How Apps Can Benefit Your Small Business
As a small business owner, you’re going to have to accept that we are living in a technological age. Whether you are techy yourself or not, you’re going to have to engage with the exact same resources that your potential customers are engaging with in order to establish your brand and attract positive attention and interest.
Otherwise, you’ll find that your competitors will start swiping customers from beneath your nose. Now, there are various areas that we could focus on here, but for now, let’s take a look at apps. “App” is short for “application”, so technically an app can be any type of computer programme. But generally speaking, when people use the term “app” they’re referring to a piece of software that can be easily downloaded onto a smartphone or tablet device. Chances are that you have used plenty of apps before.
When you use a smartphone or tablet, the home screen will have numerous icons lined up in rows. These allow you to access the app, meaning that you don’t have to manually type in an address into a web search bar. Now, numerous companies have started using apps in different ways to boost their sales. If you’re interested in learning how you can use both apps that you can develop yourself or existing apps designed by other parties to your business’ advantage, read on!
Developing an App
Many companies nowadays are developing apps of their own. There are various reasons for this. Let’s start with sales apps. With the rise of E-commerce, the majority of companies, both large and small, have set up websites that allow them to sell their products and wares online. Some have proven so successful that they have actually driven brick and mortar competitors out of business – just take a look at Amazon! Online shopping appeals to consumers, as they can use your website to purchase goods from the comfort of their own home and have them delivered straight to their door.
The prices also tend to be lower, as retailers can reduce costs thanks to the reduced expenses that come hand in hand with operating online (they no longer have to fork out for commercial property and other overheads). Chances are that you already have an online store of your own. But if you want to take things a step further, you can develop an app that potential customers can use to browse what you have to offer and make purchases through too!
You can make use of a list of top software companies such as Svitla Systems to find the right professional to craft the perfect app to suit all of your needs! Apps are much more easily accessible than websites, as users merely have to press an icon on their phone or tablet to access your products and process transactions. Another positive way to use apps is to develop a loyalty or rewards app. Loyalty cards and rewards cards are a great way to keep your customers coming back time and time again. But many people will complain that they lose their cards and thus lose all of the rewards that they have gained. By having an app instead, their data can be saved and downloaded at any given time. So, as you can see, an app can make shopping a simpler process for your customers and can also help to build brand loyalty.
However, perhaps the best benefit of having an app on people’s phones and tablets is that you are visible to them at all times. Every time they unlock their phone or tablet, you will be there on the screen, regardless of whether they are actively using your app, or are actually using their device to do something else. This will keep you in the back of their mind more often, and they are consequently more likely to click and browse your stock than they would be to type in your web address and use your website.
Using Existing Apps
As well as developing your own app, you can also use existing apps as effective business tools too! There are plenty of apps out there that you can use to your small business’ advantage, even if they weren’t specifically designed for your own business’ use! Take Instagram as a brilliant example. Now, Instagram was designed as a personal app where people could share their pictures with followers. For a while it purely served as a kind of visual journal and this is still one way in which many people use it.
However, it also holds so much business potential if you take the time to understand how it works and use it to your advantage in the right way. Around 500 million active users are active on the app every single day, which makes it an outlet that a huge number of consumers spend their time looking at. This automatically makes it the perfect arena to showcase your goods and services to a huge number of potential customers. So, start out by setting up a business page for your brand on the Instagram app.
This creates a space in which you can display your products and wares. By posting photos of a similar aesthetic in your feed, you can easily establish your brand image and start to draw attention from other Instagram users who identify with said aesthetic and want to associate themselves with it. Take the time to take attractive, well styled photographs for your feed. While smartphone cameras may be increasingly impressive and certain DSLRs can come with a relatively small pricetag, you should bear in mind that you’re going to get the best images possible if you bring in a professional product photographer. They will be able to get the best shot possible, using lighting and setup to really make an image stand out from the crowd.
As you can see, there are various different ways that you can use apps to your small business’ advantage in today’s market. So, start getting familiar with them as soon as possible!
