The trend is clear: increasing numbers of consumers are moving toward doing everything on mobile devices, making mobile apps more important than ever before. In fact, it’s not difficult to imagine a future in which apps become the single type of technology that we spend most of our online time on.
At the same time, you may be hesitant to build a website for your brand. The project takes time and budget, both of which you may be unwilling to part with. And yet, as the form of communication continues to gain prominence, business app development slowly becomes inevitable. Here are 5 signs your business may need a mobile app.
1) Your Analytics Unveil a Mobile Audience
This is the most important reason to start looking into a mobile app. If a large part of your audience accesses your website from a mobile device, an extra boost to your mobile presence that can help them better engage with your business and brand is absolutely crucial.
Through tools like Google Analytics, you can easily determine how your audience browses on your website. Check the devices used regularly to identify changing trends, which allows you to be proactive rather than reactive.
2) You Need Interactive Capabilities
Sometimes, even if your audience is not (yet) seeking you out on a mobile device exclusively, you may find that your website simply does not offer the capabilities necessary for your potential customers to effectively interact with you.
Mobile apps, for example, allow for gamification and other interactive tools that enable your audience to learn more about you and engage with your brand in a creative, fun way. Not giving your audience those capabilities means that you risk losing them to a competitor who does.
3) You Have the Resources
Given that the typical app costs between $50-250k to develop, many great app ideas end up waiting months or years until the resources are available to build them. So if, for example, you have extra budget left over at the end of the fiscal year, consider investing those funds in mobile app development as a smart move for the future. It allows you to anticipate customers’ needs, which will ultimately provide a positive return on your investment.
4) Your Business Model Matches the Possibilities
Mobile apps come with a number of advantages that websites simply don’t have. For example, they offer offline access so your audience does not have to be connected to the internet to interact with your business. Determining whether your business model is better fitted to the capabilities of an app than a website allows you to make a sound business decision toward one or the other.
5) Your Stakeholders Ask About It
Finally, we shouldn’t forget another reason why you may need a business app: your stakeholders ask about it on a consistent basis. If customers, board members, employees, or other people related to your business keep asking about whether you have an app, you may have discovered a latent need that a mobile app can fix. Don’t put too much weight on a single question, but if it becomes a trend, it’s time to take action and develop that mobile app.
Is your business seeing these signs that it’s time to develop a mobile app? If so, get in touch with a company that specializes in business app development. Simply building an app is no guarantee for success if the process is not strategic and tailored to both your business and your audience. To learn more about how we can help you develop an app that solves your business needs, contact us.
