and the improvement of certain features, such as live streaming, the tracker, instant messaging, or the location of nearby profiles. It also enabled more effective moderation, a fundamental element for a dating application that aims to be premium. 

Optimising the application by putting it into real-world use also allows for the optimisation of the application's retention rate. 

Once the product reached a certain level of maturity, Jock accelerated the launch by leveraging different drivers: 

These different drivers, coupled with a robust infrastructure, particularly with the use of Amazon cloud services, enabled a significant number of daily active users to be reached without encountering any scalability issues. 

However, the retention rate remains the most relevant metric for assessing the application's quality. To make users stay, it's essential to listen to them and communicate with them regularly. Jock, through the in-app social network and the sending of promotional messages, disseminates content on the application, thereby strengthening the community effect. Furthermore, Jock constantly evolves the product and offers regular updates. Consequently, the number of active users continues to grow. 

The user is best placed to provide data about themselves. It is therefore essential to initiate a dialogue with them as early as possible. This dialogue allows for a better understanding of their behaviour, aspirations, and needs. Designing a feature without including the user can be resource-intensive, cause the acquisition phase to fail, and decrease the retention rate. From this perspective, the validation of a feature should also be done by the user, who is best placed to judge its relevance and areas for improvement. Our vision of a feature is merely a starting point, an unrefined perception. It is up to the user to refine the feature and guide developments, by iterating with them. 

Strong in this conviction, Galadrim's development method consists of deploying each developed feature into production to maximise user feedback. This is where the interest of an agile method lies: taking feedback into account as developments progress and not waiting for the launch to evaluate the impact of each feature on the user.