Do Mobile Apps Fetch Long-Term Benefits For Your Business?

During the last few years, the mobile market has emerged as a great platform for marketing a product.

Companies have an option of choosing between mobile sites and mobile apps for reaching their audience. Nevertheless, selecting the best strategy for a product is a herculean task and is primarily based on the product’s features and customer profile.

Let us have an insight on how a mobile app fares in comparison to a mobile site and whether an app can generate considerable benefits in the long run:    

1. Apps require updates every few months, thus involving a substantial investment. On the other hand, updating a mobile site may prove cheaper as redesigning the site entirely depends on how one wants it to appear to the end-user.
2. Thanks to technology but an app can use up the entire screen of the mobile thus providing a great viewing experience to the consumer, whereas the mobile site is a mere slimmed down version of the actual website and hence is not adept at offering outstanding visuals. Moreover, since the site places itself within the browser, it poses problems for the users to surf. It also renders lesser control to the company in terms of how the site performs on different handsets.
3. An app enables the company to leverage the capabilities of the phone and make use of native interactions such as GPS and camera.  On a mobile site, it is difficult to interact with customers on such a broad level.
4. Since the mobile site is the replica of the original website, the organization doesn’t need to spend time and money on recreating content and format. Nevertheless, the robust features of app can enhance the loyalty of the brand by serving the customer in an intuitive fashion.
5. We are aware that mobile optimized sites work only on an internet connection, whereas for an app, customers need to download it first before they can actually experience the interface. This makes the designing of the app a challenging task, as it has to create the right impression the very first time the user views it on the apps store. For example, if the app has truck-loads of advertisements featured on it, users may feel disenchanted to continue with the application.
6.  Apps are dependent on phone platforms; meanwhile, mobile sites can reach a larger audience since they do not limit themselves to any specific platform.

Apart from the above-mentioned advantages & disadvantages of mobile apps & mobile sites, there are many other factors that determine the apt strategy for mobile marketing. However, the final decision depends upon preference, services rendered, and funds at disposal.