Consequently, businesses
have realized the need to effectively use mobile channels for attracting
customers. They have started new operations (or scaled existing ones) through
mobile websites and mobile apps.
While businesses with large
wallets can afford to employ both mobile websites and apps, other
companies might have to choose one of them. The choice between mobile apps and
websites depends on their cost, usability, required features and the audience
they serve.
That being said, studies
show that
users prefer mobile apps more than mobile websites. This makes for a
strong reason to have mobile apps for reaching out to potential (and existing)
customers.
·
Mobile Apps Offer Better
Personalization
Personalization is about
offering tailored communication to users based on their interests, location, usage
behavior, and more.
With mobile apps, it’s easy
to treat users with a personalized experience.
Mobile apps can let users
set up their preferences at the start, based on which users can be served with
customized content. Apps can also track and observe user engagement, and
use it to offer custom recommendations and updates to the users. Furthermore,
they can also identify location of the users in real-time to
provide geography-specific content.
·
Ease of Sending Notifications
For the last couple of decades,
email has been the most widely-used
business communication tool. Businesses have extensively used email (some almost
abused it) to reach out to their users. As a result, email has lost the
effectiveness it once had; its open rates and click rates have constantly dropped.
Well, there’s no reason to
worry.
Enter mobile app notifications.
The notifications are of
two types: push and in-app notifications.
They both are exciting alternatives for communicating with app users in a less
intrusive manner.
In-app notifications are
the notifications which users can only receive when they have opened an app.
Push notifications, on the other hand, are
those notifications which users can receive regardless of any activity they are
doing on their mobile device. There have been instances where the push medium
of notifications has delivered click-through rates of 40%.
Add-on: There are third party
services that provide push notifications services to mobile websites, too.
However, these services are in a nascent stage and still have some limitations
(some only work on specific browsers, and are not available for all website
types). Still, businesses, unaffected with the limitations, can consider using
these services on their mobile websites.
PushCrew, for example, is one of
the new service providers that let websites send push notifications to desktops
and mobiles.
·
Making Use of Mobile Device
Features
Mobile apps have the
advantage of utilizing features of a mobile device like camera, contact
list, GPS, phone calls, accelerometer, compass, etc.
Source
Such device features, when
used within an app, can make the user experience interactive and fun.
Moreover, these features
can also reduce the efforts users would have to make otherwise. For instance,
users completing a form on a banking app might need to submit their photograph
for completion of the process. The app can let users take help of the camera of
their mobile device to capture and submit a photograph.
The device features can
significantly shorten the time users take to perform a certain task in an app,
and can even boost conversions.
Add-on: Mobile websites can also
use some features of a mobile device like camera, GPS, etc. Still, there are
technological constraints in utilizing all the multimedia features of a device
(which mobile apps can use).
Ability to Work Offline
It is probably the most
fundamental difference between a mobile website and an app.
Although apps too might
require internet connectivity to perform most of their tasks, they can still
offer basic content and functionality to users in offline mode.
Let’s take the example of
banking app again.
The app can provide
features like tax calculation, installment calculation, and determination of
loan limit. These features can work even without the help of an internet
connection.
Add-on: Even though mobile
websites can use caching to load web pages without an internet
connection, they can only offer limited functions.
·
Freedom in Designing
Even with all the
technological advancements in web designing, mobile websites have to rely a lot
on browsers to perform even the most elementary functions.
Mobile websites depend on browser features like ‘back button,’ ‘refresh
button,’ and ‘address bar’ to work.
Mobile Apps don’t have any
of these restrictions.
A mobile app can be
designed with a lot of elaborate functions, based on advanced gestures like
‘tap,’ ‘swipe,’ ‘drag,’ ‘pinch,’ ‘hold,’ and more.
·
New Branding Experience
Since a mobile app is
distinct from a company’s website, it has the liberty of offering a new
branding experience to users. It means that the company can experiment with new
branding styles for the app, which can be different from the regular brand
style of the company’s website (or the company altogether).
Going a step further,
companies can build mobile apps specifically to transition into a new brand
style for themselves.
·
Users Spend More Time on Apps
Mobile users spend 86% of their time on
mobile apps and just 14% of the time on mobile websites.
Moreover, the average time
users spend on mobile apps is also increasing — rising by 21% in
2015 from 2014.
Note: A point to consider here
is that users spend a majority of their time on gaming apps and social media
apps.
However, we also don’t have
data telling us which mobile websites users visit more often (out of the 14% of
their time mentioned above). Hence, it’s not possible to make a comparison.
·
New Stream of Conversions
If you’re looking to
increase conversions, mobile apps can be a great medium to push users down the conversion funnel.
Mobile apps can be used to
acquire both top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) and bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFu) users.
For instance, utility apps
can bring-in ToFu users, which can be later nurtured into BoFu leads. On the
other hand, apps like eCommerce already have BOTF users, who have a higher
possibility of converting.
·
Brand Presence
Users spend a substantial
amount of their time on mobile devices. It’s safe to say that many of the users
encounter the apps they’ve installed on their devices, almost every day. This
regular encounter can be viewed as a branding opportunity
for the apps.
Even when users are not
actively using a mobile app, they are still reminded of the brand associated
with the app. The icon of the app acts like a mini-advertisement for
the brand.
·
Apps Can Work Faster Than
Websites
A well-designed mobile app
can perform actions much quicker than a mobile website.
Apps usually store their
data locally on mobile devices, in contrast to websites that generally use web
servers. For this reason, data retrieval happens swiftly in mobile apps.
Apps can further save
users’ time by storing their preferences, and using them to take proactive
actions on users’ behalf.
There is also a technical
justification as to why mobile apps can work faster.
Mobile websites use
javascript code to perform most of their functions. And the framework that
mobile apps use can run almost five times faster than a javascript code!
.
Mobile App v/s Mobile Site — What Should You
Choose?
Developing both mobile
website and mobile app for your business can prove to be a costly affair. You
might have to choose one of the two channels, based on your budget and business
goals. While both channels have their own pros and cons, mobile apps,
especially, can help you get higher conversions. Mobile apps offer greater
personalization and operational efficiency, along with multiple other exclusive
features.
For more information, Please visit: www.osglsofttech.com
Address : TBI-GEU, 566/6 Bell Road, Clement Town, Dehradun-248002
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