The app economy is now worth an estimated $900 billion worldwide, and the number of apps currently available on both iOS and Android has more than doubled since 2012. In fact, there are so many apps in the App Store alone, that only 1% of them get a 5-star rating.
In Australia and New Zealand in particular, most of our 25.6M, 4.84M population are connected to the internet (22.82M, 4.55M respectively) and own a mobile device (96.6%, 97.4% respectively). The app economy is fuelled by small, medium, and huge enterprises who want to create a branded application for their users to interact with.
While the app economy is still relatively young, there are of course some interesting facts worth noting. If you’ve already dipped your toes or you are considering going cash-heavy and diving headfirst, here are 4 app-oriented facts that might just give you even more compelling reasons to go ahead and get your own native app done up.
1. Notifications Keep Your Audience Tuned in
Convert, reward and most importantly retain customers with your own mobile app. Brands have always been giving customers loyalty points to keep them coming back but with a custom-developed mobile app, we take it a step further. Push notifications use the concept of urgency to get their audience to quickly act getting customers to opt-in to receiving time-sensitive mobile pings with deals and promotional information and trigger a notification sound if they’ve been away from the brand too long.
2. Scrolling Increases the Amount of Information You Deliver to Your Customer
In-store, your customer’s attention and field of view are limited to whatever catches their eye. If you get an app done up, however, customers can read more with smooth swipes to scroll through long pages of content. They have a bigger selection. They can sort, filter pick, and choose with simple taps. Native apps make it immensely easy for your customer to interact with your content and learn more about your brand. Further, if you pick a great app development team, they could also set up your app to be capable of caching content offline. Caching (or storing content offline) allows your audience can go through it at a later time, even without internet access – a nifty little trick to keep them hooked!
3. Uplevel Your SEO Game with an App
Did you know that a mobile app can actually help improve your individual marketing efforts on other platforms? For example, if you have a robust mobile app that is able to provide detailed information about your product or service at one’s fingertips, then your paid ads on Google or retargeted Facebook ads rank your app higher compared to your competition who doesn’t have a mobile app.
4. Customers Love Mobile-Optimised
Customers like mobile-friendly sites because it makes it easy for them to find information and look around without having to zoom in and out or scroll back and forth. It’s convenient for them, and your site visitors will appreciate the convenience of being able to navigate your page with ease. Native mobile apps take it one step higher with handy functionality like push notifications, map-based navigation, perpetual logged-in status, plus the text, fonts and pictures are tailor-made for the very device they are on.
The easier it is to access content, the more app downloads you will have and the more likely you will be able to capture the growing $1.91B AU mobile app consumer market. You experience greater financial growth and you can invest more back into a better and greater app. It is a tried-and-tested cycle to keep your customers happy and engaged to retain and grow revenue.