By Jose Lopez
Starting a small business involves some risk, which is both psychological and financial. For small businesses, getting the maximum possible exposure is extremely essential for growth. The more customers they get, more would be their sales and hence, growth. And in this age of smartphones, an effective way to reach more and more people is having your own MOBILE APP.
Mobile apps are no longer only for the big brands, such as Bank of America and Walmart. A large number of medium and small scale companies have taken to building their own mobile apps, after realizing the potential apps have in this digital age.
If you are a small business, and still thinking about whether you should create a mobile app for your company or not, here are the most notable reasons for why you SHOULD:
1. Apps Enhance the Visibility of Your Business
You would agree that running a business smoothly and getting new customers is almost impossible in the present times without a website. The number of people using mobile devices is increasing continuously. So, potential customers would not only find it difficult to get your company’s website through the traditional browser, but may also not look for your company outside the mobile apps.
Rather than going for the traditional Google search from a computer for finding a specific business, people use mobile apps for finding businesses they are interested in, or search for the businesses in the mobile app store. To enhance the visibility of your business on different platforms, gear up to develop your own mobile app.
2. Apps are a Direct Channel for Marketing
Apps perform a number of functions – they offer news feeds, messengers, user accounts, search features, booking forms, prices, general information and more. With a mobile app, you can provide your customers all information you want to, just at the tips of their fingers. This is a major advantage of having your own mobile app. The ability of sending push notifications takes you further closer to having a direct interaction. Push notifications can give reminders to your customers about your services and products whenever needed.
3. Apps Improve Recognition and Build Brand
Your mobile application can make a great tool for heightening your brand awareness. The topic of brand awareness can be further divided into two factors, both of which combined together can make your mobile app a successful one.
Brand: There’s a lot in common between mobile apps and blank billboard signs. You may make apps anything you wish to – informative, functional, hip, shocking or stylish. However, in reality your app should be something that has features your customers find appealing, and your app should simultaneously be well branded with a great design.
Recognition: The frequency at which your customers engage with your company’s mobile app, is directly proportional to how soon they are likely to purchase your service or product. This is known as “effective frequency” in the world of advertising. As a matter of fact, a person should hear or see your brand for about 20 times, to actually notice you.
4. Apps Enable You to be Ahead of the Game
It’s still uncommon to find mobile applications at the level of small businesses, and here is where you can take a step ahead from your competitors. Your customers would certainly get impressed by you if you happen to be the first business in a given neighborhood having your own mobile app. You would be liked for your forward-thinking mindset.
5. Apps Support, Service and Engage Customers
With a mobile app, you can drive customer engagement in real time, even without a face-to-face interaction with them. This paves the way for potential business, and also keeps your previous customers interested, making them return to your company again and again.
By using mobile apps, customers find it easier to take part in forums for question and answer, and surveys. They can also get access to fast and proper support, after buying and using your service or product. Because of this, a customer gets an illusion of superior quality customer service, while the business needs to give little commitment. For the both the involved parties, it becomes a win-win situation.
6. Apps Bring Ads Directly to Customers
Businesses have recently realized a key aspect about mobile apps – their ability to advertise. There are several ways in which you can put forth your business on the screens of mobile app users, attract new business, and keep your company on the app users’ minds. These ways may include offering frequent incentives to users, fan wall, push notifications and social media integration.
Considering the above benefits apps can provide small businesses, building your own app would be a smart step. So, meet with some expert app developers to kickstart the creation of a mobile app that takes your business to the next level.
Jose Lopez works as a product manager of Mobixed, the leading mobile apps development company in California. Jose is a software engineer with 20+ years of experience. He is an expert at creating user-friendly mobile apps that market businesses successfully. Stay connected at @Mobixed.
