If you have ever thought “does my business need a mobile App?” you’re in the right place. Building a mobile App for your business is a serious endeavour, so you need to understand the importance of having a mobile App for business and the advantages of having one within your organisation. This guide will shed some light on why your business needs an App, the functional and marketing benefits of mobile Apps for business and the use of mobile Apps in business.
Does My Business Need A Mobile App?
By 2019, over a third of the human population on Earth had a mobile smart device such as an Android phone, iPhone or iPad. This statistic represents a new way undreamed of ten years ago to communicate with new customers.
In the UK alone, 78% of adults use mobile and smart devices to access the Internet. In 2017, a mobile device was the most popular way for adults to access the Internet (73%). Only 43% of users used a “traditional” desktop or laptop computer to access the Internet, and the market for mobile Apps is only growing and getting bigger as more and more people each year switch to a mobile smart device over a computer or laptop.
Developing a mobile App for business can offer valuable marketing opportunities and help you reach your target audience, as well as many other advantages that will help put you ahead of your competition.
Benefits of Mobile Apps for Business
1. Direct Communication and Engagement with Clients and Customers
One reason why your business needs an App is to improve direct communication with clients and customers. With access to a wealth of information at just a touch of a button, business mobile application development has opened the door to clear and direct communication between customers and businesses. The information gathered from customers using these Apps is invaluable for any business, with shopping behaviour and buyer personas being readily available to help enhance marketing strategies.
2. Improve Customer Engagement
For customers, they must be heard and have an easy form of communication. Customers often communicate wanting to know the answer to a question regarding your service or their order. Or they want to complain. Mobile App design and development makes both these processes much easier for everyone; with the idea being that the quicker a customer can communicate their concerns and receive a response, the less likely they are to leave a bad review.
3. Increase Brand Awareness
A mobile App is an extension of your brand and therefore is a chance for you to remain true to branding while being able to explore how it can be presented on a completely different digital platform; perhaps in a completely new and innovative way. It can also be thought of as a new advertising platform for the business, that can say whatever you want it to for your brand to get more exposure and therefore, awareness.
Developing a mobile App for business allows you the opportunity to reach potential new audiences. As a completely new platform, business mobile application development can also cause a new demographic of customers to reach you, one that finds using Apps more preferable than a web browser.
4. Create a Useful Marketing Channel
Custom App development also allows notifications and information to be sent to customers in an instant. If this information is useful and relevant to them, for example, containing information regarding exclusive deals and offers, it can help you make loyal customers who value using the App.
5. Create an Effective Loyalty Programme
Suppose your company has a loyalty programme or is considering introducing one as a way of encouraging sales. In that case, a digitalised loyalty scheme via a mobile App is an effective method for building and creating a community of customers. Once customers are rewarded for their spending, they are much more likely to come back. A mobile App makes it a much easier and quicker process for them to do just that.
6. Get Ahead of Your Competition
One of the important benefits of mobile Apps for business use is that it will make you truly stand out from the competition. Apps are very relevant in modern technology today, and using them for business is quickly becoming a trend. Still, it hasn’t quite taken off across the entire board yet, allowing you to get the edge over any competition.
Why Your Business Needs An App To Overtake Competitors
You are probably interacting with your customers in some way online right now. Maybe you have a simple web site, or perhaps you provide a service to your customers (e.g. an online store, a booking system, a product configurator etc.) via a web portal. At Snappy Media, we build web and mobile applications, which puts us in a great position for comparing usage amongst customers.
1. To Create a Barrier to Entry
If you deliver your product or service to your customers via an iOS (iPhone / iPad) or Android App, then any new disruptive start-up entering your market will need to make that effort too. Thus, you raise the barrier to entry and protect your competitive position in the market.
2. Offers Unique Services
A mobile App for your business will give you the ability to deliver your services in new and more competitive ways.
3. Gives Customers a Truly Mobile Experience
Your App can also give you a competitive edge in the field. Your App will work when your customers are out and about including areas where no Internet connection is available.
User experience is arguably the main purpose of creating a mobile App for business, connecting your business to customers with ease and with minimal effort required from their end.
How to Have an App Made for My Business
It follows that if you want to grow your customer base in the modern world, you should seriously consider how the use of mobile Apps in business can benefit your interactions with your customers. They like the convenience, the familiar and easy App-like experience, and it puts your company’s logo on their mobile device home screen!
Consider Your Goals and Target Audience
While there are many cultural differences all around the world, many different viewpoints and different ways of doing things, mobile devices seem to be universal. Steve Jobs would relate the story of watching a child in India who had never seen a computer begin to immediately and intuitively use an iPad. We have seen the same effect for our customers in the mobile Apps we build for them. Apps are available in over 30 countries around the world and have been translated into a similar number of languages.
IOS Vs Android Development
One area where there is some regional difference is in Android vs Apple device usage. For example, in the UK, 53% of smart devices in use are Android, and 46% are iOS. Globally, on average, the split is 86.1% Android and 13.9% iOS. The USA is dominated by Apple, with 64% of all devices being iPhone or iPad. Developing nations have much higher percentages of Android devices due to its lower-cost nature. In general, most of our clients create both iOS and Android Apps, but your customer profile may indicate that you can prioritise one platform over another.
