The advent of the smartphone has given businesses another avenue for people to find them on the internet. With that, there are two different ways to find your way onto someone’s smartphone screen, either through a responsive website or a mobile app, and each has their advantages and disadvantages.
Planning.
Before choosing your mobile avenue, it’s good to plan for what your goals are. Are you looking to:
- Gain social media hits?
- Give your audience information?
- Sell your products?
- Market your services?
Having a plan in place will help guide your choices through the process.
Going Mobile App.
Creating a mobile app for your business has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Mobile apps can be more expensive to build and requires software testing to make sure the app works on various versions of each platform. Then, you should serve Android and Apple products, which potentially two separate apps will need to be built (Windows phones are growing in popularity, so that can be a third). Also, searching for your app can only be through itunes/Play Store/Windows Marketplace, so it limits your opportunity to be found.
It can be a lot of effort to create an app, but there are advantages. If someone is downloading your app, they are really interested in your product and are more open to your marketing message. That kind of user activation is awesome! If you have a retail portion of your business, an app can be a great way to present and sell your products and can be another source of revenue.
Going Responsive Website.
Creating a responsive, or “mobile friendly” version of your website has several advantages. You can increase your web traffic and SEO by giving users another avenue to visit your website, and it’s searchable through any search engine. If your business is more service oriented, this route will be more useful than an app.
Responsive websites allow users to navigate your site much easier through an optimized interface, making it faster and more readable. A responsive website is created by using a responsive stylesheet that changes the look and layout of your site depending on device. Many content management systems that run websites can do this; WordPress is especially good at this.
What to do?
Each of these can be a handy part of your marketing plan, and the nice thing is that you don’t have to have just one option. We’re at a point in technology where every website should have a responsive layout if you want your business to be web relevant. It can make it much easier for site visitors to navigate through your site and find the content you want them to see. Adding an app to your mobile marketing can add another key layer. So, do you need an app for that?