Would Your Business Benefit From Having A Branded App?

Customer behavior is rapidly changing. Twenty years ago, it was novel for companies to have a website. Fast forward to today, and a website is an absolute necessity, alongside a social media presence and an app. Businesses invest in the top platforms for websites and work hard at engaging with consumers on social media.

Since customers generally expect businesses to have an app, it makes absolute sense to look at developing one for your brand. With an app, you can stand out from your competition and make your services more convenient for consumers at the same time. Continue reading to discover how your business would benefit from having your own branded app along with some details that will help you find a software company to help bring your ideas to life.

Increase Visibility

Depending on where your company is based, you’ll find customers spend between 2-3 hours exclusively using apps on their phones every single day. Consumers enjoy using mobile browsers, but there’s something predictable about an app. With an app, consumers get exactly what they expect. Moreover, it’s serviced into the palm of their hands. They do not need to think or search for what they are looking for when they can use an app. For this reason, businesses increase their visibility when they develop branded mobile apps. When companies have branded apps, they also increase visibility simply by giving users the option in the app store.

Build Unique Features

The very best apps scratch an itch customers didn’t even know they had. Consumers did not long for the most popular social media apps before they came out. Now, consumers use them every single day. Moreover, they have turned into global applications.

In order to turn your company into a global brand, you need to find a unique feature that can make your brand indispensable. If you own a t-shirt business, you need to make online t-shirts stand out from other companies in the same industry. Contrary to popular belief, your unique feature does not need to be an expensive, intense one. You simply need to stand out from your competition in any way. An app gives you the flexibility to make full use of your customer’s phone functions. Use them to create something unique and useful. In doing so, your brand will reap the benefits.

Communicate Directly

Upon creating an app, you have the ability to build in a function that will allow you to directly communicate with your customers through push notifications. Like it or not, consumers take notice of their phones and mobile devices when they beep or vibrate. Most consumers check their phone notifications over one hundred times a day. Hence, if you set up your app to send users notifications, you can remind them of your brand daily. With an app, you can put any message you want to send directly into a person’s hand. As a result, you will earn a substantial amount more interaction with your messages when compared to sending a similar email message to your subscribers.

Incentivize Loyalty

One of the most popular methods of creating on-going customer engagement with your app (and therefore your brand) is to “gamify” the interaction. In simple terms, you’re going to challenge customers. They will play it as a game and feel successful when they complete the challenge at hand.

After all, screen time is the most crucial element when it comes to apps. So, the more interactions and opens your app receives each day, the more likely your customers are to engage with your brand. There are numerous e-commerce platforms that incentivize app opens each day. The best ones offer customers a small money-off reward if they continue to hit the targets. It’s a simple concept, but it’s an exceptionally effective way of making sure people keep coming back.

Increase Brand Recognition

Brand recognition is another benefit companies receive when they develop branded apps. The more a customer sees your name or familiar branding, the more trust they gain in your company. For this reason, brands within all industries use business Facebook management tips to increase engagement with customers. With your own app, you can increase your engagement even faster. With this in mind, it’s absolutely vital that your app is visually similar to your other branding materials. These materials include website, logo and letterheads. If you keep these materials consistent, you will effectively add another string to the brand bow.

Studies suggest that if a customer sees your branding and name enough times, they will recognize you as being more trustworthy than a less familiar brand. Having a well-branded app gives another opportunity to tick off those views, growing recognition and trust with customers each time.

Boost Engagement

Although it may sound like a disparaging broad statement, customers are lazy. The more effort they have to put into engaging with your brand, the less likely it is to happen. You could have the best looking restaurant in your city with prompt deliveries and outstanding food. However, unless you’re on an online ordering and delivery platform, you simply will not get the lion’s share of orders. The picture is worse still if you expect people to manually input their card details into your site.

An app is the perfect answer to this kind of customer laziness. After all, it removes a significant number of hurdles between the point at which your customer looks for your service to the point they take action.

Develop An Application

App development has come a long way in the last decade. Where apps were once the preserve of large companies with in-house development teams, it’s now surprisingly easy to find a good developer or development team to bring your app to life.

You’re going to need to start by defining some objectives for your app. So, your development team needs to have a goal to work toward. It’s also useful to be working with a team that understand your business and the kind of customers who you’re going to be engaging with your application. It is possible to find app development very cheaply. If you do, you’re potentially walking into a situation where your app misses the mark – and you’re left spending more money to fix the issue. Seek a development company who’ll work with your brand as a partner – rather than one who’s look to churn out a quick application before moving on to the next customer.