The fitness industry today is going through a digital revolution. The days of expensive in-person training sessions and boot camps are slowly dying in popularity as a new era of online training, digital diet plans, and digital progress tracking are bringing fitness apps on the rise in today’s mobile market. With health and fitness becoming more “trendy,” society today is more concerned about health-related fitness and is ready to spend for it with the global fitness app market projected to grow by $3.5 billion during 2021-2025.
Even though fitness apps are already soaring in popularity, there is still a lot of room for growth. If this is a market you’re interested in entering, you’ll want to go about it the right way by offering high-quality technology, features, and service. The App Store and Google Play are already saturated with fitness and sports apps, so how can you stand out against the competition?
At BitCot, we know a thing or two about building fitness platforms. In this article, we will be looking at must-have features to include in your custom fitness app and some ideas on how to make a fitness app unique and top-ranked.
User Personalization
Listen, fitness is personal. It’s just as much mental and emotional as it is a physical activity. Users want their fitness platform to feel personalized. Having top-notch user personalization includes collecting user info like age, gender, weight, height, etc. for the creation of customized nutrition and/or workout plans. Personalization is an integral part of any mobile app, especially a fitness app because it allows you to improve user experience, increase consumer retention, and therefore increase profits. If the user feels that the app addresses their personal needs and helps them achieve their fitness goals, then they will keep coming back to the app. When it comes to fitness apps, cookie-cutter programs and features will have your platform lost in the crowd.
Wearable and Non-Wearable Device Integration
Most users today have multiple devices that can track and monitor activities. For this reason, it is crucial to make sure your app provides a quick and easy synchronization with a fitness tracker and mobile device. Some well-known examples are Huawei Health by Huawei, Mi Fit by Xiaomi, and Fitness+ by Apple. The apps are integrated both with smartphones and wearable watches. Many fitness fanatics wear their apple watches 24/7 and use them religiously during their training to track things like heart rate, speed, time, calories burned, etc. This type of integration with your fitness platform will help to create an even better user experience, also adding to the personalization aspect. This process also involves cloud-storage data which requires the participation of highly qualified developers who will not only be able to set up a fast uninterrupted data exchange with the cloud but also adequately protect the personal data of users.
Tracking Metrics
When it comes to fitness, many goals are numbers-based and progress can be measured. Your fitness app needs to easily provide the user with a means of measuring a progressional metric they want. Repetitions, sets, calories, hours, kilometers, kilograms, miles, pounds – everything can be counted. This data is important because the user can track their progress in measurable units, become motivated by this information, and continue using the app to achieve more. With so many metrics to track, apps need to make sure that they highlight only the few that are most important for their app to avoid information overload. A graphical overview of the metrics would also be a good option so that the user gets their fitness routine summary at their fingertips.
For example, a running app should highlight key metrics like distance (kilometers/miles), duration (hours, minutes, seconds, etc.), and calories. A custom weight training app would track weight used over time, duration, heart rate, and calories. All of these metrics can then be displayed as a convenient graphical overview for a visual presentation of progress.
Community and Sharing Integration
Fitness is very community based so giving users different ways to connect and share their progress with others is a great way to improve your app’s exposure and elevate the user experience. In the age of social media, it is hard to imagine a fitness app without social integration. People love to communicate and show off their accomplishments, so use this to your advantage. Sharing, chatting with friends, and interacting with others will allow users to spend more time in the app, which will have a positive impact on the app’s KPIs. Building a community around your fitness app is also a great way to engage and retain users. By seeing how their friends or fitness influencers achieve their goals with the app, the users will be aware of the value that this app brings.
Video Tutorials
Today video is everything. When it comes to fitness, movement comes differently to everyone which is why having video demos and tutorials is a non-negotiable when it comes to your fitness application. With online training and performance, taking out the human, interactive aspect of personal training means that your app has to compensate and still offer a similar value. Fitness mobile apps have quite a diverse audience that prefers different ways of delivering information. For those who perceive information visually, video tutorials will show techniques for specific workouts and give users a sense of security. Some kind of guidance and support, even though virtually, is helpful. Videos can also be motivating and give the user a sense of community.
Whatever it is that you’re looking to integrate into your custom fitness app, BitCot is here to help. We’ll start the process by sitting down with you and putting together your goals for your new fitness empire, from there we’ll work to develop a theme, then customize your desired features and discuss how to best monetize your audience. As always, we like to make technology simple, which is why our custom application will be specifically designed to be compatible for integration with your existing technologies. Let’s start working together today!
You can take a look at our fitness projects at: https://www.bitcot.com/industry/fitness-app-development/
