Why Mobile Apps are Good for Business

With over 1.3 million mobile apps in both the Google Play and Apple App Store, it is no question that mobile apps should be taken very seriously by business owners.   Since 2007, our smartphone apps have grown exponentially to be included on tablets and wearables.  There have been various apps that have become part of our daily lives like Uber, Snapchat, Instagram and more.  Apps also come in many different types from news, productivity, games, shopping, health, sports and even travel.  Despite the fact that an app can make lives easier, there are still some stubborn folks who don’t see the point. 

Interact with customers

There are around 1.75 billion smartphone users today and more than 60 percent are accessing the web from mobile.  Those numbers are huge and that means it is extremely likely that your current customers are already on a smartphone.  An app provides a wonderful way you to engage with customers or your audience.  You get to provide them with information that they need or want that is right at their fingertips, because of that it is the closest piece of technology to your customers or audience.  Features like push notifications get information to users in a pretty instantaneous manner.  It’s the easiest way to communicate with users rather than something like an email which they might never check.  Think about Starbucks reward program through their mobile app.  It rewards customers for purchases by giving out virtual stars. Let’s face it what coffee lover doesn’t want to 100 stars for that Starbucks gold card for all of its reward benefits.  They’ve made the experience of buying coffee go a step further- it made the process more fun and made consumers want to buy more.  There are endless ways to interact with your customers in mobile through social media/photo sharing, video capabilities, voting, GPS directions and more.  Another import thing to note is that not only is it a wonderful way to interact with current customers, but it is a way to extend your reach globally and in terms of age demographics.  Informa believes smartphones will reach 30% of Africans by 2017 and at least 14 countries on the continent already have 4G networks. It is no doubt that the millennial generation is plugged in, while tablets have seemed to cater to the older generation. The Pew Research Center reported that 43% of US Senior Citizens accessed social media in 2013 up from just 26% in 2010.

Help grow your revenue

The internet opened up the world to a bunch of new possibilities in terms of advertising and growing revenue.  One of these ways was to have banner ads on a website, the same idea can be translated over to mobile.  Banner ads can run at the bottom of the screen or interstitials can pop up when the user touches a certain button in the app.  These apps can be sold to your advertisers or can be third party ads.  You can also utilize sponsors in your app and incorporate it into graphics.  Partnerships with other business to help offset costs to developers or even sell content that will appear in the app.  Any business that sells merchandise online should look into apps just based on the fact that it makes it easier for users to purchase and there are ways to bring consumers coming back whether it’s through a rewards program, coupons or other features like push.  Sometimes keeping a customer engaged through the app will in turn lead to more revenue. 

Mobile is becoming increasingly important.  Huff Post Tech writer Daniel Burrus did some great research with over 700 companies inquiring them on whether they had developed a mobile app to help them across various avenues of business from maintenance, sales, customer service and even purchasing.  Only four percent of those reported that they had a mobile app which compared to the statistics how many smartphones are out there is very low.  However, 100 percent reported that they did see a future in mobile within the next couple of years.  Things are continuing to grow in mobile apps as the medium becomes more and more solidified as an important piece of technology.  To read more on the subject, check out this wonderful article on LinkedIn.