Business App
Here are five lessons all smartphone savants must learn:
1. Know what message you want to send. “Before you start working on your app, make sure you know what you’re selling, what you’re about and the look and feel you want, like your logo colors and font,” Schneider says. “You also need to know what content you want to put in. You can integrate your app with your blog or your YouTube channel, but that only works if you have existing content.”
2. Understand your audience. “Mobile applications are where people are going to interact with their favorite brands, but you have to know what your customers are interested in,” Schneider says. “Apps allow for new kinds of user experiences and a different community feel than the web, which results in real engagement and commerce opportunities. Fans and users spend more money in apps compared to websites, and they come back more. But you have to drive loyalty, whether that’s by pushing messages or having visual content.”
3. Clarify what you want your app to achieve. “Whether or not an app is successful depends on the goal,”
total number of downloads, or how often people are coming back? How responsive are customers when offers are pushed out? How viral is your content? Or is it how many people are opting in and giving you their e-mail address?”
4. Forget about BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Palm. As of June, Android controlled 40.1 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, and Apple’s iOS captured 26.6 percent market share. Both are growing each month. Their rivals are fading fast. “iPhone and Android are all that matters. Everything else is irrelevant,” Schneider says. “Entrepreneurs don’t have to think it’s one or the other. With Mobile Roadie, you can do the work once and launch your app on iPhone and Android. It’s not cost-prohibitive, so there’s no reason not to do both.”
5. Fasten your seat belt. “Small businesses can really take advantage of the perception that apps are only for large companies,” Schneider says. “Home Depot has an app, but people don’t expect Joe’s Hardware to have an app. It’s an impressive thing for any business to have, like a website was 20 years ago. It sets your company apart, and it puts you on the same playing field as the big boys.”