With over 1.2 billion mobile Internet users worldwide, businesses can’t afford to ignore the rising tide of people accessing their content from a mobile device. We are all adopting mobile apps in our everyday lives, whether it be for shopping, social networking or organisation. Workers are increasingly using smartphones in their private lives and expect to have the same capabilities at work.  Â
A survey conducted by Compuware in 2013 showed that 85% of people asked, favour apps over mobile websites due to speed and convenience. These are both essential aspects in B2B communication, as we know carrying around heavy brochures and paperwork doesn’t suit the modern working man.
What Are the Benefits?
The main benefit of developing a mobile app versus a mobile responsive website is that by developing a mobile app in the specific code, companies can embrace the functionality or the hardware of the phone. For example, most smartphones have built in accelerometers, cameras, GPS and gyroscopes. This allows brands to give the user what they want and deliver bespoke information.
Secondly, while a mobile friendly website will always require an internet connection with an app, this is not always the case. Many apps can store data locally on the phone, and you can continue interacting with them even when no connections are available. When internet access if limited, this gives users to browse apps and engage with brands with ease.
Between its popularity and its functionality, a good case can be made for the benefits of including a mobile app in a company’s marketing mix.
The other argument is that Mobile Sites can deliver the same communication – well this isn’t the case. Mobile Web Sites are important but they do not replace the need for Mobile Apps for the following reasons:
√  Mobile Apps: Function offline
x  Mobile Web Sites: Don’t
√  Mobile Apps: Enable Push Notifications for Direct Contact with Customers
x  Mobile Web Sites: Don’t
√  Mobile Apps: Always visible on your phone’s home screen
x  Mobile Web Sites: Not always visible
√  Mobile Apps: Appear in the Apps Stores
x  Mobile Web Sites: Don’t
Some Statistics
- 71% of enterprises are discussing deploying custom mobile applications and 33% say they are implementing or have already implemented them. Organisations need to keep up with innovation, technology and change in order to compete in their industries.
- 80% of time on mobile is spent inside apps. AF-Studio.pl and Super Monitoring Â
- By 2016, 88% of local advertising will be delivered on a mobile device. 2013 Mobile Marketing Statistics by LocalVox
- It is estimated that 1.2 billion people worldwide were using mobile apps at the end of 2012. This is forecast to grow at a 29.8 percent each year, to reach 4.4 billion users by the end of 2017. Portio Research 2013
- Full-year app revenues forecasted to grow to $20.4 billion in 2013 and $63.5 billion in 2017. Portio Research 2013
- In-app purchases now generate the majority of the revenue in the app stores, rapidly replacing pay-to-download as the main revenue model. In-app purchases made up 76 percent of revenue in the US Apple App Store for iPhone in January 2013, up from 53 percent in January 2012 (paid-for apps fell from 47 to 24 %).  Distimo 2013 Â
- Retailers’ apps with store mode gather five times more engagement. Point Inside 2013
- 25% of international media and marketing executives see mobile as the most disruptive force in their industry. AdMedia Partners 2013Â
Get the App!
If your business sends out flyers to the same customer base multiple times a year, that can cost a small fortune, literally into the thousands of pounds per mail out.
Over time as more and more people download a business app, they can start reaching them instantly with push notifications instead, without any extra cost and with much less effort and time. This idea can be applied to newspaper ads, magazine ads and any other traditional marketing methods, resulting in much lower costs as you can reduce the amount of traditional advertising required as your app base grows.
A business app for mobile is certainly moving in the right direction for your marketing activities, future proofing your communication efforts and certainly can drive a large ROI when used effectively.
