App-Scoop

Many of us think that Mobile Apps are for the Walmarts, Amazons, and Ebays of the corporate world. Nonetheless, today’s business reality is that mobile apps are becoming a part of every conceivable business, irrespective of a company’s size or services they offer. Smaller businesses are accepting that there is a new opportunity with how all businesses may engage with and market to their customers. As such, more and more small to medium-sized businesses are shifting towards developing a mobile app after gaining the awareness that for an effective marketing strategy, businesses require an appropriate mobile app strategy and not restricting their reach and engagement to prospective and current customers by only adopting a mobile-friendly website.

You will notice that considerable portion of the businesses you interact on a daily basis such as your local coffee house, restaurants, and barbers are moving towards adopting a mobile app marketing strategy. Businesses adopting a mobile app to their marketing strategy capitalize from the following benefits:

• Geo-location Targeting: With the continuous rise in targeting prospective customers or engaging with current customers within a specific proximity or region, businesses can easily such customers  to offer them discounts, coupons and special offers via push notifications. Businesses can send time sensitive message and adverts to such customers at the right place and right time to trigger that impulse within them to capitalize on the fortuitous opportunity. These offers and coupons will make existing customers feel important and new prospective customers as welcomed, both which will create greater traffic and in turn, greater revenue, for the business.

• Strengthened Customer Loyalty: Customers who download a mobile app can receive news and updates about your business to keep your most important customers cognizant of a business’s happenings, which only further strengthens business-customer relationship bonds. Moreover, coupons and special offers can be accessed exclusively on mobile app which rewards your most loyal clients and may also help spike a little more business traffic during downtime. Businesses can make use of a loyalty program where they can offer points to their customers when they show the app every time they visit a business or by engaging with the business through the mobile app or social media. Many businesses are already making use of customer loyalty point programs via physical cards. However, using a mobile app will provide a business with greater agility with how they engage and reward a customer and also provide customers with the convenience of not having to a carry card every time they frequent a business.
• Direct Marketing/Improve Customer Engagement: Email and social media marketing are common ways a business can market themselves. However, marketing using a mobile app can provide a significant advantage since many studies reveal that emails are often ignored and adverts on social media are not only often limited to targeting a general population who may or may not be interested in a business’ products and services but that most social media users disregard adverts on social media websites because they are engaged in a social purpose in engaging with friends and family and get updated on the most recent items trending on social media. While reports vary, it appears that in terms of email marketing, only about 20 percent of customers check their email and only about 5 percent of those customers click on advertisement links embedded in the emails. In contrast, about 30 to 60 percent of users open push notifications on their phones and 40 percent of such users interact with the mobile app immediately after receiving notifications. This shows how mobile app marketing is far superior than email marketing.

• Stand out: Often, businesses experience one of two mutually exclusive states: growth or decay. Businesses that fail to either stay ahead of the market curve or keep pace and adapt to market changes will more likely than note experience decay and in time, death. A company’s present mobile strategy  will set the foundation for its present and perpetual success.
• ​Superior Customer Service: Customer service is critical to the success of almost any business. A mobile app will provide businesses the opportunity to assist their customers and prospective customers with issues they may experience with a company’s products, services, or even technological issues such as difficulties ordering products or service. The convenience offered to customers to get access to customer service with the touch of an icon will help to bolster the quality of service as well as a customer’s feelings of turning to a company’s competitors. 

 1. Loyal customers want a mobile app

When organizations and persons contemplate between a mobile app or a mobile friendly website application, a strong consideration in the decision-making process is providing a modern and relevant platform to provide customer service and an opportunity for engagement with one’s most loyal clientele as well as prospective clientele.  A mobile app will provide businesses the opportunity to assist their customers and prospective customers with issues they may experience with a company’s products, services, or even technological issues such as difficulties ordering products or service. The convenience offered to customers to get access to customer service with the touch of an icon will help to bolster the quality of service Mobile apps are also a powerful  tool for increasing retention of your loyal customers by offering exclusive benefits such as discounts and promotions, as well as breaking news. 

​2. Data Mine

Knowledge is wealth and in particular, the more you know about your customers or those interested in your products and services, the better position one will be in to grow their income. A mobile app also carries the considerable benefit of providing an additional wealthy source of user data. Not only can the data from app usage help to understand the customer psychology of the mobile app users but by comparing the data from different platforms, it will also help understand the psychology of the wider breadth of one’s customers. Collecting such data will allow one to better understand their customers and prospective customers, which in turn, will provide for more appropriate marketing.  

3. More session time on mobile apps in comparison web sessions

​In comparing data collected to determine engagement levels of users of mobile apps versus websites across more than 600 brands, Adobe Digital Index found that tablet users spent an average of 24 minutes per mobile app session, while smartphone sessions were much shorter (nearly 13 minutes). Interestingly, Adobe Digital Index found that compared to those browsing websites, however, the mobile app sessions were 3 to 4 times longer. Moreover, the study found that consumers, on average, utilize mobile apps more than twice as often as they visit the typical mobile website. Given that users are spending more time on mobile apps then websites and are utilizing mobile apps more than mobile websites, it is worthwhile to investigate what sort of mobile apps users are utilizing.

Forrester’s US Consumer Tenchnographics Behavioural Study from October 2014 to December 2014 provides further insight as to the allocation of time spent by mobile app users on various categories of mobile apps. . 
As highlighted by Forrester’s pie chart, the usage among the many different categories of mobile apps is considerably even.  This helps to demonstrate that mobile apps are relied upon for a multitude of functions and not only for social media use. Smartphone and tablet users have grown (and continuing to grow more) accustomed to downloading and using mobile apps to organize and complete an array of functions in both their personal and professional lives. In one moment, an individual can utilize mobile apps to listen to the morning news and to help prepare a healthy breakfast. The very next minute, the same person can utilize mobile apps to help them crunch numbers or prepare their proposal for their morning meeting and to communicate with team members. The success and utility of mobile apps are limited by no factor other than creativity. If it can be conceptualized, it can be materialized.

Many individuals and organizations that are new to mobile apps and software programming in general are confused by esoteric terms prevalently used by app development companies. Unfortunately, the use of esoteric terms coupled with many app developers neglecting to provide clients a careful explanation of the nature of app development, its process and options transpires to unnecessary expenses, delays in product releases, and ultimately an unsuitable product for a client. The following offers a very short synopsis to help determine whether a HTML5 or Native app is most appropriate for a client’s needs:

HTML5 APP
 
HTML5 apps are mobile websites that operate via a mobile phone’s internet browser. Perhaps the greatest benefit of HTML5 apps is that such apps are relatively inexpensive to develop and maintain. HTML5 apps are also device agnostic, which means that they would operate on any iPhone, Ipad or Android platform and are also able to adjust to the specific mobile screen size and user interface. 

When is  a HTML5 App Most Appropriate?
A HTML5 app should be chosen over a Native app when a person or organization wishes to adopt a mobile strategy, albeit, one that is of moderate importance of their overall marketing strategy and as such, wishes to be employ a conservative budget.  For instance, a company operating an e-commerce website may wish to develop a HTML5 shopping app to capture surging mobile traffic and mobile shopping consumer behaviour.
 
NATIVE APP 
 
Native apps are installed through an application store such as Google Play or Apple’s App Store. Native apps are developed specifically for a single platform, which proves to be more costly. Nonetheless, Native apps have a greater scope and depth of programmable capabilities and can tap into a mobile device’s core features such as its camera, push notifications, calendar and so on. Moreover, a Native app allows for a superior user interface and an enhanced user engagement capacity providing a true mobile experience.

When is a Native App Most Appropriate? A native app must be developed if a person or organization wants to develop an app that necessitates greater functionality.  For instance, if an app needs to provide greater interactive functionality to allow users to more effectively communicate with a company or engage with content, a Native app is by far the more appropriate app solution. 

True Mobile Experience

App-Scoop’s research reveals that most mobile users prefer utilizing a Native app in lieu of a HTML5 app. The rationale behind this assessment is that in addition to quick and convenient accessibility, mobile users enjoy the greater functionality, user interface, and engagement proffered with Native apps. Although a Native app may be more costly, the value it creates for users when functionality and user experience is essential will invariably materialize as an excellent investment. ​

Updating Apps is a vital aspect of the app development scheme. Once an app is complete and released,  the next step for a developer is to maintain it and release updates from time to time to improve its functionality, aesthetics, and ease of use. There is no specified time frame as to how frequently an app needs to be an updated. The frequency of updates are contingent upon the need to expand the scope of an app, re-branding, alter functionality, and to incorporate user feedback. As such, the more significant the update, the more time it will require to develop and the less regular will be the update frequency. In other words, major updates often do not occur with great frequency whereas minor updates may occur with regularity.  For the reasons specified below and contingent on the element being updated, it may be worthwhile to release small updates regularly rather than wait a considerable period of time to release a major update. Nonetheless, too frequent updates may lead to user annoyance as well.

Prior to downloading a mobile app, users will often examine ratings and reviews of a mobile app. After downloading the mobile app, common human nature dictates that users will discontinue use of and uninstall a mobile app if the mobile app proves to be unreliable and download a superior alternative.  Understanding this consumer psychology, App-Scoop diligently develops mobile apps that are robust and reliable at the outset to capture new users through positive reviews and to maintain retention of mobile app users via satisfaction of mobile app use.