Answer These Questions to Determine If Your Business Is Ready for an App
Mobile apps are incredibly popular. To the average person today, it can feel like every company from the largest brands to local mom-and-pop shops have their own apps. Modern consumers have an incredible amount of choice when it comes to virtually any kind of purchasing option, and mobile apps can not only drive sales to the brands that release them but also generate more engagement around those brands.
There are millions of apps available to download from the Android and Apple App Stores, and businesses across all industries are investing heavily in their own app development. Do you think it might be time for your business to do the same? Many businesses use all types of effective apps to run their organizations more efficiently, but have you considered providing your customers with a more engaging way to interact with your brand via a mobile app?
Developing your own mobile app for your business could have fantastic potential for increasing customer engagement as well as driving your sales. However, mobile app development is a significant investment if you want your app to provide the type of experience you imagine for your customers. Before you commit to mobile app development for your company, there are several important questions you need to ask about your business to determine if now the right time for your company to make this investment is.
Are You Already Optimized for Mobile?
Over the past several years, the mantra for both web development and marketing has been “mobile first.” Mobile web traffic has eclipsed desktop browser traffic as more people than ever before now do the bulk of their online activities using smartphones or other mobile devices. This has prompted the web development industry to focus on responsive design and approaching site development with a mobile-first perspective. Marketing professionals now gear their campaigns toward capturing mobile traffic above all else. If your brand hasn’t adopted a mobile-first mentality, you’re already behind the curve.
Take time to review how your company’s website performs on mobile devices. If you haven’t invested in responsive web design that alters your site’s appearance based on the device on which it is viewed, it’s time to reevaluate your site’s mobile performance before you consider developing a proprietary mobile app for your business.
Do You Believe a Mobile App Could Boost UX?
You’re going to need to take a thoughtful look at your typical customer’s journey with your brand. Try to put yourself in your ideal customer’s shoes and imagine their path of interactions from their first point of contact with your brand all the way to completing a purchase and then returning later for more. How do you think a mobile app could enhance this journey, make it easier, and streamline purchasing decisions for your customers?
Mobile apps afford you a great deal of potential. You could configure your app to allow users to create individual profiles, which will not only make data collection easier and more accurate but also encourage them to use the app repeatedly. Despite the fact that mobile apps are insanely popular, many are abandoned after the first download, and even more are abandoned after just a few uses. It’s vital to develop an app that entices users to continue coming back for more.
Think of ways your app could enhance user experience (UX) with your brand. A store companion app that delivers news about wish list items in stock, limited time promotional offers, and store-specific news could be a fantastic addition to a brand that earns its revenue through brick-and-mortar stores. A mobile app that synchronizes with social media and curates content relevant to your customers’ interests could build your authority within your target market and encourage app users to see your brand as an industry leader.
Does Your Gathered Customer Data Have a Noticeable Impact on Your Conversion Rate?
How much do you leverage the data you already collect, and how will developing a new mobile app for your brand improve the way you use gathered data? Data is a commodity in the modern world, providing all types of businesses with incredibly valuable insights that wouldn’t be available through other means. Data can show you who your customers are, how they spend their time, and how your brand can help them achieve their goals and satisfy their needs.
If you’re going to develop a mobile app for your business, you need to think carefully about how to use the data you gather from it. Additionally, you need to consider how you will use the data you’ve already gathered to create a useful, valuable app with staying power. One of the problems with mobile app conversions is how clunky it can be to input payment details and complete sales. If you can overcome this hurdle, your mobile app could have a significant positive impact on your conversion rate.
What Type of App Do You Envision, and How Much Are You Willing to Spend?
When you think of the possibilities for a mobile app for your business, what type of app do you imagine? Are you planning to take full advantage of everything a smartphone can do, such as taking high-definition photos and video? Do you plan to encourage users to create content around your brand in shareable ways? Ultimately, the more functionality your app offers, the more expensive it will be to develop.
If you’re unsure about the full range of features you should offer with your app, then it’s probably best to start with something on the basic side and then build it out over time via updates, adding additional features and referring to user feedback to tweak features that might not have panned out as expected. However, an incremental release like this runs the risk of falling flat, and then there would be little point in adding to a dead app. It’s vital to consider a balance between affordability of development and the range of features you want your app to offer.
Do Your Competitors Have Mobile Apps?
It’s crucial to keep pace (and hopefully outpace) your competitors in as many aspects as possible. If your biggest competitors have mobile apps, take a look at how successful they’ve been. Remember to look at more than just the number of downloads; just because an app has millions of downloads doesn’t mean it’s useful or valuable. See if you can find out how your competitors leverage their mobile apps, what they can do, and how your app could potentially outperform them.
It’s possible you might discover a distinct lack of mobile apps among your competition. This could either be a warning or an opportunity. Mobile apps don’t make sense for every kind of business, so the customers in your niche may not see much value in mobile apps. If this is why your competitors haven’t developed mobile apps, you can either see this as a warning against investment into developing your own mobile app or an opportunity to provide users with a unique experience that ultimately builds your brand presence.
Mobile app development may seem like a risky endeavor, and it often is. However, if you plan extensively and have a solid roadmap for what you want your mobile app to accomplish, it’s possible to create a mobile app that resonates with your target customers and provides them with better experiences, more value, and more incentive to continue doing business with your brand.