The mobile app is no longer reserved for multi-national companies. The last decade has seen a meteoric rise in the number of mobile apps that consumers are using. More and more small and mid-sized businesses are following the trend, realising that having an effective mobile strategy in place involves more than having a mobile-friendly website. In today’s economy, having a mobile app is a necessity for any business that’s looking to compete and grow in a competitive business environment. 

As a mobile app development agency, we’ve seen a huge surge in demand from businesses of all sizes looking to enhance their mobile strategy with a dedicated app. From independent cafes and restaurants to healthcare providers, every business is waking up to the benefits of having their own app to enhance their company’s digital strategy. 

Here are the main benefits that we’ve noticed as a mobile app development agency:

Provide more value to your customer base 

Business is all about the engagement you have with your customers when they seek out the products you sell or services you provide. Your customers want to be engaged in ways that they can’t be with other companies, and they want you to deliver value that they can’t get from any other brand. 

So, how can a mobile app help with this? By incorporating a mobile app into your business’ digital strategy, you can begin to offer rewards to the select customers that have subscribed to your app. Think of a mobile app as the new and improved loyalty card; you reward customers who download and use the app with discounts or giveaways, and this means they’ll be more engaged and more likely to turn into a repeat customer.

Engage with your audience on a deeper level

As a mobile app development agency, we know that one of the key advantages of creating an app is the ability to tailor and personalise communications to individual customers. Rather than sending out generic mass communications, businesses can leverage user profile information to deliver a more personalised experience, which is what customers expect. 

App user profile information can be used to segment and personalise the experience you deliver to individual customers – whether that’s recommending products based on previous purchases, or using push notifications at optimal times. By combining user location with individual user profiles, businesses can provide more relevant content that resonates with each user and strengthens their connection with the brand.

Discover your competitive edge 

The decision not to develop a mobile app could be devastating for your business. As the reach of mobile continues to grow and consumer behavioural habits evolve, the default expectation will be for every business to have a mobile app. Creating a mobile app is your best chance of staying competitive and helping distinguish your brand from your competitors. 

By focusing on the user journey that you’re able to offer to customers, you can generate greater awareness about your brand and create genuine recognition among your audience. An app that’s beautifully designed and incorporates useful features your customers want to see won’t only increase the frequency in which customers engage with your brand, but it will also make them more likely to spend money with your brand. 

Strengthen customer loyalty 

Although there should always be an emphasis on reaching new customers, how well you retain existing customers will always be a strong indicator of how successful you are. Mobile apps create a direct line of communication between your brand and your customers; they ensure that your brand remains at fingertip distance at all times, helping you cut through the noise of advertising from other sources. 

Mobile apps can be used to strengthen loyalty too, as they offer a more intimate touchpoint. Rather than paying for full page ads in a newspaper or radio slots, an app allows you to send personalised ads, promotions and notifications directly to the phones of your customers. 

Capture better customer insights 

A mobile app offers businesses the chance to gain a unique insight into their customers and what makes them tick. It’s an efficient and effective way to collect and analyse customer data, and it’s something we do a lot of at 6B for our clients as a mobile app development agency. 

By capturing invaluable information on customer preferences and behaviour, this information can be leveraged to identify future trends and shape business strategies going forward. Using a mobile app enables your business to use data-driven marketing strategies that actively cater to the factors that motivate and influence your customers to purchase, and enable you to communicate with them in their preferred way.

The invention of the smartphone has fundamentally changed the way that businesses interact with customers. As a mobile app development agency, we’ve long recognised the benefits that apps can bring when trying to boost engagement among target audiences. They offer a more intimate, direct and personalised form of communication that the modern consumer prefers and expects. 

But when choosing to develop a mobile app, businesses will be faced with the choice of a native app versus a progressive web app (PWA). So – what exactly is the difference? Which one is better for businesses? And which one is better for consumers?

Before we take a deep dive into how they differ on a granular level, let’s establish the fundamental difference between the two. Native apps run exclusively on mobile devices, whereas PWAs are written to run inside a web browser. Native apps are developed with the specific programming languages of each platform (Objective-C and Swift for iOS and Java for Android), whereas PWAs use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. 

Cost 

Native apps will require a dedicated team to know the language and build a specific application for each platform (which we have the capability to do as a mobile app development agency), so progressive web apps work out cheaper in the long run. Not only is the initial outlay more expensive, but there’s also a higher cost associated with maintenance and updates for native apps. Because you can use a single codebase for multiple platforms, a PWA is faster to build and update. Instead of developing an app from scratch, you can configure your existing website and it will display in an identical manner on all devices.

Time to market 

Native apps naturally take longer to build, taking anywhere between four and six months. As PWAs don’t require separate teams to build a version for iOS and Android, or contend with the lengthy approval process from different app stores, they do have a considerably quicker turnaround. In essence, a progressive web app is an extension of an existing website, which means you aren’t starting from scratch and it can be bolted on to what has already been built. 

Cross-platform availability 

One of the main reasons to develop a mobile app in the first place is to expand your reach as a business – it’s the most popular reason among our clients that choose to work with us as a mobile app development agency. Progressive web apps provide universal appeal to all users, as they’re built to work just as well on an Android or iOS device. Native apps have the advantage of being built specifically for a single operating system, but they do require double the development time to create an app that’s compatible with each operating system. 

Installation 

One of the key differentiators between a progressive web app and a native app is how end users access them. Native apps are installed through an app store, such as Google Play or Apple’s iOS App Store, and once installed, the app’s icon will appear on the user’s home screen for convenient access. In contract, PWAs are accessed through a URL in a mobile web browser, but the downside to this is that users will be less familiar with this process than downloading and accessing an app on their home screen. 

Performance 

As a mobile app development agency, we know performance is everything when it comes to how well received your app is. If it doesn’t perform well, users have a plethora of alternatives to explore, and they will without hesitation. Native apps generally perform a lot faster because the code is written specifically for iOS or Android. Another advantage that native apps have over their rivals is the ability for users to access information offline, as well as the ability to sync with other device applications, such as camera, calendar, contacts, GPS and mobile banking.

Security 

On the face of it, PWAs offer a more secure platform because they have to run under HTTPS, with security protocols that reassure users that their bank details or login information won’t be compromised. But when you look a bit deeper, native apps have the advantage in this field because of the option to build in extra security measures such as multi-factor authentication. Users are also more likely to trust an app that has met stringent app store requirements as opposed to URLs.

While many businesses will be keen to take advantage of the growing popularity of apps, the vast majority won’t possess the technical expertise in-house to make it a success. As a highly experienced mobile app development agency, 6B have developed apps on Android and iOS platforms for businesses spanning industries from healthcare to membership. Our team of developers work closely with our designers to create mobile apps that not only look great, but incorporate a whole host of features and deliver real value to users. 

Here’s a quick insight into what our mobile app development process looks like at 6B.

Strategy 

Before we can begin to build your mobile app it’s important to have a defined strategy in place. Without a strong strategic focus, the project will have no direction. We sit down with your organisation to discuss who your app users will be, who your competition are, what you want to achieve with your app, and finally on what platform you would like it to be built. The average app can take anywhere from four to six months to build and it requires considerable investment, so it’s vital to find the answers to these questions before the design or development stages. 

Analysis and planning 

Once a loose vision for your mobile app has been distilled, we can start our analysis and planning work. We’ll start to detail what features and requirements you would like to include in your app which will help us form a roadmap, including key milestones and features that need to be delivered in order for the project to be finished on time. This then allows us as a mobile app development agency to assign the appropriate developers depending on the operating system to take control of the project.

UI/UX design 

For your app to perform well and stand out from the competition it has to look good. The user experience is a key determining factor in how successfully your app is received by users. Our talented team of designers will work with you to create a user journey that’s interactive, intuitive and user-friendly, creating conceptual layouts in the form of wireframes and establishing a style guide early on for the app’s build to follow for maximum consistency. 

Development 

Now the development stage is ready to commence, but a focus on planning will still be key. Before backend and frontend development along with work on APIs can start, we’ll need to define the technical architecture, settle on a technology stack, and establish the development milestones. The project manager will assign front-end and back-end developers with specific tasks, and we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop of developments with ongoing updates to ensure we stick to the agreed budget and timescale for the project.

Testing 

As a mobile app development agency, testing is one of the cornerstones of everything we design, develop and build. The final app we create will only be as good as the rigorous testing process we put it through. We want to ensure that when your app is ready for market, it is launched without any issue so it is well received by all users. User experience, functionality, security, performance and device tests are all carried out to ensure that your app is working as it should be and it’s ready for release. 

Launch and support 

Once your app has been launched, our work as a mobile app development agency is far from finished. We’ll work with your organisation to make sure the metadata that’s required to launch on an app store is up to standard, as well as monitoring usage and creating a series of reports to show how well your app is performing. Once your app is out in the wild, we’ll be on hand to provide suggestions and implement any changes you’d like to make in the following updates.