“Not having a mobile marketing strategy today is like not having a website strategy a decade ago”.
Dharmesh Shah, cofounder – Hubspot
When the words ‘mobile app’ are heard there are many companies that are still out there wondering why they would need one. No, this isn’t Flappy Bird and it’s nothing about just coming up with the latest Candy Crush game that is going to be downloaded by millions and turn into the craze of the year, or at most probably just a few months before the next one comes along.
Plus the mobile-app world started off pretty badly in its early stages a few years ago. Back in 2010 companies were just taking the computer-based internet site of the company and putting it on mobile devices. Naturally, having a football-pitch size internet site and trying to put it onto a playing card wasn’t – and didn’t – work at all. Users got bored with it download time that took far too long to put up with. If it doesn’t happen in a split-second these days people just aren’t interested in it.
Today, that’s no longer the case. Mobility is no longer a problem and we are all connecting to mobile devices whether that be on smartphones or on tablets. Today it’s any which way you can and double-fast. As users we are looking to multi-task too today on the apps that we connect to and we don’t just want a simple version of the internet site. But, what we do want is perhaps a simplified one.
Successful businesses are the ones that turn their apps into simplified extensions of their internet sites. If it’s a sports business, then the app provides the results for the soccer season or whatever sport the people are looking to get updated about. If it’s a local restaurant, then it’s about money-off coupons and making reservations, even choosing what you want to eat and turning up to just eat it at the time you tell them. Whatever line of business you are in, the objective of an app is to provide the user with another relationship with you as a business. It’s all about creating a link with the company while on the move. What about you?
8 Reasons to Get an App
So, if you’re still asking yourself why your business needs an app, read on!
1. It’s easier than you think.
2. Mobile marketing has better return on investment than traditionnal methods.
The cost of running a mobile marketing campaign is currently less than the cost of running many traditional marketing campaigns. Therefore, ROI of most mobile campaigns is higher than other marketing channels. What’s wrong with a healthy ROI? Nothing.
3. Convenience.
Users don’t want to have to wait till they get in front of a desk-top computer until they can access your site. We all want things faster than yesterday these days and app users are exactly the same. I want to be able to book the cycling class at the gym the very second I think about it and I don’t want to have to wait. Waiting means forgetting. I’ll just go where I can gain access to it if you don’t offer that convenience. So Brands, think to mobile site before responsive ones.
4. Viral.
Yes, people talk. Unfortunately, if you don’t have an app the only thing the people out there on mobile devices can say is that you don’t have one and that’s bad news. If you do have one, then they can talk to each other about it and sell it on to the next one, doing your own promotion. It will also enable sharing of information between users. Remember how many times you’ve talked to a friend about a great website? OK. Now compare it to how many times you talked to a friend about an aweome app. That’s it.
5. Use.
Young adults today tend to check their mobile phones according to research some 150 times every day. That works out to roughly every six minutes. The same can certainly not be said of computers. Get an app, send push notifications and the user will connect.
6. Proximity.
Your brand in your customer’s pocket. A recent study showed that 91% of all mobile phone users have their phones within arm’s reah 24/7.
7. Visibility.
It’s far easier to try to stand out amongst the 1 million apps that are on the App Store, for example than amongst the trillion of pages that are on the internet these days.
8. A growing market.
There are still 1 billion people out there that don’t have a mobile phone for the moment, let alone a smartphone. The potential for the market to grow is enormous. As it grows there will be more customers that you can reach by getting a mobile app. By 2015, there will have been half a trillion app downloads across the world. You need to be part of that. Remember, the number of mobile subscriptions has surpassed the world population today and we can safely say that this is not only the internet age but the mobile moment.
A last funny figure: According to the 60 Second Marketer, there are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 4 billions of whom own a mobile phone. Do you know how many own a toothbrush? 3.5 billion 🙂
So, Brands, keep cool with your last website animation and publish mobile apps!
