Think back twelve years ago to 1999. Back then, having a website wasn’t optional, it was a must. Now the same thing is happening with mobile technology. 2011-2012 are the years of mobile and any company worth its salt is going to be releasing products and services via mobile platforms because consumers are demanding it.
We all know there is a cost to building mobile apps, but this blog post is your guide to building a superior mobile strategy designed to decrease cost and increase brand awareness.
A few factors to consider when developing your mobile strategy:
-Think about what you want your customers to do with your brand once it goes mobile.
-Consider the kind of services will you provide for mobile device users.
-Should you develop a website optimized for mobile devices, just an app, or both?
If you only choose to develop an app, which platform should you use? Android? iPhone? Blackberry? iPad? BestFit can help you determine which platform your customers are using most.
Will your app have specific features?
Our team specializes in creating dynamic applications with robust features and speed.
These are all necessary questions to ask when taking your brand mobile. And you’re not strictly limited to working with mobile apps and sites. Think about how your brand could use a QR codeor texting, otherwise known as SMS. No matter what your mobile strategy is, you must know where your consumers are and what they would like to access via their mobile phone.
Apps vs. Websites
A mobile website gives consumers an in-depth experience of your brand. A mobile app offers simple and convenient features to save time.
One challenge about creating a mobile website as opposed to a mobile app is that, after making sure your content is ready and your platform is set, your customers still have to search for your brand via their mobile browse, so there’s still that step of them having to find you.
With an app, however, your brand has the ability to create loyalty just by being easily accessible on the consumer’s screen. An app allows your brand to live on your customer’s home screen. Each device (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, iPad Android tablet, etc.), requires an app to be developed to specific requirements in order to work properly on the device, so there are separate costs to build on each platform and those costs can vary depending upon the level of complexity.
Conversely, a mobile website can be developed by a single team who will tweak the CSS, HTML5 and Javascript to work across all the different platforms. It would be cheaper and faster to build and maintain a mobile website.
Depending on marketing goals, an app may be secondary and not begin development until clear mobile marketing messages and strategies are developed. We at BestFit Mobile can help develop those for you because, you know, it’s what we do.