In our earlier blogs, we provided useful insights on how mobile applications are changing industries and businesses. This blog is more focused on key factors to consider before developing a mobile application for your business. Mobile app development is thriving like never before. With the invention and innovation of new mobile devices and OS’, it has now become absolutely imperative for every business to create mobile apps presenting their products and services. Though making a business app has become an easy task, but if you are looking your app as a tool for your business growth, then you need adequate strategies, effort, cost and right sort of marketing campaigns.
A Mobile Application Development for a Business is not just a technological innovation. You need business knowledge and skills to develop a user-friendly application. In this blog, we are going to highlight few key points which every business owner, app developer as well as service providing company should remember before developing a mobile app.
1. Research
If you have a great idea to develop a world class mobile application for your business, the first thing you need to understand is the market, customer demand and trends. Even before giving a technological touch to your business app, you need to do market research. A market analysis report can give you very useful insights. You can understand the popularity of similar apps available in the market and your competitor strategies. This will allow you to optimize your app from the very beginning. Apogaeis believes in “Learning from others mistakes than Learning after making mistakes.”
Customer reviews can provide you a glimpse of customer likes and dislikes, choice and preference and future demands. You can take a note of the pain areas and try to resolve those in your mobile app. Research can give you an opportunity to plan better and allow you to prepare a robust application from the very beginning.
2. Identify Target Audience
This comes under research stage and extremely important. Identifying the right set of audience for your application is very important. The entire application future depends on these target set of users, as they play a very significant role is application development, as well as app feature expansion and growth. Questions like who are going to use my application and how it can add value to their lives, should be asked before starting development. If you meet the expectation of your users, definitely your app is going to get popular and it will help you to generate more revenue.
3. Right Platform Selection
One of the most important question you need to ask yourself is, in which platform you want to deploy your business app. It is advisable to start with one platform. Be a master of a single platform, later you can move on other platforms. iOS, Android and Windows are the most popular mobile app platforms.
In order to decide the best-suited platform for your mobile application, you need to keep certain things in your mind like app brand, target audience, app features and most importantly pricing strategy. After that, you need to choose development methodology for your business app; Native, Mobile Web or Hybrid. Native applications have many advantages, but it may be slightly expensive.
4. Set Plan of Action
Before starting to build your business mobile application, make sure you understand the entire process. A robust business app takes a decent amount of time and effort. It also passes through various stages. The business owner should understand the importance of all the stages, before going ahead. Project Management, App Design, App Architecture, App Development Methodology, App Testing, Enhancement and finally App Deployment- These are the basic stages of any mobile application. Set a plan of action for your app development process. Monitoring and controlling are very much essential. Release a beta version of your app first, and do rigorous testing and review before releasing the full version to the end users.
5. Know your Budget
Developing a business mobile app requires investment along with knowledge and strategy. Knowing your budget and allocating it properly among each stage of app development is essential. There are various aspects of an app which requires money to be invested in; app development, maintenance, updating, marketing etc. Basically you app budget depends on your niche. The type of app you want to create and the type of content you wish to add in your app.
6. Think Out of the Box
Always keep one thing in mind. People want something different. Why they choose one brand ahead of another similar brand? It is only because they feel the chosen brand has something unique to offer. Mobile applications are the best way to engage your customers and probably the easiest way to convert a lead into a potential buyer. Human beings have a tendency to get bored of one thing very quickly. As there are millions of smartphone applications available in the market, app users want to be served with something new. Hence, it is recommended to think out of the box strategies or features and don’t let your users choose someone else.
Also Read : 7 “Must Follow” Strategies for Sublime Customer Engagement
7. Smooth and Efficient
No excuse, your business mobile app must be smooth and efficient. If your app is taking a lot of time to load, it may prove to be fatal. Either user uninstalls the app after first use or rarely opens. It adds to create a negative impression in the user’s mind. Make sure your app does not consume a lot of memory space and processing power on a mobile device.
Efficiency is something users expect from all the mobile applications. It includes user-friendliness, data efficiency, battery usages, security and alike. If your app is using a lot of 3G or 4G data, it might not work for you in a longer run. Users may download and forget. So, don’t fall into that category and develop your app in such a manner that it won’t consume more data of your users and does not drain battery.
8. User Experience
User Experience is the backbone of any application. If you failed to provide your users excellent experience, then there is no reason for them to come back to you and use your app. User experience is an increasingly crucial feature when it comes to the digital landscape. An app defines how a user feels and think about your business and services. It is about making something valuable, easy to use and effective for your target audience. Don’t make your app confusing or complicated.
A well thought mobile application offering seamless user experience can translate into several key benefits. The functionalities and content that are delivered to your app must be in line with your target audience. The end product must provide a superior quality customer service. If you are unable to provide a quality mobile application, it may harm your brand image.
9. Focus on Marketing Strategy
There is no meaning of building an app for your business if you are not focusing on, how to market it and make it available to potential users. Creating a buzz, before the launch can promote your app in such a way that your app can get a lot of reach from the word go. Most of the business owners fail in executing their marketing strategies for their mobile application.
Different Mobile Applications have different targeted users. Similarly, you have to analyse your industry and your potential user base. After analysing that only, you can make strategies on how to promote it. Online campaigns are one of the preferable options for many business owners. But your marketing strategy depends largely on your industry, offerings, and your potential users.
Also Read : How Mobile Enterprise Applications are helping Telecommunication Industry
10. Testing
It is important to test your mobile application before you launch. Before users getting an experience, you should make sure it can fulfil their requirements. Smooth, efficient, high performance are few of the things you should keep in mind while testing. Testing will allow you to dust out all the nooks and crannies and make your app a strong business tool which can connect your business with your customers.
Conclusion
Today around 2 billion people are using smartphones. It is expected to reach around 4 billion by 2020. The number of mobile devices are more than PCs. Around 70% of the people spend time on apps and 80% of the people use mobile applications for purchasing, payment, and booking. Irrespective of any industry, mobile applications are proving out to be an essential tool for business growth and reach. The opportunity is huge and market potential is large. So, while developing an app for your business you should keep the above things in your mind.
Apogaeis is a trusted mobile application development company. Apogaeis earned special understanding about mobile app development methodology across security, data management, resource optimization, UX after delivering many research projects across the industries. Our aim is to deliver the mobile apps to our partners that can actually bring high efficiency for their business and generate brand awareness of their offerings. Either you need hybrid or native mobile apps, android or iOS apps, we equip your business with the most user-friendly applications. Let’s collaborate and change the way you work- Contact Here
