Paying for web and software design costs money. That’s the biggest barrier to redesigning your website when there are changes in trends online, and it’s also the biggest reason why many businesses don’t have a mobile app. If you’re reading this as a business owner, and you don’t have an app promoting your company’s products and services, you might not even think you need an app. We don’t think that’s the case.
Even if things are going well for you right now, more and more business that was once being done through a computer is now being done through a phone. If you don’t provide your customers with an easy route to interact with you through their phones, you may soon find that you’re left behind. Besides this, we would also suggest you to have a separate mobile number for business related calls, chalkboard app would be the best app to choose in this regard.
Some businesses and business owners might believe that there’s no logical reason to have an app. If your trade isn’t web-based, or the service you offer isn’t digital, why would your customers need an app to be able to conduct business with you? There are actually several compelling reasons why, and we’ll outline them for you here in this article.
More Business Is Done Through Phones Than Ever Before
When it comes to keeping customers happy, the next biggest factor after pricing and quality of service is convenience. Nothing is more convenient to a customer than being able to order from you or communicate with you through the device they have in their hand or their pocket at all times. If you want to know how big a factor the mobile element is right now, speak to someone who works in the casino industry. When online slots came along to compete with old-fashioned slot machines, it put bricks-and-mortar casinos under pressure. Now some online slots websites are under pressure because they don’t allow their customers to play through their mobile phones. Online slots are still the most popular way to play slots on website like Rose Slots, but more money is taken through phones than through people sat in front of a computer. You should always follow the money in business, and the money has moved to the mobile format.
Push Notifications
Marketing isn’t what it used to be. We’re heading into a brand new decade when it comes to advertising, and people have had twenty years to get used to digital marketing campaigns. Unfortunately for anyone paying for digital marketing, it would appear that the audience has learned to see them coming, and started ignoring them. Unsolicited emails get deleted without being read, and adverts on social media are simply scrolled past as if they’re not there. What people will stop and check, though, is a push notification. It pops up on the front screen of your phone, and it won’t go away until you interact with it to dismiss it. That means your audience is guaranteed to see it. If you don’t have an app, you can’t send push notifications to let people know about new offers and new products – and that means you’re leaving money on the table.
It’s Almost A Guarantee Of More Sales
We can’t tell you exactly why this happens, but we can prove it does. If you have a mobile app on people’s phones, they’re more likely to order from you, and they’re also likely to do it more often. The best example of this is Dominos Pizza. There was nothing wrong with the way that Dominos did business in the past. People could phone up and order, or they could do it through the Dominos website. There was no barrier to sales. Despite that, Dominos went ahead and created an app that allowed people to order through their phones – and the results were astonishing. Total sales went up by nearly one third in a single year, and half of all the orders they dealt with came through the app.
One theory behind this is that your company becomes more familiar to your customers on a subconscious level purely through your app being on their phone. Users scroll through their apps every single day, and that means they see your logo every day, too. That constant reminder of your existence and availability might just be the difference between a customer choosing to order from you or not.
Personalization
Nobody wants to be treated like a number, which means everybody appreciates a personalized service. Having an app allows you to treat every customer as an individual, and also allows them to interact with you on their own terms. They can choose whether or not they want notifications from you. They can store localized settings and thereby govern what kind of content they see each time they open the app. A good app will even allow a customer to interact with a customer services representative through live chat just as easily as that customer could speak to their friends using a messaging service. Let your customers pick different themes for your app, and program it to greet them by name every time they log in. A well-designed app is a five-star customer service experience that the customer takes with them everywhere they go.
Increased Visibility
An app can do more for your marketing than just send push notifications to customers. It can also boost your social media profile elsewhere, and allow you to advertise directly to friends of your customer. Because apps can track user activity, they can tell when a specific action has been taken. That means you can use your app to offer a discount or other incentive to a customer when they’ve taken that specific desired action. You could offer them a small discount on their next order if they follow your social media accounts, or re-tweet a specific promotional message, for example. People like discounts, and so they’re likely to do what you’re asking of them – especially if doing so only takes one or two finger-presses on a screen. You could even incentivize users to get their friends to install your app, and therefore increase your customer base exponentially.
Apps probably aren’t as expensive to develop as you suspect they are. Most companies that can handle web design can also handle app design, and you might even find the company you currently use to handle your website can take care of it for you. You could make a large return for a small outlay if you do it right – so why not step into the 2020s and give it a try?