Building A Mobile App For Your Business
Appily App Builder: Remember the times when you would go to the phonebook when you wanted to find a business, you don’t? But you do remember going to the websites, right? Not so long ago, most of the consumers would look for information on websites, and since the smartphone gained their immense popularity, everyone was using them for every search and the mobile friendly websites took the throne. While this phase lasted for a long time, but in the recent studies it has been established that out of the total time spent on their smartphones, consumers are dedicating the most of it on a variety of apps that they have installed on their phones.
1. Introduction
It is true that your business must have a mobile friendly website, but it is equally important that you consider the advantages and suitability of developing a mobile app for your business. It is a common misconception among the small business owners that building an app for business is only for the big players like Walmart, Nike, or DeBeers. While it might have been true at one point in time, today the scenario has changed. Today, a great number of small businesses are adapting to the latest trend of going mobile and are understanding that to have a mobile strategy that brings in any kind of results, it is important to incorporate a mobile app in addition to having a mobile friendly website
2. Reasons why your business needs a mobile app
If you look a little closer at your everyday interactions, you might discover that some of the small businesses, from the local mom & pop retail store, to your favorite spa or salon have their own dedicated apps. These businesses stand to gain a higher ranking and garner the early mover’s advantage especially when it comes to taking their marketing game to a higher level. However, if you are one of those businesses who are still on the fence about going ahead and building your own app, then do go through the reasons listed here-under that might just convince you to get one now!
2.1. It can be an extra channel for marketing
Inherently, the mobile apps can help you bring together a number of marketing tactics and make them work cohesively and efficiently for your benefit. For example, one of the most effective marketing tools to work in the American market is the loyalty program. For a small business owner, it might be a cumbersome process by itself, however, with a mobile app for their business in place, it is extremely convenient to identify the loyal customers and reward them. This may be something as basic as letting your app keep a track of the qualifying purchases towards a reward instead of making use of an old-fashioned punch or swipe card. Another way to do it is by incorporating geo-location capabilities which may be used to text special offers to the members of your loyalty club when they are in the proximity of your store or a place of business. Apart from this, app is a great way to communicate with your customers at any time, irrespective of their location. You can make use of this feature by letting them know about an upcoming sale or event, book a table, confirm the bookings, and even send out a push notification. Push notifications are a great way to engage with the clients as studies show that 60% of the push notifications are opened by the mobile phone users and 40% engage with the app as soon as they receive the notification.
2.2. It can add to your revenue
If nothing else, then this ought to get your attention. Your customers have already been buying your product or services from your website, so when you incorporate this option in your app, through in-app purchases, you are offering them an opportunity to shop even on the go! This means they do not have to switch on their laptops or desktop computers in order to buy something from you. You can include a product catalog and incorporate ordering or booking capabilities in your app and add a channel to garner great revenues! If you do not believe us, ask the Domino’s guys! In just the first six months following the release of their app, they saw a 28% increase in their online sales in the UK alone. Today, more than half of the company’s online orders come from mobile devices. This example demonstrates that if you make the ordering or buying experience easier, customers are going to buy more! Did you know that the global app revenue is expected to reach 188.9 billion US dollars by the year 2020! This means there is a huge amount of purchasing power involved here. You can not only benefit by garnering
sponsorship or go for putting in advertisements within your app.
2.3. It’s not a pocket burner anymore
If your business is not about making and selling apps, you probably do not have the expertise to build your app in-house. However, there are a great number of individuals or agencies or companies even, who are in the business of creating apps and would do it for you. There was a time, quite far back in the past when the prices quoted by these entities would deter you from getting a mobile app for your business. There was a time when custom building your native mobile app was the only way to go, and they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a $100,00! However, the technological field especially pertaining to mobiles is ever evolving and offering innovative solutions every day. Hence app building too is getting quicker, easier, and a lot better. Today, companies like Appily App Builder are emerging as great partners for small businesses and making it possible for them to own their mobile apps for business. These drag and drop apps look great, are loaded with features, offer a native app experience, and do all that at an affordable price!
2.4. If you don’t keep up, you’ll fade away
Everyone is getting one! Yes, there is a very visible movement towards building mobile apps for business and for good reason. The small businesses in particular are getting convinced about building their own apps and if you are not, then you stand to lose out by being left behind. And you do not want that! About 50% of the small businesses already have their apps built and a good number of other players are on their way to get their apps made. The trend of getting a mobile app for business, is a trend for a reason, and it does look like it is going to stay. The businesses who have built their mobile apps are not only increasing their revenues but are also enhancing their customer service by staying connected to their consumers.
2.5. Innovative features in apps nurture creativity in business
Mobile apps are used in quite a different way, as compared to any other medium, which means that it effectively opens up business dimensions and opportunities that were as yet unexplored and sometimes even unheard of. One of the most significant of these aspects is the scope of being able to leverage technology and work to resolve and queries, concerns or issues raised by the customers and satisfying the needs and expectations of the customers from the business. This aspect paves the path for innovation, thus encouraging businesses to come up with new products and services. No matter what your business, you must stay up to date with the latest technology, not just internally, but also externally. If you want to stay in the business, you need to be relevant, and having a mobile app for your business may help you do just that. For example, the current trend of virtual reality might help your app offer to your users an exemplary virtual shopping experience! You might even do it before your competitors and bring in more customers than you thought possible!
2.6. It solidifies your brand image as an industry leader
Having a mobile for your business is rapidly catching up as a trend, and you must jump on the bandwagon before it is too late. It not only makes you a part of what is relevant today, but also helps you stand apart from the rest. When you have a mobile app for your business, and specifically build one that performs better and has features that make it easy to use for the customers, you not only bring in more revenue but also benefit by developing your brand image as one of an industry leader. Irrespective of the industry you belong to, the respect for innovation is always high. A mobile app can also be used as a great tool for brand building and spreading awareness about the brand among the targeted audience especially. Your mobile app can be a blank canvas for you to paint it the way you like and build the desired brand image. You can go hip, stylish, classic, nerdy, or fashionable and justify your brand with your app. Your app can have all the required features that the customers are looking for, and your brand can develop a strong image with a good design incorporated in it.
2.7. It can be used to increase traffic to your website
The leading app stores including Google Play, Apple’s App Store etc. receive millions of hits on a daily basis. On these app stores, if you manage to optimize your app in the correct manner, you are bound to increase the number of downloads or installs. However, that is not all that you stand to gain from it. When done right, app store optimization can get great visibility for your app and can help you route aptly targeted and relevant traffic to your website while garnering valuable backlinks from pages that have high authority & credibility. App Store Optimization has a great deal of science behind it, and a substantial bit of intuitive thinking as well. It involves selecting the right keywords and then placing them at just the right frequency to pave the path for a greater visibility and enhances exposure for your business. If you build your mobile app and then leave it entirely to fend for itself, you are not really doing yourself any favor. If you want to boost your website traffic using the app store, you would have to commit time and resources into it.
2.8. It offers a seamless & smooth User Experience
Through app analytics you stand to get a great amount of data and this is one of the most important benefits in order to understand your targeted consumer. The data received this way can be processed into meaningful and valuable insights. These insights can then help you invest in an informed manner and increase your ROI. A poll conducted recently revealed that 87% of the organizations or business entities agreed that analytics help them make the existing services and products a lot more profitable. These app analytics can also help you pull in data and help you identify the most profitable and promising regions, demographic segments, customer needs and the overall performance of the app. Apart from providing insights about product enhancements, this data can also help you identify new business opportunities that’d help you develop new products and features to meet the needs of the customers you are targeting.
2.9. It solidifies your brand image as an industry leader
A mobile app is structured specifically in a manner that would help the users perform the common, desired functions without having to wade through the messiness of a website. The mobile apps are a lot more intuitive than a website (even the ones that are mobile friendly) and lets the user know what they are supposed to do with the app on their own. Additionally, the apps offer a lot more personalized experience as compared to a website which might need you to login every time. Actions like saving shopping lists, marking favorites, personalized rewards and offers, or easy navigation. When you offer a better user experience you stand to gain a great number of positive reviews, an increase in the number of followers on social media, a greater number of loyal customers, and most importantly repeat customers! The leading app stores, Google Play and Apple App Store have a minimum speed requirement for your app to be approved by them. This means that your consumers or app users would receive a faster and smoother experience encouraging them to interact more and stay engaged for longer with the app. One of the key points here is to frequently and creatively think up ways to test your app and tweak it in order to provide a flawless experience to the user and convert them too.
2.10. It can carve out a space for you in your customers’ pockets
The world is on the move all the time, every day. If your customer is always on the move, and all you have to cater to their needs is a website or a physical store, you are not really going to make the cut! When you have a mobile app for your business, you are effectively making a space for yourself and your business on the users’ screens. No matter where your user goes, they have their smartphones on them. And when they have your app on their phones, you are travelling with them too! The number of smartphone users is going to reach 2.87 billion by the year 2020 and by 2019 the number of mobile phone users is going to reach 5 billion! It has been established through research that the smartphone users spend most of their “phone time” on the apps they have installed on their phones. Your app could be one of them, and you could be the one gaining business through a mobile app!
2.11. It can help you offer greater value to your customers
When you have a mobile app, you have the ability to deliver your products and services in a much more effective and timely manner. You can use the mobile app to showcase and promote the most valuable aspects or the USP of your product or services while enhancing their efficacy with customized choices and features. Whether it is an online loyalty program, or offering updates about sales and discounts, or offering step by step directions to your place of business, an app can offer great value to your customers, converting them with greater efficiency and engaging them for longer times, making them come back for more.
2.12. It is by nature more engaging for the users
The modern age consumer is attached to their smartphone, in fact, they are hooked! A whopping 87% of the smartphone users begin their day by looking at their smartphones. The smartphones have become an extension of the modern consumer. An average American spends a total of 10 hours or more looking through screens and of this a greater chunk is spent on the apps they have installed on their phones. It is evident, therefore that the level of engagement attained by a mobile app is a lot higher than the normal websites. Hence, when you get a well-designed app loaded with the right kind of features that functions smoothly, you have the potential to engage your users for longer and in a more effective manner than simply having a website or no online presence at all.
