To App or Not to App?
According to a Clutch study in 2018, “Nearly half (42%) of small businesses currently have a mobile app, and 30% plan to build one in the future.” Even larger corporations like Starbucks have credited financial success to the investment in a mobile application.
The World Advertising Research Center (WARC) predicts that nearly 73% of internet users will solely use smartphones by 2025 - that is nearly 3.7 billion people. With the rising number of smartphone users, developing an app may seem like the next step.
What are the benefits of building a mobile app?
Mobile apps can increase brand visibility by reducing consumer distraction.
Since more than 5 billion people have mobile devices, developing a mobile app creates a direct marketing channel for consumers to connect with a brand on their mobile devices. With so many marketing messages bombarding the consumer across different channels, often the market can get over-saturated and overwhelming.
The digital world has changed how consumers interact with brands. Take retail stores, for example. Companies like Amazon have affected consumer expectations of shopping in a physical store. A mobile app such as Walmart, however, streamlines the shopping experience by offering an easy way for consumers to pickup, pay, and simplify their visit.
An app that provides value leads to customer loyalty.
Convenience is vital. As Generation Z and Millennials begin to dominate the market, marketers need to adapt to their preferences. Offering a free mobile app with loyalty programs - as opposed to punch cards or loyalty cards - is easier to keep track of and makes deals more conveniently accessible.
Undoubtedly, mobile apps can lead to a lift in sales, providing additional value to the brand. Domino’s app-based orders rose to 41% in the UK when they created their mobile app with their delivery and pick-up features.
App data can be used to inform organizational strategies.
The value that apps provide extends beyond the just the customer’s experience (CX). Companies who create an app can benefit from robust data analytics in three main ways:
Improving user experience (UX) - Watching user paths can be useful in what’s working from a user experience (UX) standpoint
Laying the groundwork for more personalized marketing - Consumer profiles can be used for personalized messaging, customer satisfaction surveys, and ultimately, consumer trust and engagement.
Improving internal processes - Teams use apps to improve internal processes to create preventative measures, manage processes, receive notifications/alerts, and increase efficiency.
Apps can Open doors for brand creativity.
App development opens a realm of possibilities for brands to express their personalities creatively. Burger King, for example, used their official mobile app to fuel their feud with McDonalds by using geolocation to offer 1 cent whoppers at McDonalds.
So… should your brand create an app?
Despite the number of benefits, building an app is costly and time consuming…and not always the best course of action for businesses. It truly depends on what the company is trying to accomplish.
Some niche companies that typically benefit from mobile apps are service-based industries like tourism, medicine, restaurant, entertainment, beauty, delivery, transportation, and fitness. Mobile banking is becoming increasingly attractive to consumers who virtually want to track their account balances - in 2017, customer activity increased by 354%.
When considering whether or not your brand should develop an app, ask these questions first:
Who are you doing this for - your company or the consumer?
If you’re building an app for the sole purpose of customer data collection, it’s probably not going to be very popular.
Brandon Butler, the Executive Director at Butter.ATL from Dagger Agency, shared that “One of the most important things to consider [when developing a mobile application] is how the app will leverage the functionality of the phone (i.e. GPS, video/image editing, etc) to enhance the experience. The purpose of an app should be to extend the functionality of the phone to solve a problem or create value. There's a lot of noise in the app stores with tons of apps competing for users attention and ultimately downloads so its important that the value proposition of your app is clear and understandable to remove friction and increase conversions/downloads.”
Is it enhancing the customer experience more so than a progressive mobile site would?
People value the “app real estate” on their phone. Unless the app will significantly improve the customer experience, a strong mobile site may suit your needs better.
Moira Vetter, CEO of the creative agency Modo Modo stated, “Remember when there’s not time or money for full App development, a Progressive Web App may be just the thing to help make the business case and deliver a like experience.”
Do you have the budget to continually tweak the app?
In addition to the high price tag on the initial app design, apps also require significant investment in user experience (UX) research, bug fixes, security updates, etc. Brands who do not anticipate these additional costs may end up cutting corners, which can lead to data breaches and PR nightmares.
Are your competitors using apps? If so, how?
This will not always be an indicator of whether or not you should create an app… perhaps your brand is a trailblazer in its space. However, if your brand is the last one in the market that doesn’t have an app, it might be time to make the jump.
Seek inspiration from competitors to influence your app development, or other creative brands in the space. Brandon listed the following apps as brands with inspirational UX: Waze, Slack, Netflix, Twitch, InShot, and Unfold.
Do you need to prove ROI fast?
Generally speaking, users take a long time to adopt an app and brands need to be patient about letting that growth happen organically. Creating a great app is an iterative process that takes time.
How do you plan to leverage the data collected from the app?
Creating the app requires one investment. Getting the full value out of an app requires enough bandwidth on your team to adequately analyze the data is a completely different story.
How will your brand drive downloads? Once the app is created, the word still needs to get out to consumers. Brandon recommended the following tips to drive downloads:
Promote the app across all social channels
Show how the app adds value to the user/how it solves a specific problem or use case
Run promoted ads in relevant app stores
Get your app promoted/featured on ProductHunt.com or HackerNews
If, after answering all of these questions, your company still feels the need to develop an app that supports the overall company mission, assists consumers, and can be funded by a budget - then maybe to app is the question!
Not sure if developing an app even works in your marketing budget? Download the Marketing Budget Toolkit to guide your decision process.
Agency leaders and marketers in general are dealing with worldwide challenges like adapting to and adopting advanced technology and social platforms, budget constraints and showcasing marketing’s ROI, and navigating data privacy changes.
The 2023 Marketing Relationship Survey revealed that Delivery and Business Development remained a key challenge for Agency-side marketing leaders in the last year.