Not very long ago, mobile applications were reserved for industry leaders and large multinationals. However, the status quo has turned on its head in the recent past. Businesses of every size and scale are now looking to provide their customers with a mobile app to access their products and services.
The unexpected and unprecedented global pandemic has further underlined the importance for businesses to think on their feet and adapt to market volatilities. The demand for mobile apps has increased rapidly with customers of every niche expecting to find an app for every product or service they need. Given this promising demand, small and mid-sized enterprises are seeing excellent returns on their app investments.
Here’s looking at why mobile apps are the present and the future for all kinds of businesses.
“Is there an app for that?”
Entertainment, digital payments, healthcare, accounting, travel, real estate, calendar, service finder, eLearning, apparel, groceries, food delivery… these days you can find an app for nearly everything. The app marketplace or app stores are replete with mobile and web applications for virtually every product or service you can think of.
According to statistics:
- Annual mobile app downloads will reach 258 billion by next year
- Mobile apps will generate gross revenues of $935 billion by 2023
- The mobile app industry will clock $407.31 billion by 2026
5 reasons why mobile apps are absolutely indispensable today
From selling goods and services to offering interesting content to building brand awareness, there are a variety of reasons why businesses across all industries are desperate to offer their customers an app. They are a powerful tool that when used effectively, have the potential to bolster and diversify any business.
Let us look at the top 5 reasons why a mobile app is beneficial for your business –
1. Visibility
We are all addicted to our smart devices – phones, tablets, wearables, and whatnot. In fact, the latest research indicates that people have started spending more time on their smartphones than they do on their PCs. It is essential that you tweak your existing marketing strategies to align yourself with this paradigm shift. Having a mobile presence can enable you to grab more eyeballs and help grow your business. According to a survey, American adults spend 2 hours and 51 minutes on their phones on a daily basis. That is enough time for any business to grab their attention via mobile apps that use graphics, text, icons, and videos to communicate their message.
2. Sales
Business is about making money, right? If you understand the kind of relationship that modern-day customers have with their smartphones, it becomes evident that giving them a mobile app for your offerings is the best way to motivate them to buy your products or services. The eCommerce boom, in particular, has demonstrated how well-designed mobile apps can enable rapid growth in sales and revenues.
3. Wider audience base
An app not only helps you increase brand awareness but also helps you to connect with a wider range of audiences. Apps are extremely beneficial in terms of growing and promoting your business, especially when it comes to attracting the younger demographics. You can easily reach out to diverse audiences and create curiosity about your products, services, and special offers.
4. Exceptional CX
Perhaps the best thing about mobile apps is that they help you deliver a remarkable customer experience and stay one step ahead of the competition. With a slick UI, well-thought-out UX, and a host of features, you can create a truly great customer experience. Apps are a direct channel of communication, they help you elevate the level of user-friendliness and customer service you provide. Starbucks, for example, has done a stellar job of creating excellent digital engagement through its mobile app by providing services like order-and-pay, access to loyalty programs and direct promotions, and by leveraging services from other innovative third-party platforms.
5. Marketing
Apart from delivering a good customer experience, an app can also help you create a really effective marketing channel. You cal provide app-exclusive offers, direct marketing, in-app messaging, and more. In terms of customer retention and brand loyalty, mobile apps have proved to be way ahead in the race between various marketing techniques and technologies. From a marketing perspective, mobile apps can help increase customer engagement, generate repeat orders, retain customers, and monetize their presence on your virtual avenues.
Mobile app trends for 2022, and beyond
With businesses from every industry niche creating mobile apps for the products and services they offer, it is a given that there is cutthroat competition for virtual presence. A few trends that drive the mobile app space for businesses include:
1. Customization
The level of personalization you offer can really make or break the deal when it comes to getting your prospective customers hooked on to your app. Apart from offering simplified access at a single touch, delivering personalized suggestions and content can boost the level of customer engagement and help push your sales to the next level.
2. Multipurpose apps
Super apps are gaining more and more popularity since they allow customers to access 10 different services or products from one single app (instead of using 10 different apps).
3. 5G
5G combines extremely low latency and connection density with higher bandwidths. This has now opened up endless possibilities in the IoT, AR, and VR realms.
4. PWAs
Progressive Web Apps or PWAs are web pages that have the functionality of an app. This means they are very easy to develop and unlike native mobile apps, PWAs have super-fast loading times.
5. Wearables
The pandemic highlighted the importance of physiological and mental health. With these advances, the wearables revolution that so many have been talking about for so long has finally arrived. By collecting real-time health data and providing a variety of other features, today’s wearable devices are connected to apps that do much more than just tell you how many calories you have burnt during the day.
Every single fact, trend, statistic, and forecast reinforce the fact that having a mobile app for your business is vital. It all boils down to what kind of app you want and who is going to make it for you. If you are on the lookout for an experienced mobile app development company in the United States, get in touch with the QualDev team now!
QualDev is the go-to partner for a wide array of businesses for their custom mobile app development needs. By providing secure, fabulously designed, customer-friendly solutions, we have helped our clients by delivering state-of-the-art mobile apps and related services. Learn more about our app development solutions today.