Since you came to our blog and are reading this article, chances are you are in search of an answer to these questions: do I need an app for my business and why does my business need a mobile app, how do I solve real business problems with a mobile application, what indicators can be increased by using a mobile application, and how do I determine its effectiveness? In this post, we will try to help you find the answers to these questions.

It is no secret that the speed at which the capacity of the mobile sphere is growing is increasing every day. Sales of smartphones and tablets have long exceeded the sales of personal computers. According to experts’ forecasts, by 2018 smartphones will be six times more popular than computers. According to Statista research, there is stable growth in the percentage of all global web pages that serve mobile phones.

Needless to say, the mobile environment is a gold mine for business!

 

Why do businesses need mobile apps?

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What business tasks can be solved with mobile applications?

 

Do I need a mobile app for my business?

 

In general, mobile applications can be divided into applications for the company’s internal needs and applications for marketing, branding, and increased sales.

 

The Most Popular Types of Internal Business Apps

  1. Applications for business automation (automation systems for restaurants, hotels, shopping centers, etc.).
  2. Applications that increase productivity and improve collaboration:
  • applications that allow you to share files and work with them;
  • applications for internal communication, messengers, trackers, etc.;
  • mobile versions of corporate social networks;
  • project management systems and tasks.

 

The Most Popular Types of Client Mobile Apps

  1. Mobile loyalty program. Recently, applications have been increasingly replacing regular customer loyalty cards.
  2. Applications that complement the company’s existing online services:
  • mobile shopfronts, online catalogs and stores, etc.;
  • ticketing applications;
  • internet banking;
  • trackers of the statuses of delivery of goods.

The main difficulty in using applications for marketing, branding, and increasing sales is that the usual schemes that work with sites and traditional online stores do not work in the mobile sphere. Customers will not install a business card application with information about the company if all of the same information can be found through a mobile browser. This contradiction complicates the work of many companies that rely on IT.

Therefore, if you are going to invest in mobile applications, you need to remember some core facts:

  1. Developing a mobile application is much more expensive than developing a website or a web application. At the same time, direct return on investment is often lower than that of websites.
  2. Mobile applications are long-term investments. Even if it currently seems to you that a mobile presence in the market is not necessary, you can’t forget that this market is actively growing, and it will be much easier in the future for companies that can occupy their niche now and gain a foothold in it.
  3. According to statistics for 2016, each device has an average of 26 mobile applications installed. Approximately 10 of them are popular, including networks, messengers, mail, and weather services. For the remaining 10‒16 places, your application will compete with games and useful services. Because of this, business card applications often don’t stand a chance.
  4. A mobile phone is more than just a computer. It’s always with the user, and it’s a kind of personal space. Do you take useless promotional materials from your mailbox and put them in your pocket to carry around with you? The answer is obvious.

If you want to attract loyal customers, you should consider your application as a new tool that will be useful not only to you but also to the user.

As a result, a simple logical chain is built:

  • users like free apps;
  • monetization of free applications is most often carried out through advertising;
  • the business can independently invest in the creation, development, and support of really useful and free branded applications that will not contain third-party advertising.

For example, if you are engaged in the supply of drinking water, you can create an absolutely useful calculator application for counting the water balance in the body or a fitness application. A company that sells products for children can create a useful information application for parents or an educational game for children.

As for the performance indicators of the application, in addition to the absence of failures in work, the number of days, and the monthly audience, one of the most important indicators is retention. This indicator shows how many users who installed the application will use it again in a week, a month, a quarter, etc. Achieving high indexes for this particular index is not that easy. On average, about 26% of users delete the application after the first run. Keep at least half of the users in the first month of launching the application, and you’ve got a good product.

 

Let’s Sum Up

 So, does your business need a mobile app, if:

  1. Mobile does not sleep, and business must keep pace with the changes. Your site must be adapted to mobile devices. The number of users who access the Internet solely from smartphones or tablets will only continue to grow eachLosing this segment of the potential audience is simply not permissible.
  2. The introduction of mobile applications in the processes of business automation and increasing productivity should have been invested in yesterday.
  3. Mobile applications that complement online services and loyalty programs are what get people’s attention.
  4. The real value and usefulness of the application (health, education, games, geolocation, etc.) as part of brand positioning is exactly what your customers want to see in the future.