Recent research regarding mobile apps versus mobile website usage shows that users spend 90% of mobile time in-app, with only 10% of the time browsing the internet. For e-commerce, the numbers are even higher: users spend an average of 3 hours and 21 minutes per month shopping on mobile apps, compared to only 10 minutes per month shopping on mobile websites.
This can only lead to one thing: more and more businesses of all sizes are focusing on improving the user experience on mobile devices in an effort to increase sales, as it has been proved that customers want a quick-loading, highly functional, and interactive experience. Thus, developing a custom mobile application is often the choice that best matches the needs of their businesses. But let’s take a look at what exactly custom mobile app development is and what benefits it brings to the table:
What is custom mobile app development?
As the name mentions, custom app development is creating an app according to the needs of your business and of your customers – a tailor-made app that provides fully customized features to ensure your target audience gets the best solutions for their needs. If you think about the apps you have installed on your mobile, while probably all of them are custom-based, they also include many off-the-shelf features such as chatbots or CRMs that are partially customized in order to integrate with the app’s overall design.
Why build a custom mobile app?
As you may have imagined, a custom mobile app requires a higher development budget than a ready-to-go solution, and while big corporations won’t make any compromise and will always be ready to displace a bigger part of the IT budget towards development, SMEs will need to know all the benefits of a custom mobile app before deciding which is the right solution for them. Here are some of the most important reasons why one should develop a custom mobile app:
- It’s scalable
A custom mobile app can grow along with your business – this way, you won’t be paying from the start for features that you don’t need at this particular stage, but you know will need at a later moment in time. You can always ask your development team to bring up the app’s capabilities, making custom mobile app development an ideal solution for startup businesses.
- Better User Experience
A good user experience is tightly coupled with a high conversion rate, so ask your mobile development company to pay attention when designing your app. Providing a fluid, interactive, and customized user experience will also build on the satisfaction and brand loyalty level of your customers, key factors for a profitable business.
- Provides a direct marketing channel
Unlike traditional marketing channels, mobile applications have the advantage of allowing you to communicate directly with your target audience and – the best part – without having to spend an extra budget. Use push notifications to keep the users informed about current sales or create promotions just for the app users to show them your appreciation for their loyalty. But be careful – don’t abuse the push notification system, as it’s highly invasive and can turn against you really fast.
- Provides valuable insights and feedback
Developing a custom mobile app means having your own platform where you could collect data from your users, thus, you’ll be able to better understand your customers’ behavior when interacting with your business. A custom mobile app will allow you to gather valuable data and use it with them to increase sales, by improving your sales funnel and updating your marketing strategy.
- It’s more secure
If the data you collect through your mobile app requires an extreme level of security, a custom mobile app built by experienced software developers can easily solve your problem, as they provide you with more control over the security aspect, while knowing exactly what security measures have been put in place during the mobile app development process.
Developing a custom mobile app should be seen as a long-term investment in your business, so make sure you select an experienced development company able to design a highly-intuitive app that has the ability to expand as your business grows.
