Mobile Apps are becoming more and more popular every year. Today, there are over 3.8 Billion smartphone users globally. With 75% of them spending at least two hours per day browsing mobile apps.

The mobile app industry makes billions of dollars in revenue every year, with apps increasingly becoming a consumers favourite way to interact with businesses. Wouldn’t it be incredible if these prospects could have your Brand virtually in their pocket too?

According to app revenue statistics, the income from mobile apps will be close to $950 billion US Dollars in 2023. This primarily comes from in-app advertising and paid downloads and the reason why most businesses are now getting their own dedicated mobile app to win more customers. If they get it right, they know the returns could dramatically boost their bottom line. 

Future-proof your business in a world gone mobile.

Beyond using a mobile app to deliver goods and services, you can use an app to do so much more – such as learn more about your customers, or communicate more effectively with them.

From engaging more deeply with your customers to spreading brand awareness, you can achieve a lot from having a mobile app for your business. Which is why so many achieve high success rates when they invest in one. Over 65% of businesses, either have a mobile app or are considering it.

Read on as we dive in to more reasons why investing in a mobile app is wise decision for many small and medium sized businesses.


Here are our Top 5 reasons you should consider developing a mobile app for your business:

1. Affordable Mobile Apps with Google Flutter

2. Improve Customer Loyalty with a Mobile App

3. Mobile Apps Boost your Marketing efforts

4. Monitor Customer Relationships with a Mobile App 

5. Mobile Apps help Gain a Competitive Edge
   
   

Affordable Mobile Apps with Google Flutter

Long gone are the days of lengthy development times and large expensive teams. Thanks to the creation of what are called ‘cross-platform mobile app development frameworks’, one single developer could create a turn-key mobile app for your business in only a few short months. Sometimes even less if the brief is clear from day one and the requirements are straightforward.

This translates into considerably lower app development costs for your business and a faster delivery. Make no mistake, cross-platform mobile app development frameworks are a game changer and here’s why.

Back in the day, most mobile applications would cost upwards of $1million dollars to develop in what is known as ‘pure native’. That means building apps for a specific operating system, such as iOS or Android, in the programming languages Objective-C or Swift.

Mobile apps, traditionally, cost so much because of the limited availability and rates of Developers.

Historically, the average hourly rate of a mobile app developer in New Zealand was $130, but this could balloon to well over $300 per hour if they were highly skilled. Because mobile app developers were in such hot demand, they were often hard to find.

When you combine this situation with the realisation that in order to deliver a complex mobile app – within a year – and let’s be honest, the faster you achieve it the better; you would need a room full of developers earning that wage to deliver it in ‘pure native’. Suddenly the full gravity of those costs is realised.

Realistically, you were looking at between $15-20k per week in development costs alone. Never mind the ongoing management costs and your business costs. But with few alternative options to bring those costs down, if you wanted a mobile app then this was the only way to go at the time. This all meant that apps were reserved only for businesses with deep pockets. Or at the very least, access to a wealthy investor willing to shoulder the costs. 

But a lot has changed since then and for the better.

Google Flutter is a faster, cheaper and simpler way to develop a mobile app.

The industry knew that cost was the single biggest reason why small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) would not invest in a mobile application. So, Google led the way and re-invented how it’s done to drive those costs down and make mobile apps affordable to the masses.

Google Flutter was the product of this initiative and it was released in 2015 to much fanfare. For starters, apps developed in Google Flutter routinely cost up to 40% less than in ‘pure native’. In some cases, as much as 80%.

One of the many ways it re-wrote the rule book, was in the programming language it uses. Google realised no existing programming language could achieve their goals. So what did they do? Invented an entirely new programming language that could.

That language is called DART, and thanks to it, Google Flutter is able streamline the entire development process and make it much faster and simpler.

A number of key ways it achieves this is by…

• Developing on just one code base, rather than two individual code bases – one for Android and one for iOS – this dramatically simplifies the process and means less developers are required.
• When the app is ready to release, the app is compiled for both Android and iOS at the same time. 
• Updates and bug fixes are so much easier to investigate and fix resulting in the ongoing costs of an app being so much less.
• The UI is fully flexible and responsive immediately, it’s borderline impossible to develop an app that looks bad with Google Flutter.

It is all thanks to Google Flutter, mobile applications are now in the realm of affordable for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) which is why we actively promote it with all our clients.

Improve Customer Loyalty with a Mobile App

As every successful business knows, customer loyalty is everything.

Businesses that compete in highly competitive markets must put in the extra hours to earn customer loyalty. They could greatly benefit from mobile apps since they boost referral rates and prospects for repeat business. They can also increase the adoption rates for new products and services too.

Mobile apps make it easy for SMBs and their customers to communicate. Any communication channel that removes barriers between the customer and the business is always desirable and apps achieve this exceptionally well with slick and easy to reach methods of communication.

Mobile apps remove customer barriers and make communication easier.

Convenient communication encourages ongoing engagement, enabling organisations to track customer habits and improve their marketing tactics over time. In this sense, low-cost mobile apps actually help to raise customer satisfaction levels.

A company can better predict both short-term and long-term growth when its client base is loyal. Businesses can fine-tune their offerings and provide products and services that their customers actually want, rather than what they think they want, with the help of enhanced forecasting.

Businesses often increase client loyalty through loyalty card programs. Which customers can sign up for, manage and redeem all within the app. Loyalty programs are really effective at attracting repeat business whilst helping to lower your customer acquisition costs and it’s thanks to mobile apps they can be delivered very effectively.

Mobile Apps Boost your Marketing efforts

It would be hard not to, given your business is virtually in their pocket 24/7.

The aim of marketing is to help businesses communicate with new and existing customers about new products and services. Mobile apps enhance marketing and promotional activities in vast number of ways.

One key way is because apps require prospects to actively seek out and install them. In the process, creating a direct marketing channel between themselves and the business.

Mobile apps often attract valuable leads into a businesses sphere which, may not have otherwise occurred.

There is a perception amongst many consumers that a business with a mobile app is seen as modern and serious about building relationships.

This results in the mere presence of an app, essentially, marketing itself and by extension your business. This is especially true of millennials, as statistics show that 21% open an app more than 50 times per day. If your target audience is within that demographic, that is money on the table pure and simple.

Once the app is installed, marketing teams can then monitor app adoption rates and app usage whilst employing promotional strategies to target specific users based on their actions within the app or perhaps even a specific customer demographic (such as millennials).

Mobile apps offer so many different ways to market to customers that are highly personalised and this often results in increased conversions. Very few marketing channels can personalise the customer experience to this degree. When we start talking about complimenting your mobile app to your existing multichannel or perhaps even omnichannel marketing strategies, suddenly that relationship elevates to a whole new deeply immersive level.

Don’t gamble with your marketing budget, mobile apps make your spend more efficient.

Another powerful method that companies use to market with inside a mobile app is Push Notifications. They are used to keep a customer or prospect constantly ‘in touch’ with the latest news, products, services and promotions amongst others.

This keeps them constantly engaged with a Brand and is incredibly effective because it’s personal and tailoured especially for them. This is why push notifications have a 60% open rate, well above the open rate of email marketing at 21% in of 2022 according to Mailchimp.

Advertising on a mobile app requires less capital than traditional methods, such as radio, TV or leaflet drops, which can benefit SMBs with smaller budgets. It’s an excellent means to launch a new marketing campaign too as you can quickly launch, control and adapt to it’s needs in real-time. An app really is a ‘better bang for your marketing buck’ in most cases.

Monitor Customer Relationships with a Mobile App 

Customer experiences are ever evolving and it’s vital you keep ahead of the game.

A mobile app provides you with many ways to get ahead. Apps collect a vast amount of analytical information, this is useful data that you can further analyse to improve and refine your customer relationships.

For example, from in-app analytics you can learn exactly which products your customers are buying the most and when they buy them. In addition to how much time they spend on the app itself and what time of day they prefer to use it.

You can quickly see which products or services are the least popular too, even down to the demographic level, so you can get ahead and turn things around. All of this data is available in real-time from a web based dashboard, it really couldn’t be easier to access and monitor.

Businesses cannot rely upon a ‘rule book’ for the type of experiences an end user would be attracted to and engage with.

Experiences have evolved considerably in recent years. Even trying to implement some recent trends would likely be fruitless as it would be using out-dated, old information that, at best, would only equal you to the competition for a short time.

An enriching experience is what all businesses should aspire towards, not adhering to short-term trends. You want to aim to sculpt an experience that your target audience will love. Just liking something isn’t enough, you need to evoke strong emotions within your prospects so they build trust with your Brand and want to spend their hard earned money with you regularly.

But attaining this goal greatly depends on the comfort and ease with which your customers can access your services and the efficiency in which their purchases are fulfilled.

A mobile app is streamlined to a customers basic needs and provides a superior user experience than any website ever could, or other digital mediums. Since it is convenient and seamless, mobile apps are considered to be a highly accessible and preferred option to use.

Mobile Apps help Gain a Competitive Edge

Few companies take full advantage of their digital potential. Their websites, social media let alone their mobile apps.

Some companies don’t even have a website. As of 2023, only 71% of businesses globally have a website. Why is this? Research shows that it’s often due them not seeing the value and consider them an unnecessary cost and effort. It’s a big oversight.

Statistics show that 88% of consumers who search for a type of business on a mobile device call or go to that business within 24 hours. Without a strong digital footprint that serves to build trust and encourage customer engagement; these business are at worst haemorrhaging money and at best losing revenue.

The good news though, is that you can come out on top knowing this information. You don’t need to be another statistic.

Affordable Mobile Apps are finally here – fortune favours the brave so take the leap!

When it comes to mobile apps, competition is still low and as a result, businesses should take full advantage before their competitors take the leap first.

If you aim to be among the first to offer a mobile app in your region as a marketing and sales tool, you can confidently strengthen your market position for the future. Consider yourself ‘future ready’ in a world gone mobile.

In todays highly competitive world, it is essential to embrace as many opportunities as you can to inform prospects about your Brand and increase its recognition. Mobile apps go a long way to achieve this goal and, are more often than not, one of the best investment decisions you could make for your business.

Your next steps.

At VIEWFULE, we see in all the global statistics there is no doubt the future is a mobile one with one statistic in particular standing out – 49% of people open an app more than 11 times per day. That app could be yours, and the exciting take away from this article is that the cost to develop a mobile app for your business has dropped significantly in recent years so it’s now affordable. Thanks to Google Flutter, your business could have it’s very own mobile app in only a month or two. So reach our for your FREE consultation and we’ll talk through your needs to see if a mobile app is suitable for your business to start maximising your Brands potential today.