4 Reasons Your Business Needs an App

Businesses today are judged heavily on their technological prowess. The average consumer is much more computer literate and technologically savvy than they used to be. The proliferation of affordable consumer electronics has taken them from toys for geeks to essential everyday tools. The vast majority of your customers, in virtually any industry or field, will have a smartphone. Now that these devices are ubiquitous, it is perhaps too easy to forget that they are powerful devices, both for consumers and for the businesses who want to appeal to them.

There was once a time when a businesses website was often little more than a token gesture, or perhaps to prevent cases of domain name parking. But in today’s business climate, it is unthinkable for any company not to have an online presence and any business without a website is throwing money away. Similarly, during the earliest days of their existence, apps for businesses were often token offerings that gave consumers little benefit. Today, the situation is very different. Apps are a fantastic way of extending a product’s reach and opening up new revenue streams.

There are a number of reasons why it is in the interest of businesses and their customers and clients, to develop mobile apps that allow businesses and consumers to more easily connect with one another. The following are the most compelling reasons for any business to invest in developing their own smartphone app.

Boost Sales

There are a number of ways that a smartphone app can be used to boost your sales. For one thing, smartphone apps can serve as a valuable marketing platform. In this regard, the return on investment (ROI) that you will receive is excellent. That is to say, for every dollar that you invest in marketing through your app, you can expect to receive several dollars in return.

Of course, smartphone apps can also boost sales by allowing customers to make purchases through the app. For any business that sells products or services over the internet, adding this functionality is an absolute no-brainer.

Establish a Workflow

Producing your first app is going to be hard work. The first time you do things it is always difficult. Even if you understand what you are about to do in theory, actually performing the task is often a lot more difficult. When devising a workflow for app production, you want to ensure that it is not overly-complicated. If your workflow is too long or too difficult, you will end up spending more than you need to.

The Kanban system is an excellent place to begin your search for an efficient workflow. Using the Kanban board for software development is a great way of producing an effortlessly efficient workflow and process. Kanban software development is just one application of this excellent efficiency-boosting system. The Kanban system can be applied in a variety of commercial, industrial, and manufacturing contexts. The Kanban system leads to a better managed and smoother workflow, delivering more reliable results in less time. Using Kanban in software development for your first few projects will help you a great starting point for overcoming one of the most stubborn obstacles for new businesses, which is establishing an appropriate workflow.

Increase Visibility

As well as your general marketing efforts, you should also be seeking to maximize the amount of exposure that your business and products receive in general. Having an app in the app store with your business logo and name will make people aware of your business. You shouldn’t underestimate the power and potential that comes just from being seen. Even if the only thing customers learn about your business is its name and the fact that it exists, this still counts in the never-ending battle for exposure.

If you can offer something in your app which will extend its appeal beyond your usual customer base, you will have created a very powerful marketing tool. Once users are in your app, you can control what they see and what they can do. You can use this to easily direct them towards the services and information you want them to use.

Engage With Your Customers

Anything that a business can do to facilitate communications and interactions between your business and your customers is worth pursuing. Customers prefer businesses that are easy to communicate with and, more importantly, are responsive to communications. A mobile app provides the perfect platform for allowing customers to contact you. You can then integrate these communications into a system that allows your customer services team to track which messages have been read and responded to.

The capabilities of modern smartphones are certainly impressive. The fact that access to this technology is now so widespread is something that every business should be looking to take advantage of. The only limit on what can be achieved is the imagination of the app designer.