The Enduring Benefits of Mobile Apps for Brands

A few years ago, mobile traffic overtook traditional web browsers for the first time. Today, it has become even more essential for organizations to take a mobile-first approach. In fact, the need to successfully reach your customers on their ubiquitous smart devices has never been higher. As part of this drive towards mobile, many brands have realized how important a native mobile app—and not just a traditional website—has become.

Here are three reasons mobile apps are more important than ever for brands.

1. Native Mobile Apps are Faster and More Secure Than Traditional Websites

Since social media has become a mainstay and customer attention span is decreasing, grabbing customer attention is more important than ever. Native apps are said to be 1.5 times faster than a traditional website. This is because native apps are developed specifically for your device’s platform, enabling them to work on the phone’s built-in features and making them as fast as your device will allow. Web-based applications, by comparison, are much slower as they require the transfer of data to and from your device. Mobile web is also less secure as it relies on a variety of open, underlying technologies and remote servers designed to communicate with everyone.

2. Native Mobile Apps Provide More Content Customization

As much as customers want their information quickly, they also want it to be accurate, personal, and, more importantly, they don’t want to feel like they are being sold to. Your customers will enjoy receiving your information in the language they speak and understand. Seamlessly tailoring your content in your mobile app allows you to speak to your customers effortlessly in a way they appreciate without risking that they feel put off.

In fact, the more you can personalize content to your customer, the more that they will be engaged. With an app, you can personalize the information based on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, their interests, their recent behaviors, and even their current location. If you’re able to observe their engagement accurately, you are well on your way to wowing your customers and not just strengthening their bond with your brand but also increasing your revenue in the process.

“When it comes to engagement, apps create a more pleasurable experience for the user, who, as a result, looks at more products and therefore adds more products to their shopping bag, which drives up conversion rate and revenue,” says Michael Langguth, Poq’s COO & Co-Founder.

“We call these users ‘super customers,’ and it is this direct relationship that cannot be matched by other channels.”

Not only does Poq realize that your top customers and most engaged customers are the ones using your app, but the company further found, in its recent App Growth & Revenue report, that apps see average session durations that are 1.8x greater than mobile web, and 3.3x the revenue per user!

3. Native Mobile Apps Provide the Ability to Send Instant Updates

The ability to send instant and non-intrusive notifications to your app users is a major reason why you should have an app. With email open rates on the decline, the opportunity to engage a customer through push is increasingly important.

Powerful marketing automation solutions can be integrated into natives apps, giving markets the tools to send both in-app and push notifications, tailored directly to your customer. In-app notifications are received when a user opens an application on their devices. Push notifications are received on devices regardless of whether a user opens an app or not.

By tailoring this content effectively, and leading directly to relevant app content, you have the ability to engage with your strongest customers and drive conversion.

The upshot

Thanks to a variety of factors including speed, user experience,  personalized messaging, reliable security, and fully customizable content, native apps increase your customers’ connection with your brand, driving more engagement and conversion than a mobile web product ever would.

John Coombs is co-founder and CEO of Rover, a mobile marketing platform that helps retailers and and app publishers deliver engaging, context-driven mobile content and campaigns. John has extensive knowledge in retail technology, loyalty programs, and mobile experiences. Find him on Twitter at @johnecoombs.