The world has experienced a dramatic shift from the era of floppy disks to one of Bluetooth, as the customers are going digital after every passing day. Among all the digitally interactive attributes, one trend that has swept the world into an easier work interface is the mobile application.
Right from walking into a grocery store or a retail outlet all geared up to know what to pick from where (as there is an app for the same) to shopping online, mobile application development has penetrated the market like never before. The reason behind such a huge scale of market penetration is owing to the easy and smooth lifestyle it offers. Every little requirement can be achieved at the fingertips of the customer today. Today the mobile app development companies are thriving as businesses realize creating an app for their business is a profitable venture.
It was in 2020, business apps took up and there was a huge surge in a global download of business applications in mobile by about 90 percent. However, within the first 90 days of downloading the app, it has been observed a 71% of churn. So, how would you ensure your app wouldn’t be facing the same situation? How would you ensure that your business app isn’t facing the same kind of situation? It would take a thorough understanding of what your customers need, their requirements, the features that all other apps lack at this point. Also, you could target personalized needs, so that you could compete plus claim a spot in a good customer’s smartphone.
To stand apart from your competitors in this expansive plus growing industry of mobile application development, we have built a guide that would help with the mobile application development happening in 2022 and beyond.
Define Mobile App Development
Mobile app development defines itself as a set of processes, planning, and development of prototypes, testing, along with software that would function on mobile devices. The current generation is such that there is always a requirement for these applications to extend much ahead of working on one smartphone to developing a wide array of devices like tabs, smart wearables, and other types of portable devices.
From the business perspective, mobile apps help towards raising brand recognition, influencing customer interaction, retention, and reduce all marketing costs, gathering feedback, also allow personalized retargeting.
So, how will a business stand the hope of flourishing in this market of cutthroat competition? Do they take recluse to a common pattern of one size fits all? How should they decide which mobile application would work best for their target customers?
Mobile Apps and their types
Looking at the task of developing mobile apps from a developer’s perspective, mobile app development is conducted using several frameworks including:
Mobile apps (Native)
Native mobile apps get created for just one platform, which that implies, it remains native to a specific device and Operating System (OS). For example, a business can pick an Android or iOS platform and possess access to every feature that is offered by the OS. In this kind of mobile app, as they remain bound to the features within a single platform, they become highly reliable, faster, and give a seamless app experience.
- Mobile apps in cross-platform
With the help of an intermediate language that isn’t native to any specific platform, mobile application development companies build cross-platform apps across a plethora of platforms like Android and iOS. These kinds of applications would use plugins so that they have access to some native features of different platforms.
- Hybrid mobile apps in HTML
These are kind of cross-platform adaptable, however, use the concept where there is the development of web applications like CSS, HTML, also JS towards implementing the core parts of any application. This could be shared between several versions of an app through devices.
Features differentiating cross-platform vs native vs hybrid
Native
- Seamless integration of the platform components into application.
- Unmatched, highly responsive, and faster user experience
- Requires a highly skilled team of developers
- Harder for developers amidst one tight deadline or budget
Cross-Platform
- Supports the sharing code that is between different versions of mobile app
- Helps in making the best of every platform as the plugins are used in using the features
- Not all the codes could be shared between different app versions of the mobile
- Not all the codes could be shared on different platforms where some of the parts must be rewritten
- Sacrificing abilities that the native apps could possess
Hybrid
- Seamless technology to handle, this works on write once, run anywhere mode
- The testing cycles are shorter, quicker bug fixing with faster platform
- Interaction could only be with using web browser controls that are embedded
- All the parts of the code can’t be shared and some of these need to be written fresh
Certain Statistics, Figures, and Trends in Mobile Applications
Based on statistics reported worldwide, there is a number of apps coming up every day. This is because of the increasing number of smartphone users. Whether you are planning on developing a new app right from the beginning or in need of modifying it, understanding your customers’ exact needs would help you in climbing up a competitive ladder.
Not just the target audience is of importance, the geographical aspect also matters. Analyzing the app trends and using the base of location could help bring about several opportunities. As for the statistics – more than 218 billion apps have been so far downloaded by users in 2020 when compared to 204 billion around 2019. When the mobile application development company aren’t ceasing to slow down, how can the businesses stay away from using them and yet progress? So, how can your business stay in the competition?
The basic thing is, as we keep a track of these metrics, we realize that the strategy for effective mobile app development exists in keeping your customers coming back for more. This is to ensure you would be better and more effective with your features the next time. There could be small glitches, issues with networks, designs, etc. but constantly troubleshooting plus ensuring a seamless experience is necessary. To make sure that your apps aren’t just getting unused and downloaded, there is also an extra responsibility where you need to come up with newer versions of the app to capture newer users and keep your existing users engaged.
Reason behind building a mobile application for your business
Viewing the positive points and the statistics of the performance of the mobile applications, you could be inclined to get into mobile app development. However, you need to make a thorough evaluation before you make the decision to build any application. It is essential that you ask questions like:
- Could this be one new channel of marketing for your business?
- Does your present strategy provide you customers a seamless experience?
- Does your user experience meet the present generation’s expectations?
- Can a mobile application help your business better?
It is very true that most businesses have been actively involved in creating mobile applications only because of their enormous benefits. Building on a mobile application gives a personalized experience, customer experience that is seamless, interaction and support, along with push notifications, exposure to diverse markets, loyalty benefits, brand recognition and awareness, and so on. An application comes well planned and has the power to boost the visibility of your business and create wonders in terms of building their success among customers.
Four reasons for the failure of mobile apps and strategies for major prevention
Most of the businesses and entrepreneurs set out towards developing a mobile application because of the huge usage stats, but the time it isn’t well planned also executed, this application may just be not up to the mark. Hence, it is imperative to assess all the possible challenges from other applications and the one that is being developed, so that customer retention is happening, and churn is minimized.
Lacking at proper targeting
The first thing should be to understand the trends, usage statistics, etc. in the market of your target audience. The second would be to find out what the customers can do better or whatever is lacking in them. This would help in the increase of download plus retention rate of your application plus interaction with your target audience.
- Robust marketing plus strategy
There has to be one effective balance in technical and creative aspects for your mobile application in order for the project to be successful. The end goal has to be to quickly and effectively help the customer get the needed task performed.
The best of practices for mobile application development comes into action during production. However, marketing tactics after deployment matters too. Marketing factors like ASO, SEM, PR, and SEO could help your potential customers know regarding the applications and function as effective techniques for both-sided developments pre-implementation knowledge of the customer expectations and marketing post-deployment.
- Design within the core of User Experience
The design would form the first impression of your application among all users also a bad design could eventually make a customer reject your app. The user experience UX must encourage design, ease, and functionality of using the app. It is essential you get the app tested for its usability at each stage within the process of mobile app development to ensure the seamless function of the elements. Good design would lead to a hike in customer use and retention.
- Lack in monetization strategy
In the process of development, there would be costs brought in right from those in the outsourcing team to the production and the post-deployment. So that the business could make up for these also generate profit for their future, it is essential that they have a monetization model. There are plenty of ways by which an application or software could be monetized including paid ads, in-app buying, promotions, download buying, etc. Whichever type of monetization strategy is adopted, it is to be ensured profitable for the future as well.
To Sum Up
In the year 2022, mobile application development companies are expected to spearhead their inventions. There would be a surge in the advent of IoT, 5G, smart devices, and wearables. While this is a seemingly encouraging opportunity for most businesses, a successful mobile application doesn’t transition from the stage of idea to deployment. A good guide on the trends, making the number work, strategy, statistics, app design, and budget stringency on the requirements are certain topics that need constant brainstorming before an idea transforms into a prototype and ultimately an application.
Though this topic is vast, the article has looked into the features that curate the need for the mobile application development company and how attending to the mentioned details can help you understand budget crunches, tight deadlines, and troubleshooting in case of installing the app for your business. Please wait for our future articles to get further information on the subject and help yourself get better at the digitization of your business.
