As apps for smartphones and tablets are now commonplace, it is predicted that – by 2021 – the global app economy will hit an astounding $6.3 trillion. Apps are increasingly becoming beneficial for small local businesses to enhance their customers’ experience. The main reason for the burgeoning mobile app popularity is the amount of time that people spend with their devices. According to research, there are about five billion people on the planet who have mobile phones and this number is ever increasing.
That’s a lot of potential new customers. The question is not if your company can derive benefit from having a native mobile app, but under what conditions it is practical to develop as well as maintaining an app, infusing it with fresh marketing content in addition to compelling features that keep customers coming back.
Have a clear goal in mind
Before pulling out the stops and calling your app developer, make sure that you have a genuine reason for building a mobile app and take a moment to think about your main goal. Here are some examples of why businesses may want to create an app:
- To save money
- To make money
- To keep up with the Joneses
If you feel that you want to build an app merely because you feel that it’s ‘cool’ and you’re attempting to keep up with the latest trends, you need to reevaluate this decision. Yes, it’s important for your company to be perceived as on top of the trends but, at the same time, you need to have a realistic in addition to an attainable goal. It’s impossible to measure “how cool” your business is but you can definitely evaluate how much money you’ll save or make as a because of building an app.
Good reasons for developing a mobile app
Statistics demonstrate that the average person spends over two hours a day on his or her mobile device. While perhaps only one or two of applications make up the majority of this total usage, it doesn’t alter the fact that each user needs to unlock, scroll as well as scan their device for the apps that they’re looking for. Being “in the way” can be a help to your organisation as our mind instinctively does record every image as well as text (or well-designed app icon) it comes across — even if this happens unconsciously.
Apps serve a lot of different functions such as providing:
- General info,
- Prices,
- Booking forms,
- Search features,
- User accounts,
- Messengers, and
- Newsfeeds.
One of the largest benefits of having a mobile app for your business is that all the information you’d like to give to your customers – including information special sales and promotions – is right at their fingertips. It thus becomes a superb direct marketing channel as through push notifications you’re getting even nearer to a direct interaction with the consumer. As such, you can easily remind customers about your products as well as services whenever it makes sense.
Now that you have a vague outline of the benefits of having your own business mobile app, you have two options of where to start:
- You hire an app development agency. Alternatively, you can bring in your own in-house app development team on board.
- You use one of the amazing mobile app builders such as Como, BuildFire, or AppsBuilder in order to build your own mobile app without the necessity of having to worry about coding in addition to technicalities.
Either way you go, a mobile app will be a standard component of any company in the future. The choice you make right now is going set the foundation for the future of your business. It’s on you to decide whether you’d like to be one of the first.