Does your business need an app?

A better question to ask yourself is ‘why do my customers need an app?’ A mobile app may be the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about mobile marketing, however, successful apps must not only be well-designed, but must also fulfill a customer need.

We’re living in a mobile-first world. Today’s mobiles are always on, allowing users to communicate via a wide range of digital platforms, instantly. The majority of consumers now use their mobile devices to research product purchases, including product research whilst they are actually in-store, and a fast growing number of users also make purchases via their mobile. We’re beginning to rely on our mobile devices quite heavily. So, many businesses want to prioritise mobile marketing for very good reasons.

For some marketers, mobile marketing seems to be synonymous with having a mobile app and adding an app has become a popular proposal at marketing planning meetings. In fact, it has become clichéd. One can imagine the whole marketing team focusing on ways to improve marketing results. The discussion has run dry and an uncomfortable silence hangs in the air. Suddenly, one exec stands up and says: “Wait! If all our customers downloaded an app from us, we could send them all our latest offers in real-time!”

The desire for apps also goes even higher up the decision making tree: I can’t count the times that we’ve been contacted because “the CEO wants an app”! The acorn of the idea is often very simple, such as “so that our customers can read our news” or “so that we can announce our sales promotions” or even “so that our customers can register for appointments.” All great benefits for the company, but what about the customer?

Agencies too have been guilty of recommending mobile apps by rote. Apps have been included as bolt-ons in digital marketing campaigns and website development jobs for years. Spot On created its own news app in 2010, from which we learned one valuable lesson: apps must have a clear value proposition. Simply being mobile, user-friendly and looking nice, just doesn’t cut it.

Due to the limited screen space and storage space on user devices, all mobile apps today find themselves in competition with the best apps available and that includes digital giants like Facebook and Google. You may not think that your business competes with Facebook, but ask yourself this: when a user decides to start deleting apps to free-up space, which app are they more likely to delete? Yours or Facebook’s?

Fundamental to the success of any new app is whether it has a clear proposition that will resonate with customers and other key audiences. When you decide to create an app, you’re developing a product that needs to fulfill a customer need. How will your new app make life better, or more interesting, for your customers? If your answer is that it will provide all the information from your website via a mobile app, think again…