Depending on your industry, your brand and its offerings, an app can be a great way to increase your web presence, capture a growing demographic and compliment an integrated marketing campaign.
Application Design and the Decision Process
So what’s the best way to determine if your business can benefit from application design? Start by asking yourself these questions:
- What Will the App Do? – Examine the functionality of your app. What will be its purpose? How will it add value to my customers’ experience? Consider the apps you
have loaded onto your smartphone. Chances are they fall into one of four categories, food and restaurants, retail, social networks, or games. - How Is Your Data Organized? – Aside from games, the most useful and downloaded apps organize important data in an easy and accessible way.
- Do You Have a Website That Provides Similar Functionality? – Website development now offers “Responsive Web Design,” meaning the layout adjusts according to what device is used to access the site. Desktop users can access the same site as a mobile user, but the interface will be different and optimized for each device. If your company already has a website that’s mobile-friendly or responsive, an application design might be redundant.
- Are You Considering an App to Replace Your Website? – Deciding to create, maintain and update an app requires a significant monetary commitment. It’s also important to remember that a mobile-friendly website can be used across multiple platforms, but a mobile app can only be used on the mobile platform it was written for.
- What’s Your Long-Term Mobile Strategy? – For some companies, an app is a short-term marketing tactic, not a long-term strategy; for these companies, an app is simply a small piece of a larger integrated marketing campaign. Other companies, like Uber and Netflix, live and die by their apps, as the apps serve as a primary connection between their services and their customers.
Our recent Application Design projects have included camera functionality as well as options for mobile push yet these are not sole reasons for application development. A discussion of marketing strategy and functionality is important. Our current application designs begin at $2499.