How Custom Mobile App Development Can Increase Revenue And Brand Awareness

“There’s an app for that” is something most of us have heard when relaying a tedious yet everyday problem to another person. If you own a business, perhaps your interest was piqued.

Take it from us—the market for mobile app development is booming. Every day more businesses are getting turned onto the idea of mobile apps to bring their consumers better features, more services, and a highly tailored experience.

Take Uber, for example, the business built almost entirely on an app. Through its app, Uber can pinpoint riders’ and drivers’ exact locations via geolocation, provide driver details instantly, and keep frequent addresses and ride history stored for ease of use and security.

Here’s the cherry on top: Uber takes a payment automatically from your saved card details on completion of the ride. In a world quickly going cashless, Uber cornered the taxi market. No more trips to the ATM or digging around for loose change in your bag. The City of London denied Uber a licence to operate because of purported safety breaches, or was it because the black cab market was facing a real threat to its revenue sources?

In this article, we’ll take a look at custom mobile app development for start-ups and how to leverage your app to maximise business growth.

Where’s the space for an app?

It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement—or anxiety—that everyone else is doing it and jump on the app bandwagon. But it's important to determine what your business, specifically, can gain from having an app before launching in.

When looking for opportunities to create apps, app developers often ask the question, 'which tasks are tiresome/difficult/boring?' In doing this, they can identify real-world problems and opportunities.

As a business owner, you may want to approach the idea of an app in the same way. 'Where are the bottlenecks in our processes?' 'Where are customers dropping off/abandoning carts/bouncing from the website?' These are the clues you need to identify where an app can elevate your customer experience. Your customers will be quick to notice if you have an app simply because everyone else has one. If you take the time to uncover a genuine need, that’s when your customers will be delighted.

Start-up businesses are in an even better position to carry out this kind of fine-tuning while their operations are still in the early days of bedding-in.

If you’re unsure where to start, a professional mobile app developer can help. It’s our job to help businesses explore the ways an app can deliver on their unique objectives and requirements.

"Developing an app is an investment, being convinced that the investment is going to give you a return is essential. Examining the problem and its effects is critical to ensure the app or custom software you are creating is a solution to a genuine problem. This could be efficiencies in processes, time, labour, or monetary benefits but the app should address a real pain point in the business or create a new otherwise untapped opportunity. At Myth we always start with the problem and design a solution to address it, we don’t want to build solutions that don’t address the problem, understanding the business goals and objectives is essential to us." Jen McCullough, Business Development Manager at Myth Digital

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Some may say that you need to look at your audience demographic to determine whether you need an app. We disagree. While it’s true that the younger generations use apps more than the older ones, Boomers and Gen X consumers spend 30% more time on apps each year. Looking at the larger picture, as younger, more app-savvy generations begin to take up a higher percentage of the overall population, app users will only continue to rise.

How can an app impact revenue?

A 2020 study found the following to be the most common reasons people prefer apps.

The data speaks for itself as to how an app can increase revenue streams. Here’s a breakdown of how this feedback translates to profit.

“It’s more convenient”: it’s well known in commerce that convenience turns into sales. In fact, 97% of consumers abandon carts because the process isn’t convenient enough. We all know what it’s like. Late-night scrolling in bed leads you to discover something you never knew you needed. But if you have to get out of bed to find your credit card and input the details, it’s enough to make you close the tab, roll over, and go to sleep.

An app is different. If it’s in your Amazon shopping basket, all you need to do is swipe to pay. No convoluted steps are involved at all. You can impulse buy something in two or three clicks.

“It’s faster”: the programming languages used to build mobile apps make them faster than websites in the majority of cases. Additionally, apps store data locally on your device, meaning retrieving the data necessary to function takes less time than, say, connecting to a server to retrieve it. Being able to respond to customer requests, provide information promptly, and execute transactions swiftly all contribute to a higher sales rate.

“My settings are stored”: similarly to an app’s convenience, stored settings mean those using your app only need to put in their details and customise their in-app experience to better support their needs once. This removes one of the barriers to buying your products or services and makes it easier for your customers to get what they’re after.

“Benefits/rewards for using it”: all of the points we’ve covered so far demonstrate how mobile apps create loyalty bonds between consumers and brands. Offering a better, more bespoke experience through a feature-rich app creates a feeling of trust and reliability that leads consumers to choose you over more tedious alternatives. One way to build on that bond is with in-app rewards, the 4th most valued reason for using an app.

Look at Pampers as an example. Customers can find a unique serial number on each packet of Pampers they buy and scan it with the Pampers app to earn points. Once they’ve collected enough points, they can exchange them for products.

The app makes every step in the reward cycle as easy as possible: the app accesses your camera to scan the serial number (much easier than typing it in), and your points are shown on a visually pleasing wheel which clearly shows how far you are from your next reward. When you want to exchange your points, there’s a shop on the app to do this. No need to send the customer to another website where they could get distracted on the way.

Building apps with loyalty schemes and rewarding trackers like this is old hat for us. Take a look at what we did for Newell Stores, or our immersive interactive environmental app for Coca-Cola Ireland’s Deep RiverRock.

“There is more personalised content”: just like personalised ads, the opportunities to target app users with personalised content are wide-ranging. Not only can your app collect data on its users to feed into algorithms that learn what to present to its user, but if your users are storing their settings, there’s already a wealth of information readily available.

Read our case study on SeeMe Hired to find out how we facilitated in-app tailoring via a powerful algorithm to help job hunters and employers find the perfect match.

“I can find better deals”: the ability to offer more personalised content also allows you to identify the best deals for certain app users and make them easier for your users to find.

“I can do more of the things I want”: answer your customers’ true needs with a feature-rich app. Chat support, social media integration, search and filter functions, feedback, there are so many functions that give users better control over what they want to do. Consumers know they can expect heightened functionality from apps which is what motivates them to install and explore them. Not only this, but you can remove the pain points of more outdated processes with a highly intuitive app.

“It’s more entertaining”: we’ve talked before about apps being the next natural step in information consumption. It’s true. While websites require certain layouts, pathways, and structures, apps have fewer restrictions. Developers have the opportunity to branch out and offer novel, satisfying, and delightful app design experiences that deliver information.

If you’re curious about the future of mobile apps, take a look at our articles What Is the Future of Mobile App Development? and Mobile App Development Trends to Look Out for in 2023.

Brand Awareness and Mobile App Development

Brand awareness is the second most important objective for many of our clients, particularly for start-ups and businesses that want to gain a larger market share after revenue. How can an app help your brand extend its reach and nurture its desired perceived brand identity?

For a start, you’ve got prime branding real estate in front of your target audience all day, every day: their phone home screen. Your app icon with your branding is a constant reminder of the products, services, and information available to your customer when they open their phone up. App icon badges and push notifications offer a simple, direct line between your brand and your customer at all times.

Your app also supports brand awareness efforts by providing a new, user-friendly channel of communication. Ensure your brand can be found everywhere your competitors can, including the app store. Unless our clients want otherwise, we always aim for hybrid mobile app development for increased web app accessibility, or cross-platform app development to ensure your app can be accessed by both Android and iOS users.

Scalability is essential when considering the importance of brand awareness in mobile app development. As your brand garners more attention (thanks to your app, of course), you must be able to provide the same high-level service to your growing audience. You can never make a first impression again, so your app must be prepared for scalability—the capacity to handle more traffic and offer more features.

Selecting the right tech stack has a huge impact on the scalability of a mobile app. Choosing the best mobile app development framework, language, and other mobile app development tools and software enables developers to create the ideal environment for your mobile app to grow. The entire architecture of your mobile app is built on a tech stack; if those elements aren’t conducive to growth, it could incur more costs and time down the line.

Knowing about a brand’s desire for scalability during our initial discovery session allows us to intelligently comprise the most suitable tech stack for optimal performance in the long term. In our case study about AV wholesaler Indigo, we explain a bit about how we built the app for scalability.

Mobile app development is an exciting step for start-ups, SMEs, and any businesses looking to expand and develop. Choosing the right mobile app development company, working out a budget, and outsourcing your mobile app development can all seem like daunting tasks.

Why not give us a call? We’re experts in mobile app development for start-ups. We take care of the complicated bits so you can focus on what you do best.