Those days are behind us when mobile apps were solely a thing for big brands such as Bank of America or Google. Now, both small and mid-size businesses are following the mobile trend. They understand it well that an effective mobile strategy takes more than just a mobile-friendly website.
The small businesses that you interact with in your daily life have their own dedicated mobile apps as well. They have understood it too that if you really want to market to the next level, you need to be as attractive as the Spectrum TV and internet bundle.
Let’s Look at the Numbers
The small business and entrepreneurship council and AT&T conduct a poll each year. It focuses on small business technology. Here are some of the takeaways from the study on mobile technology:
- Business owners can save 2 billion hours each year from smartphones and tablets.
- American business owners can save more than $65 each year with mobile technology.
- Most of the small business owners who use smartphone apps for increasing productivity feel they are able to save $6,000 each year.
- The number of small business owners who use smartphone technology for conducting business has now reached up to 94 percent.Another study revealed that small business owners use mobile technology for a variety of functions. When they were asked how they use tablets and smartphones, 73 percent of them said they use it for social media marketing. 71 percent said they use it for email marketing. 44 percent said advertising. 34 percent said mobile websites, 18 percent said for managing.
Ways Mobile Apps Are Revolutionizing Small Businesses?
You will probably hear this a lot that mobile apps are revolutionizing small businesses. But the question is how? What has changed or what is changing? Here are some ways:
Direct Marketing Channel
Mobile apps offer so much more than what we can imagine. General information, search features, booking forms, news feeds, user accounts, messengers, etc. But one of the biggest benefits of having a mobile app is that it is a direct channel for reaching out to your customers. Whether its sales or promotions, customers will have all this information at their fingertips. Push notifications allow you to directly interact with your customers. You can frequently remind them about your products and services.
Frequent Visibility
On average, an American spends more than 2 hours a day on their mobile device. They will only get to use a handful of apps but it’s true that when a consumer unlocks his mobile, he scans through all the apps. If your business app is in the way, it is likely to get noticed.
Brand Recognition and Brand Building
Mobile apps can largely contribute to building brand awareness. Consider your app as a blank billboard. You can do anything with that billboard. But your goal must be to create an app that offers features customers will enjoy. In other words, you design a well-branded app.
Apart from brand building, mobile apps help with brand recognition, too. The more customers involve with your app, the more they are inclined to buy your product or service. If they see or hear about your brand 20 times a day, it will certainly get noticed.
Mobile Payments
There was a time when paying for products and services via a mobile app was considered a niche. Now, it has become acceptable everywhere. 26 percent of the small business owners believe that mobile payment is a valuable feature for a mobile app.
You will be surprised to find out that mobile payments at the POS are entirely dominated by solutions such as Apple Wallet and Google Pay. Small business apps can also incorporate in-store mobile payments. A great example is set up by LevelUp. It’s a mobile payment platform designed for restaurant businesses. They offer mobile software development kit allowing developers to incorporate the functionalities of the LevelUp for making in-store payments.
Better Customer Engagement
No matter what type of business you are running, your customers need a way to reach out to you. A mobile app with a help desk or chat feature lets you communicate with your customers in a snap. Customers will have a faster way to reach out to you. Who wouldn’t appreciate that?
Conclusion
This brings us to the conclusion that mobile apps can help small business gain positive publicity. They can improve customer relations, offer better services, build a strong brand image and do so much more. With a customized app, you can promote your product or service and make them popular just like the Spectrum TV choice package. It’s certainly a great return on investment.