9 Benefits of Mobile Apps for Your Business
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The mobile app market is growing exponentially. Mobile users are projected to spend 156.6 billion on the mobile apps marketplace in 2022, with nearly half of businesses having a mobile app in 2022.
But some businesses are still on the fence about whether a mobile app makes sense for their company. Unfortunately, many companies believe implementing a mobile app won't significantly affect their business results. But the return on investment is so much more than companies realize.
The answer is yes if you're wondering whether your business needs a mobile app in 2023. A mobile app is a powerful tool that offers various benefits for companies. Almost half of the businesses worldwide own a mobile app, which is reason enough to get in the race and in front of your customers.
The Importance of Mobile Apps for Businesses
Every company has its own unique offerings and distinct customer base. But one thing businesses will likely have in common is that their customers are mobile-oriented. Mobile devices have become ingrained in consumer behavior. People rely on mobile devices to search online, learn more about businesses, and make purchases.
There are 6.64 billion smartphone users in the world today. That means that 83.2% of the population owns a smartphone. Consumers are embracing the idea of mobile apps for various purposes. In fact, 85 percent of mobile users prefer downloading a mobile app rather than visiting a website.
It's safe to say that if you don't have a mobile app for your business, you're missing out on an opportunity to expand your market and create the best customer experience.
Not convinced that a mobile app is right for your company? Here are nine benefits of using a mobile app for your business:
9 Benefits of a Mobile App
Mobile apps are changing the business landscape at impressive rates. Here are nine benefits of a mobile app:
1. Provide Value to Your Customers
One of the most obvious benefits of creating a mobile app is that it provides more value to your customers. But what does providing value mean? When businesses create value for customers, they provide valuable products and services that customers consider relevant to their needs and worth their time and money.
Businesses that master the art of creating value are more likely to convert visitors into customers and turn current customers into loyal ones. Even when cost plays a factor, a customer is often still willing to invest in a product or service when the benefits are clear.
How Mobile Apps Create Value
Technology continues to advance at a fast pace. As a result, consumers are shifting the way they shop and learn about new products and services. Today, consumers expect companies to integrate technology to make it easier to learn about their company, shop for their products and services, and ultimately enhance the customer experience.
Mobile apps have become one of the greatest tools to help businesses meet customers' expectations. When businesses create a mobile app, they ensure that their products and services are more accessible and easy for customers to use.
Customers can also have a personalized mobile experience when using an app. This personalization makes it easier and faster for customers to make an informed decision.
2. Seamlessly Connect With Your Customers
The key to customer satisfaction is allowing customers to quickly and easily access the information they need. The difference between turning a lead into a customer is the company's ability to respond appropriately.
A mobile app enables businesses to deliver optimal communication to their customers in as little time as possible. Other communication methods like phone or email don't always provide the seamless connection many customers want.
Additionally, in an era where instant gratification is desired, setting a solid foundation for quick communication between your business and customers is an essential business practice that will set your company up for success.
How Mobile Apps Provide Easy Communication
Customers can ask questions directly in the mobile app
Businesses can create a FAQs page in-app to reduce the number of support tickets and provide faster response
Businesses can implement an automatic follow-up feature to ensure issues have been resolved
Integrate customer service software with your app to stay connected with customer questions or complaints
3. Increase Customer Loyalty
One of the biggest priorities for businesses is customer retention. Repeat customers have been measured to spend an average of 67% more than new customers, and companies have found that retaining customers cost less than acquiring new ones.
Customer retention is created by customer loyalty. While many businesses know that customer loyalty is essential, using the most effective strategies to increase loyalty is often challenging.
A mobile app is one of the most effective ways to increase business customer loyalty. Mobile apps also increase loyalty due to the added value that mobile apps bring. Businesses can create a loyalty program that engages customers and encourages them to become repeat customers.
Before creating a loyalty app, you'll need to use the right strategy. Many companies quickly create loyalty programs and become disappointed when the program doesn't work as expected. You don't want your program to be hard to join, and you also want to offer incentives that your customers are interested in.
Let's take a look at how you can create a loyalty app that attracts customers:
Offer Instant Rewards
Your goal is to get customers to sign up for your loyalty program. They become one step closer to becoming a repeat customer when they sign up. The best way to motivate customers to sign up is to offer instant rewards. The reward can be free, points added to their account, cashback, or whatever you decide. Make sure that these instant rewards are part of your message to get customers to sign up.
Provide Product Recommendations
Personalization is key when it comes to your loyalty program. Once you get customers to sign up, you want to encourage them to continue using the app. Providing timely product recommendations is a great way to personalize their experience on the app and make them aware of other products or services you offer.
Encourage Social Sharing
Once you've created a successful loyalty program, you need to get others to sign up. You'll need the help of your current loyalty program members to spread the word. Make sure your loyalty program has a social share button. You may even want to consider offering a small incentive for sharing.
4. Reach Optimal Customer Engagement
The best way to achieve brand loyalty is to increase customer engagement. Engaging your customers adds value to the customer experience and keeps you in their minds. 83 percent of customers expect immediate engagement when contacting a company. For this reason, businesses need to ramp up their customer engagement level.
Luckily, a mobile app is an excellent way to keep customers engaged. Mobile apps offer several features that allow businesses to connect with their customers and keep them abreast of what's happening in the company.
One essential feature offered by mobile apps is segmented targeting. Segmented targeting refers to the process of identifying your potential customers. Businesses can segment their potential customers into groups and segment them in the app by creating different categories and controlling what content is delivered to each segment.
User segmentation is effective because it allows for better personalization, specifically with in-app messages. Businesses can provide accurate recommendations, improving relevance for customers.
User segmentation enables businesses to understand their customer's journey better, leading to optimal customer engagement.
How to Segment Your Customers
Here are a few types of segmentations you can consider for your mobile app:
Geographical location
Customer actions
Frequency of app use
Buying behavior
There are several ways you can segment your customers. Once you begin segmenting, you can start personalizing your messages to increase engagement.
5. Maintain a Competitive Edge
In a fast-paced, digital world, achieving and maintaining a competitive edge is essential for companies. Businesses can distinguish themselves by offering something superior and valuable when they have an advantage over competitors. As a result, these companies can seamlessly get in front of customers and become the top choice.
Investing in a mobile app is a great way to gain a competitive edge. While many businesses have a mobile app, there are still half of the businesses in the world that don't.
Not only that, but customers want instant communication and access to companies using their mobile devices. Compared to conventional websites, mobile apps provide customers the speed and satisfaction they're looking for.
Mobile apps are more efficient and reliable while offering many opportunities for businesses to personalize the experience for their customers. If you're not using a mobile app, you'll quickly lag behind competitors committed to providing the best customer experience.
6. Create a Personalized Marketing Channel
Creating a mobile app is beneficial for your company's marketing efforts. Mobile apps enable marketing teams to collect a variety of data that can be used to improve marketing campaigns.
Even better, there is an opportunity to collect data at every entry point, giving marketers a lot of information to improve marketing messages and personalization and convert leads. Marketers can collect data from features like ads, CTAs, and push notifications. They can also pay attention to customer behavior by collecting data on response time.
Once your marketing team collects data, they can deliver relevant content to users more effectively. Regardless of your business and marketing goals, a mobile app gives companies access to information that can be leveraged to understand customers better and drive business growth.
Mobile Features That Impact Your Marketing
In-app Clickthrough Rates: Mobile apps enable you to include ads, calls-to-actions, and various other business elements. Compared to other platforms, mobile apps will generally experience a higher clickthrough rate since apps often produce more engagement.
Push Notifications: Push notifications are engaging, effective, and often prompt customer response. According to Airships 2021 Push Notification Benchmark Report, the opt-in rates for app push notifications on Android and OS devices range from 49% to 95%, with the medium being 81%.
Response Time: When there is an offer or a prompt on a mobile app, users will tend to have some response, and they will respond quickly. Marketers can use this information to see what customers are responding to and how long it takes them to respond for indications of campaign success.
7. Gain Customer Insights
Customer insight provides invaluable information to companies. No business can be successful without using customer insights as its foundation. When companies prioritize this information, they ensure that their marketing strategy is customer-centric.
Mobile apps reign supreme when it comes to gaining insights about customers. This is because customers are often willing to share information about themselves when businesses can provide value in return.
Additionally, mobile apps make it easy for businesses to collect these insights. Various features can help with tracking and reporting metrics from several entry points.
Let's take a look at a few metrics you can use to collect insights about your customers through a mobile app:
Retention rates
Downloads and installs
User demographics
Daily, weekly, and monthly users
Average session length
Cost per acquisition
The more insights you collect in-app, the better you can position your marketing strategy.
8. A New Avenue for Customer Feedback
Receiving customer feedback plays a vital role in business. Customer feedback is the information, insights, issues, and input your customers share. When businesses receive feedback, they can learn more about their customers' experience with their business, product, or services.
Customer feedback is leveraged to improve business processes and implement better strategies to provide a positive customer experience. Feedback can empower positive change and help companies position themselves for success.
Mobile apps have effective mechanisms that enable companies to capture user feedback. You will find that several mechanisms can help you gather this information for your business.
Here are three common mechanisms that enable you to garner feedback on mobile apps:
Widgets: One of the most commonly used mechanisms to collect customer feedback in mobile apps is widgets. Widgets can be used to collect open-ended responses about a topic related to your brand. Open-ended responses can provide detailed information, provide real customer insights, and allow an infinite range of customer answers.
Surveys: Businesses have the option to include surveys in their mobile apps. They are a simple way that allows businesses to collect honest customer feedback, opinion, and responses. Surveys allow businesses to make necessary adjustments and improve the customer experience. If you choose to incorporate surveys in your mobile app, be sure that it matches the context of your app and that you only show surveys when it's the most convenient for customers.
Rate My App Feature: Most mobile apps offer a "Rate My App" prompt. An app rating feature allows businesses to understand how well their app performs and their customers' overall satisfaction with the user experience.
9. Strengthen Your Brand
Branding is a vital aspect of a successful business. With an established brand, companies are more likely to make a memorable impression. Branding helps businesses build relationships, increase online presence, and build trust.
Without a brand, it will be difficult for companies to create a solid customer base. But branding is something that many businesses don't know how to do. A mobile app is a simple and great way to strengthen your brand and dominate your industry.
How a Mobile App Can Build Your Brand
The more value a business creates, the more interested a customer will be in your brand. Luckily, we've already established that mobile apps are an excellent way to provide value. But even more than this, businesses must be intentional with their branding efforts to achieve a deep brand experience. Branded mobile apps make this possible.
The more a consumer experiences your brand, the more memorable your company is likely to be. With consumers essentially living on their mobile devices, companies can leverage this with the help of a mobile app.
Ultimately, businesses want to take advantage of every opportunity to share their brand. A mobile app is an effective way to stay in front of their customers and potential customers' minds.
A mobile app allows businesses to incorporate more branding elements into the app. Elements like logos, color combinations, and slogans can be strategically used in your mobile app. This can make a greater impact on the brand experience and have a positive impact on your marketing results.
Don't forget. Your marketing team can also use the data collected in the mobile app to improve your brand marketing strategy. Let's look at a few ways a mobile app can be used:
3 Ways to Use Mobile Apps for Your Brand
Many businesses avoid mobile apps because they don't understand how an app fits into their business model. But mobile apps are versatile tools that can be effective for businesses with the right approach. Here are a few ways you can use them:
Loyalty App: A loyalty app has a customer-centric focus. These apps are a great way to increase customer loyalty by offering incentives. For instance, customers may earn points when they spend with your business. These points are exchanged for coupons or a free item. A loyalty app is an excellent way to keep customers returning, increasing company revenue.
Customer Service App: Like a loyalty app, a customer-service app prioritizes the customer. These apps are all about resolving problems or answering questions. Providing a good customer experience is essential.
But many businesses believe they have successfully provided a good customer experience when delivering a product or service. In actuality, the customer experience begins with the first interaction and continues to be affected by any interaction thereafter.
A customer service app is an excellent way to improve customers' experience by allowing them to report problems, ask questions, and receive new company updates.
Content Apps: Content marketing still reigned supreme in 2022. Almost 80% of internet users read blogs. A content app is an excellent way to connect with your audience, share information, and keep them engaged. Businesses are more likely to turn casual readers into loyal customers.
Here are a few tips you can use when creating a mobile app for your business:
Tips for Creating a Mobile App
A mobile app provides an excellent opportunity for businesses to improve the customer experience, add more value, and increase their conversions. Before creating a mobile app for your business, use these tips to help you get started:
Determine the Purpose of Your Mobile App: Define the primary purpose of your mobile app. This will lay the foundation of your app and determine your next steps.
Identify Your Target Audience: Understanding your target audience will determine what mobile app you need and what features will benefit your audience.
App Compatibility: When designing your app, be sure your customers won't have a hard time accessing the app. You want to prevent any roadblocks that prevent customers from receiving the value from the app.
Drive Value With Mach One Digital
There are various benefits of an app for businesses. At Mach One Digital, we create value through great technology for companies to help them grow. With the help of our expert technologists, businesses can focus on the core of their business. Schedule a discovery call with Mach One Digital today.
