Why your business needs a mobile app
In case you have been hiding yourself under a rock using a Nokia 5110 with Xpress-on covers and Snake, then you’ll know that mobile apps are everywhere! Think of something random, and the chances are, there’s an app for that! Where people are falling down though is that they think their business might not need an app. Today, I want to give you 5 reasons why your business must have a mobile app moving into 2017!
Marketing!
To attract new customers and to engage your existing customers with your current offers and deals. Using an app, you could for example be uploading your latest news, promotions, deals, sales or any other message you want to communicatete to your customers and then notify them using a Push Notification which will send a message directly to their phone which takes them straight to your latest content. On top of this, you can list all of your prices, opening times, allow your customer to make an appointment with you, contact your business using their phone dialler or keep up to date with all of your social media in the one place. Having an app means that you are putting your brand on your customers phone at all times.
2. Be where your customers are.
Desktop web browsing was overtaken by mobile browsing in 2014 and the gap widens with every year. This tells us that it makes sense to have our brand on the customers mobile phone. The average American is now spending about 2.8 hours a day on the internet on their mobile phone compared to 2.4 hours on desktop. With 80% of internet users owning a mobile phone, a mobile app is a no brainer.
3. Connect with your customers.
A mobile app allows you to connect with and add value to your customers like never before. From Push Notification to Digital Coupons, to a Digital Loyalty Scheme that can run on autopilot, there are many ways to keep customers feeling happy and rewarded. All of these make your customers feel closer to your brand and makes them feel like they are a part of your business. Happy customers are repeat business and soon word of mouth will spread if you have a good loyalty/reward scheme in place.
4. Outshine your competitors.
Look at your closest competitors. Are any of them using mobile apps yet? If not, get ahead of the curve and if so, download their app and let your app developer know what you want to do to outshine their app. All of the big brands are using apps these days. Look at Starbucks with their loyalty scheme. This is something that you can have for your small coffee shop too. If you have an app with a digital loyalty scheme and your closest competitor doesn’t, you are putting yourself in the limelight and will have a direct route to contact your customers.
5. Engagement.
Put your brand in your customers hand. In this more and more connected world, our customers are looking for easier ways to engage with our brands. It is up to us to provide them with what they are looking for. The ability to order food from your app, to book a table at your restaurant, to look at picture and video galleries of your business are all ways to increase engagement. Engagement and visibility are two huge areas that you need to be focusing on at all times. A mobile app is the way to do it.
David McCall. Newark & Lyle Ltd.
