Want to know about the benefits of mobile apps for your small or medium-sized business, what you should be paying and how to know that you are dealing with a reputable mobile apps developer/provider.

The Benefits of Mobile Apps

There are some reasons every company should consider having an app built, including:

Convenience

Having a mobile app that integrates directly with your website makes it easier for you and your customers to communicate. This is particularly important if you haven’t fully optimised your website for smartphone users.  By not offering a mobile responsive website, you make it difficult for customers to interact with you. This is not what you want.

Awareness

Those who download your app have your logo permanently on their device, delivering priceless brand awareness for you. Downloads aside, having an app in the Android and Apple marketplace will broaden your company’s online footprint – more than you imagine

Revenue

Research company Canalys reports apps will bring in $36.7 billion worldwide by 2015, indicating this was a conservative estimate. The possibility of securing a slice of those earnings is difficult to ignore. Unlimited free push alerts to customers can deliver additional revenue streams. When supported by well thought out strategic and promotional plans, should assure your app investment return.

Customer service

Apps make it easy for companies to keep their customer service lines open 24/7. For example, sending a free push alert through an app is far more customer-friendly than asking them to leave a phone message or send an email.

Branding

Your brand in the App Store and Google Play is a statement of innovation about your business.

What You Should be Paying

Small business owners naturally are influenced by price – and pricing disparity is immense in the mobile app industry.
Why should you pay a developer $10k, $20k, $30k or more for an app ? when there are companies such as ours offering to create an app for you for as little as $2k? Many business owners will presume “you get what you pay for”. They expect to pay upwards of $20k for an app that might only work on iPhones and iPads. “If the offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” right? Not necessarily with apps! What about an app that you could pay $2k for that works on iPhones, iphone5, iPad, Android smartphones and tablets, and other mobiles using an HTML5 mobile web app.
There are two main reasons a company might charge you tens of thousands to develop an app, and neither of them relates to quality. The first (cynical) reason is that the company knows it can take advantage of that most small business owners know very little about this space. While potential customers are not aware of the high competition between developers, some companies get away with being uncompetitive in their pricing structures.
The second (less controversial) reason is that the company’s expenses are too high, so they have to charge more to make a sustainable profit on every app they produce. Their costs could be increased for several reasons, including:

• They are not developing the app in-house and need to add margins to their various technical consultants’ fees.
• They don’t specialise in apps for your industry. They haven’t developed a range of industry-specific features, so creating an app for your business is a considerable time, research and resource commitment for them.
• They have invested significant cash in establishing credibility and building brand awareness through mainstream marketing channels.
• They have over-spent on resources and infrastructure to obtain the capabilities to develop high-quality mobile apps.
• They don’t have the appropriate platform.

Therefore, don’t assume that the company quoting you $30,000 will always produce a better quality app than the company charging $1,000. The former company may be overcharging you because they can get away with it or may have more significant expenses to cover. As always, it pays to do your homework.
Source: smartcompany.com.au