I Must Have An App For That!!!

You’d be forgiven for thinking that in this day and age of iPhone, iPads, Blackberrys and Galaxys, if you’re business doesn’t have a Smartphone app it’s somehow behind the curve.  And you’d probably be correct as Smartphone apps become a necessary tool in your marketing armoury as web sites became several years ago.

Before plunging in and getting an app for your business though, it’s worth considering the pros and cons, pitfalls and challenges for producing “an app for that”.    It’s also worthwhile speaking to experts  who can help ensure your foray into the world of iOS and Android is a successful one.  

First of all you need to think about what your app will do and what value it will add to your customers.  With over 100,000 apps available for download on the Apple iTunes App Store alone, you need to be sure your app will stand out from the crowd and that your customers and prospective customers will actually bother to download it.  Secondly, you should consider the actual benefits of an app and whether a properly stylised and designed mobile web site would better serve yours and your customers’ needs.  

Getting your customers to download your app is only the first challenge.  Once it’s on their device it is taking up valuable space that could be filled by games, music or video files, so it is equally important to ensure your app is dynamic enough that users want to keep using it.

So let’s assume you decide that an app is indeed the right way forward for you to communicate with your most mobile of customers, you then need to get the app designed and developed.  This is where you need to bring in an expert to assist (if you need someone, let me know).  You need professional designers who can work with you to understand your requirement and translate these into graphical user interface (GUI/UX) designs that make the most of unique Smartphone features such as the touch-screens.  Good designers will also ensure that the user context is considered at all times – where are your users likely to use the app and what would they be doing.  The content and workflows of your app need to be very different to a web-site that is being viewed from a static, sitting position on a 22” LCD screen.  If you want to spec the app yourself the best, most practical yet simple advice I can give is to ask the 5 W's.  Who, where, when, why, what.  Leave the last of Kipling's five wise men, Mr How, for a later stage as it'll cloud or limit your creative thought process otherwise.

A good designer (such as Innovativo, WiSys or Mobivize) will follow a fairly rigid development process, such as the one below.  The upside pyramid purposely reflects that the more effort you put in up front in the specification and design phases, the easier the latter stages of build and promote will be.

Once your app is built, the next challenge is getting it accepted by the app stores and promoting it to your customer base.  What happens when, as they frequently do, Apple releases a new version of its iOS operating system and your app needs to be updated to remain compatible.  Also, you will ignore user feedback (which the app stores make it so easy for users to submit) at your peril, so you will need some kind of process for taking this on board, digesting it and fixing bugs and adding new features in a controlled release programme.  Again, there are people out there (ahem, I know someone quite good) who can manage all of this on your behalf, taking away the complexity and leaving you to focus on what yo do best, serving your customers.

If an app isn’t the thing for you, then there are several other ways to mobilize your business in  including mobile web sites and SMS marketing.

So, if you think there should be an app for something you do, or want to do, your first port of call should be a professional apps development company with a focus on the design side but not until you're sure that an app is the best way forward. 

www.innovativo.co.uk
www.mobivize.com
www.wisys.co.uk