According to a survey conducted by Compuware, 85% of consumers favour apps over mobile websites. This is down to convenience, speed and ease of use. However, as with every important business decision, it’s essential to take into consideration the pros and cons in conjunction with your specific business requirements.
Benefits of developing a mobile app
When looking at the main benefits of developing a mobile app over a mobile friendly website one of the most important points to consider is that by developing a mobile app in native code, you can embrace the native functionality of the hardware of the phone. For example, most smartphones have built in accelerometers, cameras, GPS and gyroscopes.
Secondly, while a mobile friendly website will always require an internet connection, with an app this is not always the case. Many apps can store data locally on the phone and you can continue interacting with them even when no connections are available.
A good example app to reflect this is the Daily Mail app. When the user opens this app, it immediately looks to connect to the internet to download all of the updated stories and related images for use offline, notifying the user when the process is complete. The user will then effectively have today's newspaper downloaded onto their phone with no real urgent need to connect to the internet. This content will then remain on the app until it is next 'synced' to the internet.
Weighing up your options
It’s becoming much easier to develop mobile apps due to the fact that major operating systems offer developers free frameworks and development tools to get started with app development. However, there are also certain cases when building a mobile website might be a better solution.
Determining if you should opt for a mobile app or website will depend upon a number of factors and these are; target audiences, available budget, intended purpose and required features.
Things to consider
When developing an app, you need to consider each platform on which you want to make it available, which can drive up development and maintenance costs. Whereas with a mobile website, there is only one version of your website you need to maintain. Some companies may also find that their websites are gaining a lot of traffic from mobile devices, giving a mobile website solution a priority over an app.
Another important element to consider as part of your mobile strategy, once you have decided on an app, mobile website, or potentially both, is that you will need a firm plan in place of how you intend to effectively drive traffic to your mobile website or app. This is particularly important if you intend to utilise the mobile channel to open up new revenue streams or to enhance your brand loyalty initiatives.
Mobile apps and mobile websites have their similarities and differences; companies looking to take advantage of the mobile boom need to consider how each solution will help them reach their business goals. Preparing before you take your business mobile will help ensure the route you take will be the right one.
By James Marscheider, Marketing Manager at Oxygen8.
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