App Development Tips for Small Businesses

From communicating with their target audience to promoting and selling their products and services, companies are using mobile applications to improve their marketing and sales strategies while offering an enhanced customer experience. A well-designed mobile
app can give a small business an edge in competing against larger companies in its industry.

Building a successful mobile app comes with unique challenges, and the fast pace of technological advancements can quickly change customer expectations. However, making changes to your company’s
a mobile app without a plan or customer input can lead to headaches for developers and users alike.

Please feel free to leave questions in the comments section.

Top tips for renovating your business’
mobile app:

Keep It Simple And Relevant
A mobile app is meant to make the user’s journey simpler and mobile-centric with much less friction. As you invest in mobile marketing and customer acquisition, users will download your app but will only use it if it is simple and relevant. Remember that the average smartphone user engages with no more than 30 apps per month!

Drive Customer Value
Evaluate your existing app to see where customers are getting the most value, then look to expand those capabilities and drive even
more value. Loyalty is hard to drive through just an app, but an app can build a valuable touchpoint that gives your customer something
that helps you stand out from the crowd. Stay customer-focused, and you’ll see success.

Audit Your User Experience
If a business wants to improve mobile app adoption and performance, it should bring in a UX expert. Have them complete an audit of your app. This allows them to pinpoint areas for improvement. Examples include simplifying user flows, changing color schemes and adjusting font and button sizes. These all play a role in making your product more engaging and relevant to your customers.

Improve App Store Discovery Chances
To reach the highest number of people, improve the chances of discovery within the app store. Small businesses need to study who
the customers are and understand their needs. It’s beneficial to know the top language they use, the unique selling proposition and
demographic info. Choose the correct app name and a tagline that quickly and accurately describe who you are and what you do at a
first glance.

Develop A Future-Forward Mindset
Develop a future-forward mindset to improve mobile app adoption and performance. Use open standards like HTML to power individual
solutions, as they can be adapted more quickly to accommodate future needs. Using progressive Web apps that appear like native mobile apps also helps enable server-side rendering to ensure compatibility with future platforms.

Create A Branded User Interface
Customers may not like your app because it doesn’t match the experience they have with the rest of your brand. Use the same
language, tone, colors and logo as the rest of your brand. Keep it updated on the same schedule as the rest of your branding to show
customers you care about them there too.

Leverage Push Notifications
Consider whether you need a dedicated mobile app or simply a responsive Web application that adapts for mobile use. Often, the
biggest difference is that the dedicated apps can take advantage of features of the mobile operating system for better user experience.
Push notifications, in particular, are often very useful to improve the adoption rate and performance of mobile apps.

Check Online Reviews From App Users
Balance your ideas for improved performance with direct feedback from end users. Specifically, I suggest regularly reading online reviews from app users. When an app’s feature fails to perform, users are usually quite vocal about the problem. This end-user feedback will help you prioritize features that matter to users.

Implement Efficient Messaging Tools
Make sure to implement efficient messaging tools: saved and automated replies, 24/7 communication, integrations with WhatsApp,
and more. In the current climate of COVID-19, every business should be utilizing frequent communication to keep users updated with any news or policies they need to know about. If needed, rely on software providers that can send updates to your users automatically.