5 Ways an App Can Help Grow Your Business

It’s estimated that the average American consumer now spends about five hours on their cell phone every day.

We all love social interactions. At home, at school, at work, or at the bus station, you’ll always see someone fiddling with their phone.

While it’s a good idea to have a mobile-friendly website, building an app for your own business can push sales through the roof and enhance customer engagement.

Mobile apps for a business aren’t the preserve of large companies and big brands anymore. Even small and medium-sized business are joining the app bandwagon, be it that little coffee shop down the street or the massage parlor at the corner.

Evidently, mobile applications on all kinds of platforms are taking over. And most smart, forward-thinking business owners are capitalizing on this trend to further grow their businesses.

Not yet convinced? Well, here are five ways a mobile app can help you grow your business.

Everyone is On Mobile

It doesn’t matter what product or service you sell. You must have a mobile app nowadays.

Since 2008, mobile phone users, anywhere on the planet, spend about 3 hours on their phone every day. More importantly, they spend these three hours interacting with apps.

The number of folks using cell phones exceeded that of people using desktop computers in 2014. In 2013, Google released findings on the research about mobile app use. The research involved home, garden, health, fashion, travel, automotive, and restaurants.

It showed that 30% of customers paid for goods and services through an app. These statistics underscore the importance of mobile phone apps.

Don’t just limit yourself to a responsive site. The risk here is what marketing professionals like to call “buy and bye” trend. This is a scenario whereby a customer finds a good product, buys it and never comes back.

Then again, you shouldn’t limit yourself to an app or you risk never finding customers. These platforms evidently complement each other.

Cultivate Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is one of the most important reasons why you should build your own app.

With all the hype out there–billboards, flashing signs, roadside banners, flyers, newspaper ads, websites, website banners, coupons, email marketing, and Facebook ads–businesses slowly lose their impact on customers due to the huge amount of advertising going on all over.

It’s time to rekindle the true and genuine connection you had with customers and make them loyal to your products or services. Admittedly, a mobile phone app won’t necessarily save your business but it will help you stay connected to your customer base and be just a touch away.

Mobile Apps for a Business Increase Profits

When customer satisfaction goes up, so do sales too. In fact, SalesForce reports that 70% of purchasing experiences are determined by how buyers feel they are being treated.

The more pleased and interested people get with your business and your product/service, the greater will customer demand increase. And one thing’s for sure, if you’ve got a product people can’t wait to buy, that demand will give you some handsome returns.

That’s where a mobile app for business comes in unchallenged. However, it’s vital to keep the costs down while you build your own mobile app.

Of course, you need to have a responsive website that can adjust to any mobile device. This spares you the hassle of having to manage a frustrating ‘mobile’ website. But if you develop a mobile app alongside your responsive site, you’ll enhance customer experience and boost sales.

In fact, over half of online orders in the US are now made using mobile devices.

Notice a trend here? Are you using an app that pushes sales while making it more exciting and easier for customers to buy? If not, you’re losing a large chunk of cash from an ever-expanding market.

Grow Your Brand and Recognition

Having your own business’ mobile app can substantially increase your brand awareness.

So, what’s a brand? What about recognition? I’d like to explain these two subtopics which, when combined, will make your mobile app a real winner.

Brand: A mobile application is like an empty billboard sign. It allows you to do whatever you wish. You can make it functional, informative, shocking, stylish, or hip.

But what you actually need is an app with features people will like, while it’s beautifully designed and well branded at the same time.

Recognition: The more frequently your customers get involved with your mobile app, the sooner they’re likely to purchase your product or service.

This is known as “effective frequency” when it comes to advertising. In general, seeing and/or hearing your brand about 20 times will get you really noticed.

Smartly Targeted Messaging

How do you message your customers effectively? Text messages and phone calls are considered intrusive, and email doesn’t work because your messages are sent to the spam folder.

Mobile apps are an excellent solution to these concerns through push notifications, which are highly-targeted, short messages sent directly to your customers. Instead of being an irritant, smartly personalized notifications can really engage the customer and push sales.

For instance, if a customer bought one book in a collection, you can send them a discount voucher for the next book. There’s reliable delivery, and the tool lets you carefully target users in groups or individually.

Notifications pop up on the customer’s cell phone and need action from the user–your messages won’t languish in spam folders anymore.

Know How to Make an App for Your Business

It is high time you stopped shying away from mobile apps for a business. As mentioned earlier, adopting this phenomenon can increase customer satisfaction, boost profits, and grow your brand awareness.

All of these are important ways to help your business grow. So long as you’ve got a functional site, you can always make the switch and invite customers to your mobile application.

If you’re considering entering the app business, but don’t know where to start, we can assist you. After all, we’ve witnessed mobile apps help so many people grow their businesses over the years.

Just visit us for a chat or call us, and we can guide you to mobile success!