So, your product is ready, you’ve got your app in all the stores, it works perfectly, and customers are downloading it. But you notice that your engagement and retention metrics aren’t as high as you’d hoped. Luckily, there are many marketing tactics that you can deploy to engage and retain your customers without having to leave your app…

Yes, we’re talking about in-app marketing. This tactic lets you take full advantage of your active users and their engagement – after all, keeping an existing customer is five times cheaper than acquiring new ones. That’s why we’ve compiled the ultimate in-app marketing guide for 2023, so you have everything you need to get those engagement levels up! Read on to learn more about:

  • What is In-App Marketing? 
  • Why you need a Good In-App Marketing Strategy
  • Types of In-App Marketing
  • In-App Marketing Best Practices

What is In-App Marketing?

In-app marketing is any type of marketing campaign that’s displayed within your app whilst customers are inside and using it. It’s a great way to deliver personalized messages to your customers quickly and effectively in order to increase engagement, boost retention, and even upsell your other products. 

In-app marketing can be used to:

  • Introduce or onboard users on how to use your app
  • Promote desired behaviors within your app 
  • Gather feedback 
  • Reach out to existing customers – advertise upgrades 

Basically, in-app marketing helps you stay in contact with your current customers, making them want to stick around using your app. This is a crucial aspect of reducing the churn rate of your SaaS, which is ultimately what SaaS companies want. 

Why you need a good In-App Marketing Strategy

In-app marketing focuses on targeting your existing customers, so if you aren’t strategizing for a way to keep them engaged, you can lose them pretty quickly. In fact,  the average retention rate for customers reduces from 97% in the first week down to just 22% in the sixth week. 

A good in-app marketing strategy will help you to:

  • Build your reputation through positive user reviews: Through in-app prompts, you can urge users to leave a positive review of their experience. As a result, you’ll have a solid reputation for your products that precede you, and before you know it, you’ll have an influx of new customers excited to try it out for themselves.
  • Increase engagement and retention: Having personalized messages for your users directly in your app will ensure users stay engaged, feel special, and ultimately want to stay. As a result, your existing customers are potential ambassadors for your app and are more likely to recommend it to others.
  • Optimize your product thanks to feedback:: You can send quick surveys via real-time in-app messaging to get direct feedback from your customers to help improve your product where it needs it and get that all-important CSAT score high. 

Features of a Great In-App Experience

So, you know how in-app marketing works and the areas of your business it can help with… but what do you actually need to create a great in-app experience? Well, it’s super important to keep in mind the objectives of your strategy and then design accordingly. In general terms, here are the 5 things you really should focus on: 

  1. A user-friendly interface
  2. Chat support 
  3. Intuitive and well-designed UI and UX
  4. Strong data protection
  5. Built-in integrations

Now that you know what features your in-app marketing needs to have, let’s see what types of in-app marketing there are. 

Types of In-App Marketing

Here are the most common types of in-app marketing you can implement into your strategy to create the best user experience.

1. Tooltips/Product Flows

Even though it’s super important to make apps as easy to use as possible, that doesn’t mean that you won’t need tutorials and walkthroughs for your users. You can use tooltips to guide and engage your users through your app seamlessly. With tooltips, you can:

  • Create easy-to-follow tutorials
  • Show the user where to tap and how your interface works 
  • Lead them to where the settings and important features are

Then, you can use product flows to analyze their onboarding experience, identify any obstacles they faced during the process, and focus on improving these areas to make the experience even better. This combination is a powerful one, trust us!

2. In-App Notifications 

In-app notifications urge users to take action once they’ve already used your product. It’s a far less invasive method to notify your users about key information and serves three purposes:

  • Build routine-based behavior 
  • Drive users to experience all the features your app offers 
  • Encourage the user to take action as soon as they open the app

As you can imagine, you’ll experience an increase in app usage, engagement, and retention thanks to in-app notifications.

3. In-App Messages

In-app messages are a more personalized, long-form method of communication than in-app notifications and allow you to remain in constant contact with your users. You can use in-app messages to:

  • Take action (redirect them to a feature they rarely use)
  • Remind users to finish an ongoing task
  • Promote any special discounts or promotions
  • Update users in general 

4. Splash pages 

Splash pages are what we know as the full-screen pop-up. They’re usually used for two purposes:

  • Asking for permission to send notifications (ads, newsletters…)
  • Asking for access to different features of your phone (camera, microphone, location…)

Splash pages are a great way to grab the full attention of your users whilst giving them full control over how they choose to act from the pop-up. 

5. Modals

In-app modals are superimposed windows that pop up from time to time when the user’s already on the app. They work to promote paid subscriptions and sales. It’s important not to use these too often so that your users aren’t overwhelmed, and remember, personalization is key. Modals can help you:

  • Encourage users to upgrade to a paid subscription
  • Ask users to share the app with friends and family
  • Promote new discounts 
  • Inform them of new features

In-App Marketing Best Practices

Although a top-quality, functional app is key to high user retention, it’s still necessary to use in-app marketing to keep users engaged so that they keep coming back. Using in-app marketing allows you to give a better customer experience, increase retention and engagement, receive useful feedback, and boost your reputation.

You can use this guide as your go-to reference for your own app – refer to the list of features above to determine what your app is missing, and use FROGED’s range of solutions to implement these in the easiest and most effective way! It’s easy peasy. 

Want to see what your app could look like with the help of FROGED? Book a demo to learn more about FROGED’s retention tools.