Mobile phones have emerged as a necessity. This year, the number of people owning mobile phones worldwide has reached 5.13 billion.
With the emergence of smartphones, people can communicate, check the time, conduct meetings, listen to music, watch movies, transfer money, and do a whole lot of other activities while on the go using a single device.
Mobile applications made all of these possible. There is an app for almost everything now. With billions of smartphones and billions of mobile apps being downloaded to address different needs, your business should be a part of users’ everyday search queries.
Top 5 Benefits of having a Mobile App for your Las Vegas Business
Does your business need a mobile app?
No matter the size or number of customers, the answer is yes – you need a mobile app if you want to take advantage of online users making purchases through their mobile phones.
Mobile apps provide you with a single platform to reach and engage your customers consistently. Here are five of the many benefits a mobile app can bring to your business:
1. Increased Visibility
A person spends an average of 162 minutes using his/her smartphone every day. Aside from traditional marketing channels, you would want to explore and be present in other places as well. And what better way to promote your business and build brand awareness than to be in a platform where your customers usually are?
2. Personalized Content
A mobile app allows you to directly communicate with your customers and provide personalized messages. If you want to be the brand of choice, mass marketing won’t do the job for you.
Consumers today want to feel that they are appreciated, recognized, and serviced well. With a mobile app, you can send greetings, promos, and offers tailored-fit to the interests and behaviors of each of your customers.
Because you are serving customers with content that is relevant to them, you increase your chances of closing more sales compared to blasting a generic message and promo to your entire customer base.
3. Use of Push Notifications
Gone are the days when you would need a salesman to deal with your customers and print flyers to promote brand awareness.
Thanks to a mobile app’s push notifications feature, you can remind customers about services, make them aware of your offers, and release important announcements in one platform. You make it easy for your customers to be updated and take advantage of special promos.
Compared to email or social media updates, your push notifications do not need to compete with so much clutter and are more often opened, read, and acted upon.
4. Cultivates Customer Loyalty
Aside from updates and special offers, another good use of a mobile app is to build a customer loyalty system in it.
A good example of this is Starbucks. If you load their mobile app with money and use it to pay for your drinks, you earn stars in each purchase. Once you reach a specific number of stars, they give you a free beverage.
This example is a good way of incentivizing your customers to download your app and continue using it. And while they’re at it, sales are continuously coming your way.
5. Increased Accessibility
Having a mobile app makes you more accessible to your customers. They can easily browse for more information, view your products and services, go to the FAQs section, book visits, make payments, call you, chat with support, and more.
Overall, you will be making your customer service better.
Tips in Creating a Mobile App
If you are ready to build a mobile app for your business, here are some tips to remember before you start:
1. Identify the purpose of your app
Just like any other project or venture, the first crucial step is to clearly define your purpose. Knowing clearly what business or customer need your app will solve also tells you what approach to use in motivating users to download. Do some competitor research as well. Take a look at what they currently have or don’t have and find out how yours can be better.
2. Document your requirements well
Now that you know your purpose, spend time to sit down and identify the features that you need. Proper documentation of your requirements is very important before you brief your project team and developers. This way, you are able to itemize and clearly communicate how your desired output looks like.
Weed out unnecessary features that can be added in future enhancements. Make sure that the first version of your mobile app is uncluttered and easy to navigate.
3. Less is more
Keep your app simple but differentiated. You don’t have to overload it with too many functionalities in order to impress your users. As mentioned earlier, identify a purpose and stick with it all throughout your development process. Your mobile app is there to supplement your efforts, not to single-handedly solve every problem.
The most important factors you have to consider are: its user-friendliness and load time. Nobody wants an app that takes up so much space from their phone’s memory and ends up being really slow.
4. Consult with technology experts if needed
Once you have established your requirements, you can choose to consult with experts if needed. This is very beneficial for you if you plan to outsource the app development services. Experts can help you identify the proper phasing of the project and set an appropriate budget.
5. Test your app
Prior to launch, you must test the mobile app thoroughly to prevent bugs from getting to the end-user. You can ask friends and family outside your project team to test the app for you. Don’t guide them in what to do or how to navigate. Their experience will tell you if your app is user-friendly and if your audience will understand and appreciate the purpose of your app.
Usability experts say that the most user-friendly platforms are those that can be navigated and used by anyone without needing to read a user manual.
Keep in mind that if users face problems or issues in your app, then your company’s brand name will surely be affected. Users now have developed the habit of writing long reviews in Google or Apple app stores if they are extremely disappointed in the app they just used.
