Are you a small business owner and not sure if your business needs mobile apps? Well, here in this article I am going to cover some benefits of mobile apps for small businesses.
Regardless of the size of your business or industry mobile apps have become part of businesses. A mobile app can increase your sales significantly. Therefore, it is not enough to merely have a website. I have listed down some compelling reasons to have mobile apps for businesses.
App Store Listing
There are millions of users daily visits to the App Store and downloads apps. The popular app stores are iTunes Store, Google Play, Windows Store and Chrome Store. Targeting right keyword and category can increase your app downloads.
App store optimization(ASO) can improve the app’s visibility in the App Store. If you don’t know how to do it, consider hiring an ASO expert. But apparently, you will need to find a good app development company first.
Through mobile apps, your business will get access to this vast pool of potential customers. Use the mobile app as a direct marketing channel to connect to your customers 24/7.
User Experience
When it comes to seamless user experience, there is nothing better than mobile apps. Why it’s so? It’s because mobile apps are usually 1.5 times faster than mobile websites. With mobile apps, users only need to navigate to the app icon in a device, while in the case of web browsers, it is required to go to specific URLs.
Mobile apps can take advantage of device features, such as accessing device camera for taking a picture, connecting beacons using Bluetooth, location-based features, near field communication(NFC) and many more, the possibilities are endless.
Your apps should have exceptionally designed interfaces. The first step is designing wireframe, later on, you can move for actual designs.
Mobile devices range from low end to high end and, devices can have different features and screen sizes. For example, if you implement a feature using NFC(Near-Field-Communication), it’s not necessary all the smartphone devices will support this feature. In this case, you would need to provide an alternative way to access the same functionality for the other mobile devices, that don’t have NFC.
So the apps should be tested on different devices, as we don’t know which mobile device the customer is using. I would recommend testing apps on different screen sizes, this way you can avoid any user interface related glitches. Mobile apps should regularly update with the technological changes, a good user experience delight customers, which can result in more business for you.
Personalized Content
Mobile apps can track the user’s behavior, localization, purchasing patterns, etc. You can also personalize content for users based on these preferences, and it can help you in promoting customized offers, discount coupons, seasonal sales or any other special offers as per your customer’s preferences. Your customers will be delighted; it can result in more business.
Push Notifications
Mobile apps make it easy to send customized notifications to mobile users. You can add a push notification service to your app, and your customers can get constant updates for your products, services, and offers.
Rewarding customers through the app will not only promote sales but boost customer loyalty.
From the development perspectives, Google firebase is a widely used platform. Your app developer can customize notifications based on your notification preferences.
Mobile Operating Systems support several types of notifications. You can even add a customized call to action button with the notification. All the notifications come to the notification center, which means your app users can quickly check necessary updates.
You can also check out some other third party notification services. I would recommend using Localytics or parse. You can customize all the notification messages through the dashboard.
If you are wondering how your notifications are performing? Well, you will get all the analytics data here. Analytics data helps to determine which notification messages are working well for your campaigns.
Promoting your business
Mobile apps can provide your customers with all the general information about your business. Your clients can also get information on the latest deals and promotions.
The mobile apps also offer extra features such as booking forms, search, news feeds, etc. Mobile apps can provide all the useful tools to interact with customers. You can also promote your business or apps using the Ad networks; this also includes your app promotions.
In the below screenshot you can check the in-App promotion example.
In-App Promotion
App Monetization
Mobile apps can also provide an extra stream of income for businesses either through paid apps, Ads or in-app purchases.
Paid Apps
You can put a price for installing your app. Here a user must purchase the app for installation.
Displaying Ads in apps
The paid app model doesn’t work for all the apps. Many free apps generate revenues through ads. Google Admob is the most popular Ads network for apps. Ads through mobile app work the same as the Ads on website work.
Banner Ads: Banner Ads are the simplest form of Ads in mobile apps. There is an option to add some subtle animations with the banner Ads, which can deliver greater user experience.
Interstitial Ads: Banner Ads are not the only Ads option in your apps. You can give interstitial Ads or full-screen Ads as well. These Ads give more revenue as it completely blocks the app screen, so it catches user’s attention.
Interstitial Ad in mobile app
In-App Purchases
You can offer In-App purchases in different ways, in the iOS apps, you can set up four different types of in-App purchases.
Consumable: These can be used by users and can be bought more than once. For example – game life, power levels, etc.
No-Consumable: These can be bought once by the user. For example, purchasing a surfing board in subway surfer game.
Non-renewing subscription: Subscription remains for a fixed period. The user will need to repurchase the subscription to resume the service.
Auto-renewing subscription: Subscription auto-renews, such as monthly, yearly.
Auto-renew subscription option in Anydo app
Customer support and feedback
Enhance customer support by communicating and delivering directly from the app. Excellent customer support is essential for getting business referrals. In mobile apps, you can embed support email address, so your app users can easily reach out for any queries, or they can report any bugs as well.
The mobile app is an excellent source of information about your customers’ preferences. Learn what your clients like or do not like about your products and services, this information is crucial because it helps the business enhance customer satisfaction.
Collecting customer data such as their age, profession, spending limits is essential when communicating with the customers. You can come up with offers to enhance future sales; you can gather all these information from the mobile app.
There are several benefits of mobile apps; your business is bound to benefit immensely from having a dedicated mobile app. A business owner must utilize the mobile platform to offer better solutions to their customers.
