After all these years the mobile space is still taking off, with more and more daily activities shifting to our phones every year. It is a smart idea to try to take advantage of this in every way possible if you are a business owner or if you run an organization. Hopefully a little of our research will help you decide what is best for you.
As I’ve written about before, there is a big technical difference between a mobile app and a website. Apps are faster, have more features, and generally look better because if they are native they use the phone’s native programming language rather than HTML5. Technical superiority, however, probably isn’t the best reason to decide which is better for your organization or business. You want to have whatever your mobile audience prefers.
This may be lame, but research tells us that your audience prefers both. Although the debate has been framed over the years as a competition, it really isn’t an either/or question. There are big things that both offer. Luckily you don’t have to spend very much money (if any) to get what you need, so the “one or the other” mentality really doesn’t make much sense.
Why You Need A Responsive Website
The main difference between using an app and a mobile website is that you have to download the app onto your phone before you begin using it. Once someone has downloaded the app to their phone they can check it faster, which increases engagement, but before then you need to have a mobile website for them to go to. It can have limited functionality, and even say something like “download the app to do XYZ”.
Ideally your website should be available through a search via any of the major search engines. If you search for your business’ name it should turn up, plain and simple. If this isn’t the case, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix it assuming you aren’t sharing your name with anyone else.
The number one reason to build an app is to increaes engagement with your audience. With an app you can push notifications directly to users, rather than having to go through an email list or a social network. Our research shows that users who download an app are much more likely to check the app frequently than someone else WITHOUT the app is likely to check your website. You can keep this engagement up by offering incentives to use the app, such as special deals or information that isn’t available elsewhere.
Most research also indicates that people prefer using mobile apps over websites. According to a 2013 report by Compuware, 85% of customers prefer apps.
The most common reason for this is that apps are more convenient (55%), faster (48%) and easier to browse (40%).
The bottom line is that although a responsive website is important, an app is perhaps equally important if you want to keep your audience engaged. People prefer mobile apps, so you are pursuing a mobile strategy it makes sense to have one.
The good news is that without much time or money you can easily have both a responsive site and a mobile app. There are many excellent free website builders available, WordPress still being at the top of the list. For between $5 and $50 you can buy a responsive WordPress theme that doesn’t require you to know any coding to build a site.
If you want to build a native Android app you should check out Rheti, which is the new free app builder we are launching this spring. Rheti is free, it builds 100% native apps, and it is easy for anyone to use. It has a lot more functionality than any other app builders and we aren’t going to charge hosting fees with it.
Right now there isn’t an equal solution for iOs, mostly because of the way iOs is set up. iOs is a much more closed-off platform than Android which makes it harder to build an app builder. There are cross-platform app builders available but they don’t make native apps so you lose most of the advantages you should get out of an app.
If you are interested in Rheti, check us out at www.rheti.com for more info!
Email me when Alex Homer publishes or recommends stories