In this article I shall explain what smart phone apps are, why they will be the ‘next big thing’, and discuss the different types of apps and how they can benefit your business.
Mobile Phone Apps
Apps are applications or programs that run on your mobile phone, similar to the way that Microsoft Office will run on your Windows PC. They often interact with the web and get data from the Internet. In addition they can interact with the functions of your phone including the GPS, camera, video and maps.
Unlike a website, they are installed (stored) on your phone, and therefore the icon is always usable.
Some apps are free, some apps are paid for, some have advertising, and some are a combination of the above.
Unfortunately for app developers and clients alike, each of the mobile platforms have their own language, and in most cases, if a mobile app developer writes an app for one platform it will have to be written from scratch for another.
- Apple has their iPhones, iPads and iPods and their apps are on the AppStore
- Blackberry have their apps available on AppWorld
- Google’s Android system works on a variety of handsets and have the Android Market
Although many statistics say that Android is rapidly become the most popular, our own web statistics from our websites disagrees. We find that around 15% of visitors access our websites with a mobile device and a staggering 80% of those use Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods. For that reason, for the moment at least, we’d suggest concentrating on Apple apps.
Why Do I Need An App?
We believe that apps are going to be huge in the future, so it makes sense to get on board quickly.
Before we look in the future let me look back 10 years to 2001. This was when I was graduating from the University of Bath and set up Webbed Feet UK. As a student I had been working on a website for a local school to fund my studies; they thought that they may need a website, but didn’t want to invest in a professional web developer as websites were not that important. At this time the Internet was starting to pick up, but broadband, Facebook and Google did not exist. In my 4 year computing degree, we didn’t mention the Internet once. And my mobile phone today has around 5x the computing power as my desktop back then. Things have changed dramatically since 2001, and will continue to do so in the future.
Looking forward to the next 10 years it is very hard to predict where we’ll be. However looking a year or two is easier, and experts predict that there will be an increase in social media and mobile phone use... you can already see this happening in the first seven months of 2011.
In the morning my alarm clock goes off (1), I check the weather (2), check Facebook for personal information (3), then usually tweet something for work on Twitter (4), I get up, read the news (5), check my daily calendar whilst eating breakfast (6), in the summer I look at the pollen count (7), and quite often use a TomTom app (8) as a sat nav in my car. That’s 8 apps every morning. Not to mention Google+, LinkedIn, Notes, iTunes, a QR reader, web browser, maps and many more apps that I use daily. I am not alone.
Larger companies have already predicted the rise on mobile phone apps, Google have a huge variety of apps including Earth, Maps, Search, Translate, Latitude, Places, Shopper, Authenticator, GTalk and Google+, and Coca-Cola have almost 20 apps for the iPhone alone.
You can’t help but conclude that apps are a thing of the future.
Different Types Of Apps
There are three main types of apps as follows:
Apps Used As Products
This is what most people think of when they consider a smart phone app for their business; an app that people buy because they want the service or information that it offers. For example, an Office suite, a PDF reader, a game such as Angry Birds, a sat nav program such as TomTom; the list is endless.
In addition to selling the apps in the relevant market place, it’s possible to give them away and make money via advertising within the app.
If you have a great idea, or have access to a niche crowd for marketing then this may work, but you need to sell a fair few before recuperating your costs and making a profit. That is where the other types of apps flourish.
Apps Used To Help Existing Customers
Do you have an existing client base that you can help? Would an app make their lives easier?
A very good example here would be the Facebook app. It’s helping Facebook users update their profile on the move and as such is used by many in place of their PCs. Why should I wait until I’m at my desk to send an update when I can add photos when I’m at an event, or browse my friends’ pages whilst on the train? There is no doubt that mobile apps have helped the social networks expand as quickly as they have.
So if you have clients who are always asking for the progress of an order, why not make an app that allows them to track it? If you have any form of online community, a smart phone app is a great way of keeping the updates frequent. If you have events then let customers see your calendar and even book using their mobile phone. You could also sell items via an online app shop; eBay and Domino’s Pizza do this. An estate agents could list properties (on a map) to help customers find and view nearby properties. The list is endless.
So here you may not recoup the money spend developing your app quickly, however you would be helping clients, increasing their use of your website or services, and increasing brand recognition.
This leads me to the final type of smart phone app:
Apps Used For Marketing
Think of how many free branded pens you have in your desk drawer. Consider all of the fridge magnets, ready-reckoners and other freebies that you collect at business expos. These all help businesses promote their brands.
Smart phone apps can be used as a modern equivalent of these; they have the advantage that after the initial outlay they are free, no matter how many copies you distribute. They are also permanently installed on each user’s handset, complete with your full contact details and links to your social media platforms. Therefore it’s the equivalent of each user permanently keeping your business card in their pocket.
The ideas of usage are endless: accountants give away booklets containing the current year’s tax rates; many estate agent websites have mortgage calculators; there are thousands of recipes online; all of these could be replicated as an app, which could also provide more useful functionality and a link back to the company website. For example, an accountant’s app could not only provide the current tax rates, but could also calculate a tax estimate based on the proprietor’s salary and dividends, followed by a “this is only an estimate, for an exact cost contact Joe Blog’s Accountancy”.
We do practice what we preach here. We have our own iPhone apps including an “SEO Tips Guide” and “Social Media Tips” which provide useful tips and tricks to businesses as well as an information page about our company with links to our website, phone, email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Our latest Social Media Tips app received 25 downloads on the first day of release, and these apps work; we have been contacted by prospective clients looking for web development work.
Mobile Websites
There is another format which, although not an app, should also be mentioned. These are mobile websites which are simplified versions of websites specifically formatted for screens on mobile devices.
These are written in HTML, which for the non-technical means they are websites and they are far easier to produce than iPhone, Blackberry and Android apps and therefore much cheaper. In addition, if you write a mobile website it will work across all platforms. You can also integrate eCommerce and virtually any other feature that you have on a website.
So they’re the best option, right? Unfortunately not. You can’t integrate with the features of mobile phone such as the GPS, motion sensor and camera; as it’s a website it’s not as easy to save the icon to the phone’s desktop; in most cases, you need an Internet connection in order to use the website; you won’t be available in the AppStore, Android Market or AppWorld; and you don’t get the ‘kudos’ that you get with smart phone app.
This doesn’t mean you should discount mobile versions of websites, they can be very handy indeed, and can often compliment or provide a lower cost alternative to mobile phone apps.
In Conclusion
Mobile phone apps are the new cutting-edge way to market your business, but as with most new technologies these are likely to be common-place in the near future.
If considering a mobile app for your business, try and think laterally and come up with new and original ideas to help develop your brand.
The mobile phone market is relatively new, and therefore there are thousands of untouched opportunities waiting to be explored.