Workout apps have come to help many athletes to track their progress in real-time. No wonder giant sports product manufacturers like Adidas, ASICS, and Nike acquire and fitness app development. If you want to know more about how to create a fitness app, read this article from A to Z. We are going to cover the following topics:
Fitness App Market Overview
Workout App MVP Features
Workout App Advanced Features
Fitness App Monetization Strategies
How to Start Your Own Fitness App?
Fitness App Market Overview
Today people have acquired a lot of unhealthy habits and obesity has become one of the main concerns for many people. New technology has come to help and many companies get fitness apps to help monitor the daily progress. As a result, we witness a huge expansion in the fitness app market expected to grow up multiple times in the coming few years. In addition, Covid-19 will have a positive impact on the market.
Google, Samsung Electronics, Grand Apps, and several others are leading in the fitness market.
Now let's dive into some of the specifics of workout apps!
Workout App MVP Features
If you want to make a fitness app, you need to know about MVP. An MVP stands for “Minimum Viable Product”. It is a process when you develop the basic functionalities of the app and test them with the target audience. After you receive feedback from the early adopters, you can create your final product with a full set of features.
In this section, we'll go through all MVP features for a workout app.
Simple Sign Up And Profile Creation
Users don't like complicated registration processes. Make it short and simple and even allow creating user accounts via social media. Do not ask for too much data. For example, you may ask for the name, weight, height, email id, mobile number, and a photo.
Video Tutorials
Smart fitness coach apps will have a video explaining how to perform an exercise. They should also allow displaying the time spent on training and real-time statistics.
Push Notifications
Users love this feature because it helps them to keep to the diet and workout schedule. They won't miss their meal or a workout session.
Integration
Your app must be integrated both with third-party apps and with wearable and non-wearable devices. It is vital that your app integrates with various external devices. For example, you may integrate with smartwatches or smart home devices like Alexa, or Google Home.
Geolocation
Users want to know where they have been. That is why your app needs to have a geolocation feature. The app may use Apple, Google, and other maps to plan routes or report workouts.
Food Logging
This feature is especially important for diet apps. You should make it easy to log information and may even offer a product database with a dictionary.
Water Intake
Water tracking is an important feature. With this feature, you can keep to daily 2-3 liters of water quota that is enough to sustain your fitness goals. The app sends push notifications to take water at regular intervals.
Read also:
A Guide How to Create a Workout App
Workout App Advanced Features
To make your workout app more customer-friendly, you need some more sophisticated features. Let's go through some of them.
Barcode Scanner
With a barcode scanner, users can get data on calories or ingredients by just putting a barcode in front of their smartphone. It's convenient for users because they can easily detect the product and the manufacturer in several seconds instead of taking time on the navigation and search process.
Video on Demand or a Coach on Demand
Users may want to have group training with a personal coach. Some users just love this feature because they repeat all the exercises after the coach and ask questions about the techniques. The drawback of this feature is that users have to keep to a timetable offered. If the schedule is not convenient for a user, they may ask for a personal coach on demand and have personal fitness sessions.
Integration with social media
Users love sharing their experiences on social media. You may want to build your app with social interaction features using social media integration tools. Users then can post their achievements immediately on social media.
Gamification
You may engage your users with a bit of competition by creating the app with competitive leagues. Those users who earn scores can advance to the next league. You may reward the winners with badges or even with a premium membership.
Read also:
How to Create a Workout App: Detailed Guide
Fitness App Monetization Strategies
Let's see how to make money out of your workout app.
The most popular monetization strategies are the following:
Subscription model
Freemium model
Advertising model
Subscription model
You can offer different subscription options, including an option for unsubscribed users. For more advanced options you can charge your subscribers for a month, a quarter, for a year, or give them lifetime access.
Freemium model
The Freemium model is very popular with workout apps today. You give access to basic features for free but sell some other advanced features. If the users like your app idea they will buy more extended features.
Ads
If you choose this strategy, you will need to install your partners' ads inside the app. This may be annoying for some users and they may want to stop ads with a paid subscription. This means that you will make money both from unsubscribed users and paid subscribers.
How to Start Your Own Fitness App?
If you are planning to make a fitness app, there are several preparations you should make. Normally, there are several stages you should go through.
Market Analysis
In this stage, you should study your competitors and understand the key features they offer to their users. You should also identify what features are most popular and favorite among your users.
Feature List
You need to work with developers to develop a preliminary list of your favorite features. You can also create this list on your own and come up with the list for the software development company you are hiring. This list should be based on the previous stage of market analysis.
Development Stage
The development stage consists of five cycles:
Requirement Analysis
UX/UI Design
Implementation & Coding
Testing
Maintenance.
Promotion and Marketing
Finally, you should promote your product in the market. This stage starts when the product is still in the development phase and continues throughout the maintenance of the application.
Maintenance and Support
When your final product is ready, you should keep constant maintenance and support. You may need to add new features or drop the unnecessary ones. Or, you may need to fix bugs.
In Conclusion
In this article, we came up with a plan for your actions if you want to make a fitness app. Pick up the features that your audience likes the most and develop a monetization plan that best fits the selected feature base. A combination of methods is the best option.
The rising demand for fitness apps by app developers makes a lot of consider whether it's worth investing in such a business today to reap fruits in the coming years. And you can be one of them!
This post is published by Anahit.
