Does Your Small Business Need a Mobile App

Small businesses need to find a way to differentiate their services from the competition. Apps are one way for small businesses to create a new experience for customers while also creating a new way to stay connected.

Apps are booming, with over 3 million non-gaming apps on the App Store and 2.7 million on Google Play.

Offering a mobile presence has become key for many small businesses, and 42% already have a mobile app. An additional 25% of small businesses hope to have an app created in the near future.

Apps are for More Than Just Customers

Small businesses focus on their bottom line, and it’s very easy to forget that there are other reasons for a mobile app than to just sell to customers. Mobile apps can be used by three main parts of a business:

  • Customers
  • Employees
  • Partners

When apps are created for customer usage, it allows a small business to bring a new marketing channel to life. The small business can engage with app users in new, exciting ways, and apps further encourage brand loyalty.

Partners in a business can use apps to help with collaboration and key business details.

Employees can use apps in an entirely different way than consumers. When employees use apps, they’re going to “embrace mobile technologies for improved productivity and collaboration at the workplace, successfully handling the challenges of quality, user adoption and relevancy to job responsibilities,” states Elinext, mobile development company (check their site here).

How Apps Help Businesses Sell to Customers

Internal apps help improve workflow and collaboration, but consumer apps are where many small businesses increase their revenue. When creating an app for consumers, small businesses are able to benefit in a variety of ways:

  • Promotion. Apps allow you to market your products or services faster to users. If you’re running a weekend sale, you can easily promote the sale on your app and drum up interest from potential consumers.
  • Engagement. Apps make staying engaged with consumers a lot easier. When you have mobile apps, you can poll consumers to get their opinion, send out personalized invites or even ask for feedback after a consumer makes a purchase.
  • Loyalty. People are on their phones day and night, and if your app is able to keep your consumer’s attention, it will build brand loyalty. 

Apps also have the benefit of providing in-depth analytics. Businesses can mine the data to determine if consumers go to one product page often and leave. If the page is the most visited yet no one is buying, businesses may try putting the product on sale to see if it’s priced too high.

When consumers are connected to a small business intimately, it allows for small businesses to sell their products faster, too.

Limited time promotions and offers only for app users can also be used to increase sales during slow periods. This is a tactic that a lot of food delivery companies use. If a big football game is being played on Monday night, a lot of these restaurants will offer promotions because consumers rather order a pizza than cook during the big game.

With the right functionality, mobile apps can help every small business increase sales and stay connected with employees, partners and consumers.

Adam Richards

About Adam Richards

Adam Richards is a semi-retired business professional originally from Bangor, Maine. He spent the majority of his career in sales and marketing where he rose to the marketing lead of a Fortune 1000 company. He then moved on to helping people as a career counselor that specifically helped bring families to self-sufficiency through finding them rewarding careers. He has now returned to Bangor for his retirement and spends his free time writing. This blog will be about everything he learned throughout his career. He'll write on career, workplace, education and technology issues as well as on trends, changes, and advice for the Maine job market and its employers.