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1. Working With Clients to Develop an ROI Focused Mobile App
2. Prioritizing Features for Maximum ROI
3. Optimizing for ROI For Mobile Apps Opens Up Post Launch Options

At Fueled, we’ve built apps for startups like Warby Parker and Crunchbase and enterprise clients including Verizon, Rite Aid, and MGM. There are many strategies for calculating (return on investment) ROI for mobile apps, like app calculators, but as a product-driven company, we focus on developing features that balance user value and business requirements.

When clients are considering Fueled, we calculate what we can accomplish within the given budget in order to build a focused product that will deliver a high return on investment. We deliver ROI for mobile apps by creating a feature set that will create a valuable user experience while earning enough revenue for our clients to see a profit.

Working with Clients to Develop an ROI Focused Mobile App

When given an annual budget, an organization will often consider investing in mobile app development as a way to generate ROI and solve user-pain points. Fueled works very closely with enterprise clients to develop a robust product strategy that's on generating revenue, and increased user engagement.

Here's some tips to maximize ROI in mobile app development:

• Prioritize features
• Create an actionable plan
• Know your costs (development, marketing, maintenance, etc.)
• Research potential demographics for pricing (monthly or annual subscriptions, payment plans, free trials, etc.)

When searching for the right agency to deliver on their ideas, a company will send out a request for information (RFI) to ask mobile experts whether or not an app can address high priority user pain points. If the answer is yes, they will follow up with a request for proposal (RFP) to gauge industry knowledge and inquire specifically about a proposed solution.

MGM Resorts came to us wanting to create an app for direct hotel booking. Rite Aid approached us with an existing app that they wanted us to improve the UI/UX design of. Warby Parker simply wanted an app where users could buy their glasses.

Each of these cases presented the potential to build an app that would generate ROI in a product through improve user satisfaction. In each of these cases, our Product Management team went above and beyond to understand pain points and deliver creative solutions.

Prioritizing Features for Maximum ROI

Fueled’s Product Management team takes client ideas and turns them into award-winning apps via our agile problem-solving process. When a client meets with our Product Managers, they are often presented with basics of the industry and the problem to solve; it is their job to find the best solution.

The first task for a Fueled PM is to create a feature set that makes sense for what the clients want the app to achieve. This requires combining our team’s knowledge of the marketplace, mobile possibilities, and intensive industry research. To find prioritize features for maximum ROI for your app, we follow a process that has seen much success:

1. Create a roadmap
2. Research (onsite interviews, focus groups, etc.)
3. Design
4. Implementation

One of our first priorities when creating a project roadmap is to find the defining feature of an app. This will be the download hook that will be useful to the core user base we are aiming to reach.

Onsite interviews at MGM properties led us to discover that hour plus check-in lines were the highest-addressable pain point we could create a mobile solution for. This led to mobile check-in and digital keys becoming the focus of the project.

When considering Rite Aid redesign possibilities, we saw an opportunity to increase user engagement by engineering an app that improved the prescription refill feature. We made prescription refills the core feature of the app, which led to a 7% increase in refill revenue.

Sometimes when working in e-commerce, as was the case with Warby Parker, the best approach is to translate the web experience over to mobile in a well-designed way that takes advantage of the platform and sticks to branding that users already love.  

How do we choose which ideas work best? We slim down the remaining ideas to create a product that has two or three features supporting the main feature. When deciding these, we determine which of the features will find generate the highest ROI in a practical way. Which features will the user find valuable that will directly produce revenue for the client? For each project, the dedicated research done by our Product Managers means we know which metrics equal a higher ROI for mobile apps.

The Warby Parker mobile app takes advantage of mobile by adding Apple Pay as a payment option.

The MGM app gives guests the option to book at shows, restaurants, and future resort stays, directly through the app, driving direct revenue and making the guest’s stay much more fluid.

With Rite Aid, we included the weekly ads and rewards card integration, making it easier than ever for customers to get deals and points for their purchases. This encourages Rite Aid customers picking up a prescription to do any shopping they need to do on the same trip.

Creating lean products can mean leaving some of the most creative ideas on the cutting room floor. At least in the initial design and development process.

Optimizing for ROI For Mobile Apps Opens Up Post Launch Options

We want our clients to be successful at launch. Developing primary features that will deliver the highest ROI for mobile apps is the best way to fund tertiary features that won’t make it into the first version of the app. This maximizes the potential for immediate ROI, giving the client the budget to hire us on to develop the features we passed on during the first PDS.

At Fueled, we make products that benefit both the client and their customers. We know that by finding the best feature set to deliver ROI for mobile apps our clients want and expanding on the foundation of a great user experience, will create a product that impresses both clients and users.