After the wonderful experience of the 2016 edition, we continued the mobile project of the International BNL of Italy for the second consecutive year with the realization and redesign of the iOS and Android's official app of ibi17.
The aim of the project was to enrich the experience within the Village and beyond, consolidating the work undertaken last year with the Italian Tennis Federation and creating a dedicated channel for enthusiasts of one of the most important tennis events in the world.
Starting with the work done for ibi16, this year's project focused on consolidating the app's acquisition, profiling and retention activities. Through the monitoring and analysis of collected data we have implemented processes, mechanics and user experience aimed at offering the customer a more effective touchpoint.
Thanks to the experience acquired in the Mobile field, Sport and large events and through the work undertaken in the previous edition, we have pursued an approach focused on constant customer interaction since the early stages of the project, which enabled us to implement new features and improve the strengths of the application, coming to the event ready for the best performance.
The user data and behavior analysis during the previous event of 2016 and in the months to come has enabled us to create a data-driven design of new functionalities, optimizing feature and service already exists in the flow-based app navigation, user needs and preferences. For example, we found that:
The improvement of the International BNL of Italy experience for app users is a journey from afar, with key goals such as offering tennis enthusiasts a touchpoint through which knowing the results in real time, following the charts always up-to-date, discovering players in the race and scheduling their workouts, reading news and watch photos, videos, and gifs.
For the 2017 edition we have consolidated and evolved some of the features that were present last year, such as:
With the aim of increasing engagement, the interaction and the offer of services dedicated to tennis enthusiasts, we have also introduced many new applications, including:
We also implemented the management dashboard for managing CMS and Analytics, through which the customer can constantly monitor and measure:
For ibi17 we also introduced in the design and development phase:
The performance and results obtained last year through the development of a native application with the ability to dynamically open web content led us to replicate the same development methodology. This enabled us to create a flexible mobile touchpoint to the needs of a dynamic event such as the International BNL of Italy.
The app has confirmed a key touchpoint for tennis users and fans, achieving excellent results throughout the tournament.
The app has been chosen by the App Store and Google Play as one of the "Best New Apps" and has been featured in the Store homepage and has positioned itself as a "trend app" within the Sports category.
Again this year, the metrics considered have further growth, confirming the positive assessment recorded in the 2016 edition.
The work on the App Store Optimization has made it easy for applications to get right to the top spots in the target keyword store.
In particular, it was ranked first in the ranking for "ibi", "ibi17", "International", "International BNL", "BNL International of Italy", "Tennis Roma" and top 5 for other keywords related to International (nadal, djokovic, wta, ibi calendar)
Concerning the total number of downloads of the application, referring to the same number of days of the previous year (the official tournament's two official weeks), the app recorded a + 30% growth.
The growth trend for the profiled user database has been confirmed thanks to the registration needed for some value-added services. In one year the threshold of 21k registered users was exceeded.
The 2017 edition of the International BNL of Italy has recorded growing numbers over previous years. With regard to the qualitative KPIs related to the use of the app by the users, we have recorded incredible times of permanence and engagement.
Some evidence (totals between app iOS and Android):