Welcome to our blog on startups, innovation marketing, and technology. This is the place where you will hear about topics regarding how to start and maintain your business, develop innovative marketing techniques, and utilize the new technologies to benefit your business. Let’s start today’s post with a question: Do you have a custom app for your business? If not, what is holding you back? In today’s post, we will discuss the reasons why you should have custom apps for your business. There is more technology today than there has ever been. Business owners now have a huge amount of tools at their fingertips including automation tools, invoicing and accounting tools, SaaS tools, customized software, mobile apps, and more. Remember that technology is just a tool, not the result. But the importance of mobile apps for your business is becoming more and more apparent. 7 Reasons You Need Custom Apps for your Business Google’s Latest Algorithm Update: The Mobile-Friendly Factor
On January 10 of this year (2017), Google rolled out yet another of their algorithm updates. When this happened, website owners waited with bated breath to find out what they had to do to keep their rankings high and avoid being penalized. This time, Google outlined two very important updates. 1. Mobile-friendliness (no popup ads) 2. High-quality content The mobile-friendliness factor was also included in the previous update. It is estimated that 4.77 users will be on mobile devices by sometime this year and this trend is expected to continue into the next decade. By 2020, there will be around 5.07 billion or more people on mobile devices. With so many people using mobile technology, website owners have to meet customers where they are. The best way to do this is with a mobile app. With a customized mobile app, you will be able to customize the customer experience by offering specific things that your customers want, provide them with a way to access your services anytime on their mobile device, and create a higher level of engagement. Best of all, it will guarantee that you are in compliance with Google’s expectations regarding their search criteria to avoid a penalty. Just make sure that your mobile apps are built to be free of popup ads, as this is the other important algorithm update that they included in the April 10th update. Increase Leads and Conversions
With a customized mobile app, you can also increase your leads and conversions. The more your potential customers have access to your products and services, the more leads and conversions you will have. The key is to create a customized mobile app that will appeal to a majority of your potential customers and motivate them to download (and keep) your app on their mobile devices. One example of this is the airline company, Aviasales, which generates leads by setting up an affiliate marketing plan within their app. Every time people purchase a ticket from a partner, they pay out 2.5% of a ticket price to the one who got them the sale. This increases their ability to be several places at the same time and increase their leads. You may want to check out Localytics which has put together a guide to encourage customers to keep using your app. The Share Factor
One of the most important features of a custom app for your business is that you can encourage people to share it with their friends. Social media marketing has become one of the most essential features of a customized app. It can increase your potential exponentially when people share your app with others. Make sure and include a share feature that is connected to social media so that it will be easy for people to share your app with others and thereby increase your leads and sales potential. (Entrepreneur) Check this out if you want more of your customers to market your mobile app for you. Increase Engagement and Customer Service
Customized mobile apps can be created to include a wide variety of functions including customer service contacts and social interaction. By adding a button in your mobile app that allows people to contact you, you will be able to answer customer questions when they need them answered and increase your conversion rates. One of the most important things that you should do for your business is to increase the level of engagement between you and your customers and a custom app for your business can accomplish this for you. Read this post about how to increase engagement with your app. It Increases your Visibility in the Mobile Markets
When you create a custom app for your business, you also get access to the mobile markets. If you place your mobile app on multiple platforms, you will increase your visibility even more. This will increase your number of downloads on the iOS (Apple) and Android markets and allow you to get your message out to more people. Remember, even if you don’t have a custom mobile app for your business, your competition probably does! If you have an online business presence today, you just cannot afford not to have a custom mobile app. Skyrocket Your Promotions!
One of the best things about having a mobile app is how you can market to your best customers. If you have an effective promotion that you want to launch, what better way is there to promote your idea than to include it in your custom mobile app. With expert mobile app creation, you can ask your designer to include a coupon or promotion button within your mobile application to increase the number of people you reach with your special deal. Then sit back and watch your sales soar! One example of this is a study on push notifications done by Leanplum, a marketing automation platform. They used push notifications to promote their sales promotions. They learned that they needed to improve their platform in order to create effective marketing promotions through their mobile apps. By targeting specific subsections of their audience, they were able to achieve this. Keep in Touch with Your Best Customers: Customize the Customer Experience
You can do practically anything with a custom mobile app for business these days. Create push notifications to update your app and provide clients with new information. Create a chat feature where customers can contact you and ask questions or interact with your company anytime. If this is done correctly, you will be opening up a whole new way of keeping in touch with your most important customers so that you can market to the people who are most interested in what you have to offer. If you have a restaurant or catering business, for example, why not include a menu function where customers can order ahead of time? The possibilities are endless. In addition to all of these reasons to have a mobile app, remember that a customized app allows you to put anything you want in the app that is important to your business growth. Branding is important and customized apps help you brand yourself in a way that will work must faster than if you try to do it with your website alone. Branding is important. Read Daymond John‘s page to learn more about the importance of branding. Tomorrow’s customers practically live on mobile devices. So it is the wise business owner who invests some time and money in the process of creating a custom business application for their business.