With more and more people having access to high-performance smartphones, it has become increasingly more important for companies to create dedicated mobile apps and content. Contrary to traditional blogging or social media marketing, writing engaging content for mobile is a niche of its own.
According to data, mobile users are 62% less likely to purchase from a brand after poor mobile UX while 75% would gladly revisit mobile-friendly websites. With over 80% of internet users owning smartphones as of 2021, 90% of users reported that they stopped using an app due to its performance. As a brand looking to expand into mobile, what can you do to create engaging content for smartphone users in 2021?
Why Write Engaging Content for Your Mobile App?
It’s worth noting why writing engaging mobile app content is essential for success on the open market. Based on statistics, 82% of smartphone users spend time using apps, with 18-24-year-olds spending 66% of their smartphone time on apps. Whether you have a personal organizer, a step tracker, or a weather app on your hands, there is bound to be an audience for it.
Differentiating your mobile app from the competition with clever, original written content is what will help you succeed where others failed. Beyond that, here’s what you can look forward to once you start writing more engaging content for mobile:
- Access to a worldwide user base through Android and iOS app stores
- Geo-marketing opportunities for different regions and language groups
- Content personalization opportunities thanks to the nature of smartphones
- Ability to track and analyze your mobile app’s content based on usage
- Gain a direct line of communication and PR control with your stakeholders
Creating Engaging Content for your Mobile App
Write Content for a Specific Audience Profile
Every mobile app will attract a different kind of audience. It is up to you to create an audience profile based on your app’s features, visual design, and monetization type. For example, young adults may be very interested in gamified learning with flashy visuals while older users may want subtler and more reserved content.
Write your content for a specific user base and that audience will respond to your app in kind. Trying to appeal to everyone won’t help you attract a specific audience profile and make it very difficult to establish a foothold on the market.
Short-Form Content Writing is Essential for Success
Due to technical limitations (bandwidth, screen size, hardware), mobile users prefer engaging with short-form content. Writing long-form blog pieces or paragraph-long instructions for them to follow won’t do well in the long run.
You should write short-form content instead and limit your paragraphs to 2-3 sentences in length. Using pic maker to pair your writing with eye-catching design elements is also a great idea. Keep your content on-point and avoid unnecessary fluff in the writing for your mobile app.
Write the Keywords that Mobile Users Expect to See
SEO is just as important for mobile as it is for desktop users. Integrating mobile-friendly SEO keywords and phrases into your writing will do wonders for your visibility. Performing research before implementing your writing into the app will ensure that its users are more engaged.
Likewise, it will help your app store visibility given that you targeted popular SEO keywords. Make sure to avoid stuffing your content with keywords, however, as this can flag your mobile app as spam. Write content for users first and optimize it for mobile search visibility second.
Use Calls to Action throughout your Content and UI
The fact that our collective attention spans have taken a nosedive in recent years cannot be overstated. Judging by research, users read at most 28% of content on a single web page, with average visits lasting 10-20 seconds at most. Keeping your mobile users engaged is easier with calls to action interspersed throughout your UI.
Pairing calls to action with simple vector graphics and easy-to-spot buttons for the users’ thumbs are also welcome. Calls to action which invite people to click on something in your app, read content, or make a purchase are critical for its long-term success.
Always Spellcheck and Proofread your Mobile Content
Given how reliant mobile content marketing is on short-form writing, your users are more likely to spot grammar and formatting mistakes. There’s nothing worse than marketing your app as “professional” or “trustworthy” only to greet users with broken grammar.
Tools like Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, and PaperHelp should always be in your arm’s reach when writing content for your mobile app. Pass your writing through their algorithms before you post anything live to make sure that no piece of writing is of poor quality.
Don’t Use Machine Translation for Localization
You may be inclined to localize your mobile app into other languages given how many smartphone users there are worldwide. After all, expanding from English to languages such as German, Spanish, and French can only be a net positive in the long run.
Opting for machine translation and using tools such as Google Translate will never go well with your users. You should instead work with professional translators or native speakers to ensure that each UI element and piece of writing makes sense in that language.
Your users are your best resource when it comes to critical feedback on your mobile app content’s quality. Allow them to express their opinions on your app’s quality in general and the content you write.
You can create polls or surveys and send them to everyone’s email with a small completion incentive such as a discount coupon. You must take your users’ feedback to heart as they are likely to continue using your app long-term if you apply their comments. Treat your mobile app content as a collective property with your userbase and they will respond to your efforts kindly.
Making the Most out of your Mobile App (Conclusion)
Writing content for your mobile app in a way that will engage your audience will take some practice. It’s important that you listen to your userbase’s comments and track their usage statistics to see what works and doesn’t work.
Over time, you can include user-generated content, testimonials, and other community content into your mobile app’s writing for even better engagement. Start by writing good UI content with calls to action and clean grammar and work your way from there. The right audience will find your app and stick with it thanks to your writing style and mobile app development decisions.
