Just to get it out of the way, mobile apps are cool. They’re a symbol of our great advances in technology where we suddenly have the power of the internet in our pockets.
That’s fine and dandy, and pretty darn obvious to boot, but how do I get to brag to my grandchildren of how I made money from them?
Stick around, we’ll show you how.
Regardless if you have a small business, a medium one, a large enterprise or have an idea for a startup company, mobility is a competitive edge where your product or service can be just a tap away from your customer.
Chances are your business is going well so you know you’re doing something right. You have a product and/or service, you know you’re good, you have a good business track record and you’re ambitious.
But you can screw up, just like any of us.
Despite everything that’s written and reiterated every day, the mobile app market is young. It hasn’t reached full maturity. Which means there’s room for mistakes, improvement and learning. And most of all, opportunities.
And that’s why you’re here. You want a piece of that mobile app market in your business.
In a mobile app market that reached $30 bn (ABI Research) in revenues in 2012, a lot of companies and businesses followed the app hype with their own products and services. Mobile apps were the new web. A great channel to reach customers and audiences, build brand visibility and reshape the way companies do business.
It was the promised land of opportunities but many jumped in the mobile app bandwagon with no clear destination.
Today we’re going to cover the magic of what it means to integrate a mobile strategy through mobile apps in your business and see where mobile apps could lead you.
In just one sentence, the meaning of mobile in your business…
Wait, wait wait, you’re going to say. Isn’t going mobile about fast thinking and being quick to act? Yes and no.
Just what do we mean by it?
Five simple things.
Do we need this?
With more than 6 bn mobile subscriptions and 1 bn smart devices around the world, the answer is most likely yes.
Couple that with nearly 25% of internet traffic now coming from smart devices and you’ve got yourself an app world that’s becoming a major channel through which companies reach their users and customers.
You most likely have a website of your own, but is it mobile optimized? Before you get into any apps, make sure your site is mobile optimized. It takes a few minutes to open a PC and find a page. With an app on a phone, it takes a couple of scrolls and a tap.
What do I need it for?
Think about what you want your app to do and put it in simple terms. Preferably just one sentence.
Take Supercell’s Clash of Clans game. They said to themselves something among the lines of: I want to make a strategy game with in-app purchases featuring cute dwarf barbarians bashing each other while wearing checkered underwear.
Now they’re making nearly $ 1 mil a day out of a simple yet well defined goal.
Another example would be Evernote, who hit it big by providing one simple yet crucial service and that is: remembering things. Evernote helps app users to make sure they don’t forget the things they have to do during the day. They had one simple target and they did it right.
Do you want to bring customers in? Do you want to make money through in-app ads? Do you want to sell the app or things within the app?
You can code it to do all that but the first step is to build it to do one thing right, then move on to the others. This is what we meant when too many companies entered the app hype without a clear goal.
The companies that had the most success with an app, were the ones who put more wood behind fewer arrows.
Let’s say you want to attract customers. A proven simple tactic, is to offer the app for free. Think of the app as a shopping sign. People don’t buy the shopping sign, they buy the product the sign points to.
Brands and retailers such as Starbucks or Walmart don’t make money by selling apps as a product. They use the app to bring in customers and buyers.
As apps aren’t sold so much anymore, the market shifted to the freemium model, which, as the story turns out, it’s much more profitable than the ,,pay up front” approach.
Situation:
You create an app for buying books. Say you price it at $ 0,99. Your app gets downloaded 10 000 times, and you make $10 000.
That’s fine, many developers went for that approach early on.
But that app of yours is about buying books and not selling the app itself. It’s as if you would charge people to enter a library to buy books afterwards. If your app is free, it gets downloaded more times and you sell more books.
This led to the freemium model becoming more profitable in the long run than the pay-up-front approach.
This wouldn’t work in many other areas, but mobile apps are an interesting kettle of fish.
The importance of these stats lies in the mindset of mobile users. We’ve gotten used to free apps, so why should I pay for your app?
Alright, I know what I want from my app but can it live up to my needs?
There are essentially 3 types of apps which fulfill needs differently. Native apps, web apps and hybrid apps.
Native have the virtue of offering the best user experience versus the other two types. They have a better flow and a more organic feeling when using them because they perform faster.
Web apps are exactly what the title implies. An app that lives on the web or otherwise put, a mobile optimized website.
In the current market, native apps are the prevalent ones and those that offer the highest rewards.
Regardless of which one you start with, it’s a good idea to implement all of them in the end to extend your visibility as much as possible.
Who’s going to build it?
There are also a lot of app builders and tools out there that you can leverage to build an app without any programming experience. You could also use our own Visual Studio tool for that, to toy and experiment with ideas.
Another way to do it, is to code it if you have the budget and development team or you could hire an independent developer.
But if you really want to bring out the big guns and make a killer gorgeous app, then a mobile application development platform would be your best bet.
A mobile app development platform is a powerful ally in your business because they can take care of all app-affiliated necessities such as managing updates, sending push notifications, integrate ad platforms to your app, analytics, scale the app and so on.
Think about a mobile app development platform as that nice tool belt for multiple needs that helps you to never loose sight of your vision and goal.
In this case, without a mobile app development platform, you’re going to have to manage everything about your app, alone.
Not impossible but very difficult.
We know it comes down to money in the end, so when it comes to budget it’s a good idea to start with a small and simple app.
The cool part, is that it’s free to build a simple app nowadays.
Which brings up the next point.
Test it
So you’ve got Rome built. And now you have to see who’s going to live in it.
A good approach is to add part of the content you need in your app and test it on a certain user base and different platforms.
For example iOS users tend to have more money to spend.
Android users are more prevalent and prefer free or low cost products.
Once you figure out what works and what doesn’t you can start adding more content to your app and see what monetization model(s) fits your needs.
If you’re thinking ads, keep in mind that app users have gotten used to ads in free apps but you’re going to have a tough time implementing them in paid apps.
Also, don’t forget to test gamification to make the app much more enjoyable to use. For example rewards when sharing the app with a friend and getting more content out of the app for it.
Whether you’re developing for enterprise or customers, think user experience first and beautiful simplicity. The best apps in the world are simple to use and easy to navigate.
So Rome is built. You have a goal, you know what you want and you know how to go about it. You know the benefits are there, from building relations, loyalty and value, they’re all there.
You understand that mobility in business is about doing things right now. It’s about the moment, crucial info and fast decisions.
Your running shoes are on, your laces are tied and you’re smiling because you have the will and now you know.
To do that right, you won’t be hasty.
Mobility is a competitive edge as sharp as your patience. And you have it.
If you want to write the first line in your own app story, we’re here for you, one click away.
Stay tuned, share a like and our newsletter is brewing coffee for you as we speak.
,,Related article: Does your small business need a mobile app to stay competitive?”
