Mobile marketing is huge right now. You know it. We know it. Everyone is fully aware.
In order for any business to compete, they’ve got to be mobile friendly. What does that mean? It means consumers need to be able to easily access a company’s online information from a mobile device. Studies done in August of this year report that 60 percent of Google searches are done from a smartphone or tablet. That means if your website is difficult to navigate or even completely inaccessible from a mobile device, 60% of potential visitors are likely overlooking your brand. Yeah, not good.
There are two ways to become mobile-friendly; design a responsive website that will keep its formatting consistent across all devices, or develop a mobile app (or both). Developing a mobile-friendly website is more complicated and more expensive than developing a website that is not, but creates value in the mobile mediascape.
Mobile-friendly or not, almost every business has a website (and if they don’t, they should). But all things considered, few businesses have a native mobile application. Why is that? A) apps are expensive to build, and B) it doesn’t make sense for every company to build an app.
People come to us all the time and say “Hey, I think my business needs an app! Can you build me one?” Our response usually includes an overview of the advantages and disadvantages to mobile applications for small businesses:
Advantages:
- Quick user access to content, catalogs, etc.
- Push notifications
- Ability for user to access phone’s hardware (photos, contacts, location, etc.)
- Improved technical performance
- Provides specific data about users
- User convenience
Disadvantages:
- Expensive
- Differing platforms makes development difficult (iOS vs. Android, etc.)
- Hard to advertise and get downloads
The biggest factor in this “Do I need an app?” enigma deals with value. If you’re a billion-dollar company that get millions of visitors to your website every year: yeah, you probably need an app. There is enough traffic to make the app sustainable and enhance the user experience. If you’re a small service business, an app may not provide any more value than what already exists on your website. It’s extremely hard to convince consumers to go to the app store and download your app. Why? It requires time and effort by the user without a definitive way of knowing if they’ll find value in it.
That said, sometimes an app does make sense for small businesses. Businesses that sell largely to repeat customers or have a widely used loyalty program may see a considerable ROI on the development of an app.
So the question remains. Does your business need an app? The answer is maybe, because it’s largely circumstantial. In our experience working with small businesses, we generally find that an app won’t necessarily provide more information or value than what can be made available on a business’s website. For that reason, it’s often a better choice to invest money in the development of a website (making it more dynamic and mobile-friendly) than creating an entirely new application. Remember that a website is the foundation of any business’s marketing because everything else should direct the consumer there. Rule of thumb; have a kickass website before you invest money elsewhere.
Been dabbling with the idea of an app for your business? Let us take a look into your business and provide you with a marketing strategy sure to provide results. Contact us here!