What are the pillars of any business? Some may refer to adequate security, strategy, and communication. Each of them matters, while the last two can significantly improve your income. If the security issues may be managed by choosing the best computer security software for small business, questions related to communication and strategy may need more exciting solutions.
What may be a progressive one? The phone app! Trends show that it is a powerful instrument contributing to marketing strategy and communication capabilities. Before all, they help create an image of the business, improve communication with stakeholders, and bring new customers. In this post, we will consider how it may be useful for small businesses.
Mobile Application Types
Phone applications are entering and taking root in many business spheres, even those once far from the web. One may personalize their TikTok to promote the product, others can develop their own app to help their customers. Such apps are efficient in such business areas as tourism, fitness centers, e-commerce, services, etc, and corporate culture. That’s why you should know how they can be used and if it applied to your operations.
Mobile business applications can be divided into two basic types:
- To facilitate the company’s internal needs (increase teamwork productivity, for example, file share, adding social messengers and accounts into the local network, and project and job management systems).
- For commerce, trademark, and sales increase (as an addition to the company’s leading online services, such as advertising, publications, tickets buying apps, e-banking, delivery goods tracker, loyal customers program, and so on).
If the first type is about using third-party apps, facilitating the management of your tasks within an organization, the second type might be very efficient for business marketing and interaction with the customers. You can use both, but we’ll focus on the second one.
Consider an App for Your Sales
According to online marketing statistics, nowadays, almost 70% of users make purchases via smartphones. It’s no surprise that this is a reasonably effective sales channel that shouldn’t be neglected. So, here are some vital functions adding value to your product and satisfying the customer:
Receiving notifications
Mobile apps let you interact with your clients via notifications. Information about various events, such as promotions, discounts, and new product launches, can be sent to customers as push notifications.
This is how you remind about your brand and provide relevant and useful information that encourages customers to buy what you propose.
Ease of Purchasing
Having a choice between a website and a mobile application, customers often choose the latter. It is more accessible, more straightforward, intuitive, and doesn’t have anything unnecessary. By installing the application, the client gets access to the entire catalog of goods or services. Interestingly, you may get data about your clients and their preferences regarding your goods.
Besides, within the app, the necessary information is displayed clearly and fits the screen (not all sites can ensure qualitative web versions and ease of viewing on mobile devices). The order payment process can also be optimized and integrated into the application.
How To Know If App Is Good Idea For Business
Nevertheless, getting an app may be a hasty decision. It will work only if you get the message right and provide the value for the customer. This means that you should do your homework thoroughly. The customer needs to be satisfied, an application secure and convenient, while you should understand its contribution to your goals.
To realize if your company needs phone apps, you’d better consider the following questions:
- Do you need it? You should understand the applicability and opportunity, as well as the tasks you want to solve with the application. How do you or your customers benefit from it? It should be mutual.
- What is your target market? Do your customers use mobile devices? Maybe your target audience can be satisfied with a mobile version of the site. This information can be obtained using Google and other web analytics tools that should be implemented on your webpage. Thus, research the background and ask your customers.
- Think about mobile app promotion? Will you handle it? This will demand extra marketing efforts, website upgrading, loyalty program realization, and extra expenses for context-based advertising, with the Google Play, App Store, and promotion. Therefore, add it to your budget, alongside the app development.
- How will you rate the validity of a phone application? What are the indicators of success for you?
In the end, the price of developing, servicing, and updating may be high. Will it be worth it? Yes, if everything is done right. However, it is also necessary to understand that this is a long-term investment, as you need time to develop it, launch, and see the results.
Phone Application Development
If you are still interested, there are four main stages of phone application development. They are crucial and reflect the questions above.
Typically, it starts with the meticulous business analysis that will allow you to understand your business needs and target audience’s characteristics. It is a starting point for you to have the function of the app. Depending on the type of business, it may have a delivery, catalog, informative or entertaining option. Why not use imagination?
After this, there is a stage of developing specific solutions, which will clearly determine the application’s architecture and its look. It derives from a business goal and reflects the characteristics of your audience. The duration of the development process, as a rule, depends on the specifics of the business and the wishes of the customer, as well as on the type of mobile platform, iOS, or Android.
The next step is the direct implementation of the technological part, its control, and its launch. You’d probably ask some developers to design it, test it, and launch. At this point, you understand that the consultation or help from the experts is inevitable.
Lastly, there are marketing efforts after launching the app to persuade users to use it. It is as crucial as other stages, and the success of the whole plan depends on it as well.
As one can, a phone app today is an important business tool. It can improve communication and sales by facilitating trust and loyal relationships with customers. If you want to keep your business competitive, you need a mobile app.