The App Developers

It’s a fact of modern life that old-fashioned phones are out. iPhone, Blackberry and Co. have spread around the world at lightning speed. Studies by market research have shown that one in five people in the UK now own a smartphone. The strategic market potential of these developments has been recognised by many companies. This has brought the mobile marketing into the limelight.

Apps that act as handy everyday utilities are on the rise for smartphones. Among the most popular programs include games, social networks and information services.

However, the willingness to pay for small daily living aids adheres to the way the economy is at the moment. It is hardly surprising that 80 percent of all app downloads are free.

Innovation in Corporate Communication

According to analysts, smartphone apps will soon be a normal part of the marketing agenda; for many, it already plays an integral role. With their help, companies can provide their audience and customers with interesting content or useful tools. To interact with the clients, there are even customised social networks that can be built. It means however, that there are a few ground rules for effective mobile marketing with apps to think about, before jumping in head-first.

Provide value and remain authentic

A good app lives on the added value that it provides. If it is useless, it is not needed. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the target group and their needs is the top priority. The app should be consistently integrated into the communication strategy and fit with the company: A fitness app for example, would find the marketing strategy of a sports fashion label to be complementary.

Dictionary publishers could offer translation tools on the go. Customers for a rental car could potentially be able to use a navigation program through their mobile phone – all accessed via a company’s own app. The creativity of advertising companies should know no bounds.

Create apps without programming skills

Especially for smaller companies that shy away from the costly development of a smartphone app, there are many innovative tools to creating apps that could be an interesting option. With a modular system, this can include text, individually combined video or audio content to an app that can then be used on all major smartphones.

Seek help from professionals

If DIY app building is too daunting or time restricting, and let’s face it, for many owners it is – then the answer lay with experienced app developers. There are numerous fantastic designers out there who will plan and see the app through to its conclusion, taking into account all the utilities and functions you’d like to see. Many are put off by assuming it is too expensive, but this is a hugely competitive field nowadays and there are many excellent offers out there, so research is key.

The mobile app future has begun, and great increases in turnover can be realised with a company having its own Business App.

With your own business app, you can increase 24-hour traffic and attract more customers. Just having a website is long gone, now mobility is required! The informed customer of today wants to be notified during their travels. This exchange of information is suited to any smartphone, iPhone, iPad or other tablet.

Now it's easy for customers and their friends to use an app function (Android, iPhone, iPad, smartphone) and can mean your company is opened out to all kinds of previously untapped professionals- farmers, entrepreneurs, dentists, doctors, surgeries, laboratories, accountants, restaurants, and other business or visionaries.

A mobile app as a business app is like having a business card for your company that customers can call immediately and contains all the essential information of your company website. The best part is the viral aspect: You can receive information by app function via SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter or on your website e.g. with a QR-code, which can then be passed on.

With a business app you get customers around the clock. You can have your app built for iPhone and Android smartphones too.

Enjoy now the numerous advantages of the app function:

Your customers will like it, and be able at any time to access your service

Adds real value to your business

Simple operation with clear menu

Find fast and affordable new customers

24-hour releases by you and your customers

The mobile app becomes a business card with all important information included

Use word of mouth to create vouchers and other great deals to get new customers

There are now numerous examples of how companies are using these apps for business communication with their end users, such as in mobile banking. But also appearing are first B2B or Enterprise Apps - realised with the help of web services and cloud platforms - that facilitate the interaction of back-end IT and smartphones that catapult the benefits of mobile devices to new heights.

Example: A medium-sized fashion wholesalers use such an app in their sales. With their sales staff, they can learn in real time how many copies of a particular garment are still in stock. So they can check on the quantity and delivery dates and find an alternative option by talking to customers very quickly. The sold quantity can also be routed through business apps to the central backend system and processed there, so that at any time each sales representative can look up the current inventory. This is just one example of countless millions of how an app can be incredibly beneficial to businesses.

Other sales apps already use the cameras from smartphones to photograph barcodes of products that need to be reordered. These apps can be used not only for smartphones but also tablets etc.

You can also realise many supremely efficient and time saving products with enterprise tools that supports your business directly. With these and similar mobile apps, the investment in high-performance mobile devices could be justified much easier than before. 

The benefits of having an App for business 

There are already mobile applications to make life easier in almost all sectors. In fact, they have inspired a new class of entrepreneurs with real impact on employment and high expectations for the future. Here we show 8 advantages of having a mobile application for your company or start-up:

  1.  Your company will be available 24 hours a day.

Thanks to smartphones, anyone can be connected to your company 24 hours a day. Through apps, your business can increase efficiency, reduce costs and grow sales.

  2. Relevant to consumers, clients, professionals or investors.

Mobile apps are no longer just a standard tool for consumers; you can create applications tailored to each specific group of people who are part of your business.

  3.  A single person can handle all aspects of the application.

What is the main advantage of apps in respect to other forms of employment? By limiting the size of the user base, it is easier for one person to handle issues such as marketing, development and customer support, often assisted by freelancers.

Note that this is a market that is growing. In fact, the app developer is among the most popular of digital profiles in the coming years. A freelance specialised in this field can make the design of your apps and perform testing and corrections required for proper operation. Then you can be the one to handle all aspects related to the management and monitoring of the application.

 4. Know the key features that determine the price of the app.

For those who want to carry out development projects in your enterprise apps, there are a range of tools that summarise the key characteristics that determine the price of an app.

How much do mobile apps cost?

The price of developing a mobile app can be expensive for some start-ups with limited resources. Over time, however, it will become one of the most profitable items, especially for its durability over time and ease of management.

 5.  Finding niches.

Regardless of the sector in which your business operates, the only requirement to launch your app is to find a niche market with a problem that can be solved. Then you just have to find someone with the ability to solve this problem in the best way possible through a mobile app, and a strategy to convert the chosen market in the application. Success is then assured!

 6. Discover new users and catch your audience.

It is clear that the world is moving, and this market will become essential for success in any business or start-up. It is also true that there are so many applications that it is difficult for the user to find what they need. A good freelance developer will know what it takes to position a mobile application within the various app stores with maximum visibility.

 7.  The best channel of communication with your client.

A trend that is emerging is the use of apps as a marketing tool. Anywhere and at any time, your customers can access all the information of the brand through only having a mobile device. The most common case is that a particular customer recommends the application to colleagues or friends, so you can attract new customers more easily.

 8. Offers and promotions can be used as an element of loyalty.

This is very important in any business model, and can generate greater loyalty with users. If your company is an online store, a mobile application tailored to your audience will secure an increase in your sales.

These days, you see a company launch a mobile application for its consumers more regularly than ever before. This is no surprise, as the upward rise of mobile apps has been increasing steeply for some time now.

Experts have begun to quantify this trend and the results show that apps offered by mobile companies reached more than 30 billion at the beginning of this year. That is a staggering statistic in itself.

Meanwhile, estimates indicate that spending on mobile applications for both consumer and businesses will reach almost 13 billion across the globe this year - almost five times more than in 2009. Now that’s what you call growth!

With businesses looking to mobile apps constantly to revitalise their brand, it’s valid to ask whether the return on their investment is worth the development cost. In other words, what is motivating many companies to broaden their marketing strategies with apps for their customers and why mobile apps are the future for companies? There are three key reasons why the latter is true.

1. The exponential increase in the functions of the mobile phone and the use of smart phones worldwide in particular. It is predicted that some 1.2 billion smartphones will be purchased in this year alone.

With huge growth in both 3G and 4G technologies and the emergence of Smartphone with Wi-Fi enabled, consumers are now ‘plugged in’ from their desks and can rapidly investigate; buy products and services from their own mobile phones anywhere, any time.

2. Consumer use. According to a study by Google, three quarters of smartphone users made ​​purchases through using their smartphone. The report also illustrated that some purchases were not made directly from the phone, but through prior searching. In fact, almost 70% of consumers researched via their smartphone and then went to the shop to make a purchase.

23% investigated the product on their smartphone, and then went into the shop to verify the product themselves, before making the purchase online on their computer.

Finally, 16% of users researched the product specifically on their smartphone, then visited the shop and subsequently made ​​the purchase on their phone. What all this shows is that people’s buying habits have changed dramatically with the advent of smartphones and they have become a vital gateway into a lot of people’s way of shopping. This is a massive incentive for companies to continue releasing apps because this trend is only going to grow.

3. Use of mobile shopping applications for Smartphones.

Another large scale survey for ‘mobile dependence day’ concluded that 31% of smartphone owners completed a purchase as a result of mobile marketing and they did so through a mobile app.

There are two major groups in mobile apps downloaded by users: The first is shopping (retail and other small businesses) and the other is for restaurants. This means that consumers are beginning to see mobile apps as the primary interface to connect with businesses. Be it a small business or a large corporation, there are organizations moving beyond social media and this technology is bound for mobile devices. Additional connectivity not only creates new consumers but also brings increased profits. This makes the world of apps and their future bright indeed.

As someone looking for new ways to optimise your business, you can find many apps on the market now to achieve this and more.

On the Internet you can find a wide range of such programs and applications. They range from the very simple, which only perform simple monthly budgets, to the more complex, where you can organise large amounts of data.

Meet the programs you can find and use on the Internet for free:

AceMoney Lite

This app supports all necessary financial needs for home or small business accounting. It helps you create and manage your budget. The program has more than 100 predefined categories of potential costs. Organise budget limits for every category and track the difference between actual and budget values.

Make your financial figures in multiple currencies. Also, you can find your cash withdrawals and deposits by any parameter you want.

PIM Xtreme

This is a free software created by Opensource used to manage personal information. It includes a number of functions in which the agenda and finances are combined. You can create contact lists, tasks, events, as well as accounts, financial transactions and credit reports. It also features audible and visual alerts.

Simplenote

This is a free app that you can upgrade to a Premium version annually if you prefer more options. It is an alternative to the Notes application that comes standard on the phone. With Simplenote, you can sync your notes to be accessible from any browser.

If you pay for the premium version, you can make a backup of your notes if you have deleted something that ultimately turned out to be important.

Pastebot

This is a clipboard manager that allows you to copy any document in text, pictures, links or any other information from your phone and then save it.

You can also use it to organise certain passages of a text search in multiple folders. Then, you can apply filters and convert text-sensitive plain text into HTML tags, add a footnotes page, search and replace and much more!

 Evernote

A free app that helps you capture notes and images with your phone camera and then tag documents and notes on your laptop and store everything in the cloud. This then means it is accessible anywhere.

Furthermore, it is flexible and becomes the perfect productivity tool for employers who want to control everything.

TextExpander

This is a paid app that allows you to easily access a default text, common notes and any other text you use frequently, without having to type it over and over again in a "small" screen like the iPhone, for example.

TextExpander works with different programs, including Tweetie 2 and Twitterlator Pro, which are both clients of Twitter.

Web-Stat

If you want to really get the most out of your businesses web site, you need to track your stats. Without statistics, everything you do on your site is like a shot in the dark. Reliable statistics can tell you where your visitors live, how long they spend on your site, the keywords used in Google to find you, how many of them are regular visitors and more. This is valuable data that can shoot you in the right direction to get more leads and conversion.

So, you can see how apps can really give you and your business a healthy boost in many different ways…and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

There’s no getting away from it: Apps are simply huge right now and show no signs of waning at all. Indeed, they are growing fast and are becoming more and more popular - not only with the youth or general public, but also businesses. Every single type of business, from start-ups to long-established companies either benefit or should be able to, from the power of apps. 

Regardless of the business model or characteristics of the business, they all will have several shared needs. Consider the management of appointments, keeping organized with tasks, sending emails, keeping track of schedules and data…the list goes on. To this end, a complete set of productivity applications or ‘apps’ is, if not indispensable, at least extremely useful.

The beauty of apps is that 1: there are so many 2: they are so easy to use and 3: they are a breeze to download and install. There are tons of apps available for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the App Store and on Google Play. Some of them are part of the supply of large technology companies such as Google Drive, or OneDrive Excel Online. Others have emerged in recent times from independent developers to become a truly relevant product – such as the case of Evernote or Dropbox.

The areas that these kinds of app can be applied to are numerous, but usually focus on the general organisation and communication of a day to day business. Besides those mentioned, there are applications that can be stored and shared as files in the ‘cloud’. Also, the possibilities don’t end there. Apps for business can help in making presentations or even scanning documents to search for several apps at once.

An important need of apps, when considering how they can be used in conjunction with businesses, is how to accommodate them in the physical presence of a workspace. In future, more applications will emerge to meet the present needs in that area. At present, the apps that are making the biggest impact to the work desk are those that allow ultra-fast organisational facilities and also limitless storage potential, meaning less post-its and smaller computers.

As a result, there are now several Dropbox competitors in the world of cloud storage: Box, OneDrive, hubiC etc. You’ll discover something similar happening with notes and memos, with the likes of Evernote, Simplenote now having alternatives like Google or Keep.

So, how do you decide on one or another? It is best to take into account the certain distinctive features that can make the app more appropriate for the specific needs of your business. Here are just a few of the very best business apps out there for you to check out for your business:

For better productivity, look at Audio Memos, CloudOn, Evernote, LectureNotes, Roambi Analytics.

For social networking success, look at Addappt, Bizzabo, Campfire, CardMunch, Hootsuite, LinkedIn, Yammer

For calendar and memo type apps, look no further than: Asana, Checkmark, Clear, Fantastical, Google Now, Remember the Milk

Lastly, for apps to make you king of communication, search up these: Blue Jeans Network, FoxFi, Google Hangouts, LogMeIn, Silent Phone, Skype, WebEx , Wi-Fi Finder.

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