Winning strategies behind top rated fitness apps in 2020

Top Rated Fitness App: The pandemic and the simultaneous rise in countries going on a lockdown gave rise to two things in particular; the increased focus on both mental and physical health. Confined in a house, with the same set of people can have different challenges for different people. The lockdown, automatically saw social media and surroundings abuzz with why one must focus even more on their mental and physical health in these unprecedented times. Naturally, all resources for mental and physical well-being quickly transferred online.

It’s no surprise that dealing with a pandemic is extremely taxing on one’s mental health. To start with, it’s dealing with something nobody has dealt with before. A pandemic can result in anxiety and can leave a person overwhelmed because of the uncertainty of the present and the future.  Stress because of how difficult the time is can affect mental health. Being stuck at home also in turn results in mental health even more so due to lack of physical activity. While this article primarily focuses on fitness apps, and what makes them successful, please refer to CDC on tips for coping with stress and how to focus on your mental health.

Unsurprisingly, as the world moved indoors, the demand for fitness apps drastically increased. But what differentiates one fitness app from another, and what is it that determines the success of an app? If you look at the top-rated fitness apps you will find four secrets behind their massive success, tremendous user base, and great financial success. Be it, Nike, Kayla, Fitbit,  Blogilates, Sworkit, etc all have these four secrets in common and we are here to spill them for you.

Secret 1: Community Building 

They say a man is a social animal, thereby making it easier to understand why humans behave differently along v/s how they behave in a team or a community. The first secret to success is to not only just build an IT, but also to build a community with it. A community gives an individual a sense of belonging, which is a huge requirement during these times because of social isolation.

This sense of belonging gives people the push required to stick to the app and to stick to their workouts, making workouts more regular, efficient, progressive, and less overwhelming. Returning and a committed user base ensures activity and an active community ensures an increase in the user base as well.

Secret 2: Competition and Connected Fitness

Healthy competition has proved to be a huge motivator for people. Apps that have the concept of a leader board focuses on overall fitness and ranks push people to further excel and go the extra mile. According to research by US National Library of Medicine, competition can actually improve attention and learning. The same research also concluded that competition increased attention, improved memory and improved efforts put it in by a person.

Clearly concluding that competition increases the motivation of the users thereby impacting their physical efforts. Connected fitness also allows users to see how their peers in the community are performing thereby giving them the boost to up their game. Additionally, connecting social media to fitness apps’ leader boards can also enable users to gleefully ‘show-off’ their workout. All in all, making it very important for fitness apps to focus on some kind of competition, and connecting fitness to wearables.

Secret 3: Great User Experience

The secret to any great app really is to make sure your app provides a great user experience. Great user experience does not just ensure that your users stay committed to the app, but also facilitates word of mouth, thereby getting more users on the app. Great user experience can include but not limit to the security of the app, personalized UX, a good quality UI, and most importantly an app free from errors and bugs.

These together add to the overall user experience of a consumer and is one of the biggest secrets to an app’s success. Enabling a user to customize their app interface, their workout plans, and personalizing their entire fitness experience is a big plus point for any fitness app. These things ensure that a user stays as connected to the app as possible, thereby eliminating the absence of a human trainer.

Secret 4: Optimum use of technology (alerts, push notifications and reminders) 

The increase in wearables and with our smartphones being able to track our activity is an advantage fitness apps must tap on. By integrating the app with a user’s smartphone, wearable such as Apple Watch, Fitbit, etc it can detect motion and in turn know when we are walking, running, or working out. The app can then notify us if we want to record that workout.

These no-efforts recordings of workouts and reminders in the future based on previous activities is a motivation factor that can enable a user to push their body. This integration can also help in a fitness app knowing a user hasn’t worked out thereby sending the appropriate push notifications and reminders. Since this becomes personalized to every single user, it makes the user feel belonged and more motivated.

How can TechAhead help?

TechAhead, renowned as one of the top mobile app development companies, has over 10 years of experience serving fortune 500 clients to high growth enterprises. The company has proven expertise in the Internet of Things (IoT), and other emerging technologies such as AR-VR and their integration with mobile apps.

At TechAhead, we have extensive experience in creating a wide range of health, fitness, and daily workout apps for clients from across the world. Our team is adept at iOS app development and Android app development. Additionally, we have AR specialists who can help to take your app to the next level.

With everyone focusing on fitness, one way or another it is no surprise that companies are also expanding and releasing fitness apps. However, it is imperative to make sure that the app is sustainable with or without a pandemic. Now that we have spilled our secrets, you know the 4 most important things to focus on, to make sure your app is a roaring success.