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Research Paper Confirms Native Mobile Apps Still Ahead of HTML5
Feb 12th
A recent research paper from Moovweb and Forrester has noted that, by and large, HTML5 apps are still lagging behind native apps with developers. Two main complaints are still at the forefront of the debate:
• Delays in development. More bugs. According to a survey referenced in the paper, most of the time, apps developed using HTML5 are delayed in delivery. As developers report, testing and fixing bugs is soaking up the largest piece of the time lost. This means that more time and effort go into HTML5 development, and that developers encounter more headaches along the way.
• Delays in running. HTML5 apps are just slower. Devs note that updates are delayed and stock browsers on devices can also lead to issues. With performance problems, developers have a lower ceiling on how well their app will do with users. These limits on what they can do are frustrating, to say the least.
As a result of these problems, developers are viewing HTML5 as appropriate only for limited circumstances, as opposed to being the skeleton key to the mobile world some might have originally dreamed it might be. The idea of developing once for all devices is enticing, but in practice, there’s still a lot of room for improvement. Even with advanced responsive design tools and practices, native is still in the lead. Here’s why:
• Native is much faster. As we noted above, HTML5 apps run more slowly. In an on-demand world, this is a big problem. Telling people to be patient simply isn’t going to work. Users are accustomed to instantaneous gratification, and native apps give it to them.
• Native has way more functionality. Native apps can make use of a device’s special features, like the accelerometer, GPS, camera, and more. Because of this, the native app experience is often much more robust and inventive, further lowering the ceiling of HTML5 apps.
• Native has less bugs. With ready-made tools, many of the leading native platforms make it very easy for developers to build what they need and have it work smoothly with minimal tweaking and debugging. We’ve already mentioned some of the problems of the development experience with HTML5 – compared to that, the native experience can be a walk in the park.
For now, HTML5 still leaves a lot to be desired from a user and developer standpoint. Whether that will change as time goes on remains to be seen. But today, native is pretty solidly on top.
How to Increase Your Sales with Mobile Apps
Jan 31st
For most small businesses, every expense, no matter how small, must have a direct, tangible benefit. There’s little room for speculative costs and ambiguous returns.
When it comes to mobile apps, this is good news! As mobile usage continues to increase, even small businesses have a lot to gain.
Apps directly increase sales in a number of ways. Each of the features listed below can lead directly to a sale, helping mobile apps for small businesses prove their worth with nearly every click.
Allow Mobile Orders
This is the most obvious way to ring up a sale with a mobile app – by offering a way for users to browse your products and submit orders directly through the app. You might think that users are hesitant to shop this way, but this past holiday, mobile sales accounted for nearly a fifth (!) of all online sales. For fans of your business, a mobile app is simply a natural way to make purchases.
Push Notifications
When you want to generate revenue, sending a message to users through a push notification is a great way to drive sales. You can simply promote a product or service, or you can tell users about a special offer, deal, discount, or event. The key is that your app adds a new promotional channel to your marketing arsenal.
Loyalty Rewards
Rewards are a time-tested way to increase repeat business from fans. By offering a mobile loyalty program, you can reward frequent shoppers without having to print up cards or worry about tracking – everything is done easily through users’ mobile devices. You can increase sales with minimal extra effort!
Social Referrals
Your app can include a simple feature that lets users post a link to your business to their social media profiles. This allows you to leverage users’ social networks to find new fans. Digital word of mouth is a persuasive force, and an app lets you maximize its use.
Mobile Reservations
If your business is a restaurant, spa, personal training studio, or other session-based business, mobile reservations allow you to open up your calendar to users. They can pop open the app at their convenience, browse open slots, and book their own reservations as they like. It makes it easier to make reservations and opens up another channel for increasing sales.
Event RSVPs
If you’re holding an event, you can allow users to register to attend through your mobile app. In many cases, this can make it a lot easier to manage event attendance! Managing RSVPs by email requires reading and data entry, but using automatic forms on your mobile app is super-simple.
GPS Coupons
Users can be invited to checkin when at your location to unlock coupons. This rewards visitors, makes it fun to use your app, and, of course, can increase sales.
Newsletter Signups
Yet another way to boost revenue is by soliciting newsletter signups through your app. By getting users fully integrated with your business, you can meet them wherever they are with information and special offers.
The result, as with the other features we’ve discussed, is that you can earn additional sales!
Need a Mobile Solution?
At Bizness Apps, our platform allows you to build and manage several apps at a time, whether you are building them for yourself, your clients, or interesting in starting your own mobile app company as a reseller- with all of the above features included. Watch the video below to learn more about how to make mobile work for you!
Interested in learning more about offering your own revenue-generating app? Click here.
Why Every Real Estate Agent Needs a Mobile App
Jan 30th
There is no denying that mobile is big. But what does that mean for real estate agents? When you’re a real estate agent, you need three things: leads, leads, and more leads.
When you’re selling a home, you need as many buyers as possible to know about it. When you’re assisting a buyer, you need to use all the tools at your disposal to help them find a property that suits their needs. And all along the way, you need a steady flow of new prospects and clients to keep your business strong.
A mobile app will help you with all three of these things!
A Mobile App Makes it Easier to Sell
An app allows you to display current listings so users can browse pictures, descriptions, and learn more about your available inventory – right from their phone. While many users will focus on browsing the larger public databases, some buyers will download your app to keep up with the latest additions to the local market, hoping to get a jump on the competition.
Once they’ve downloaded your app they can send you messages about listings, which makes it easier for you and for them! They may also be unrepresented, which could lead to a new client. Lastly, you can send messages to users through push notifications to highlight listings, inform people of open houses, and otherwise promote your business.
In short, you are making it easier for clients to find you and buy! Mobile usage continues to grow, and a mobile app is a robust avenue for connecting with sales leads, promoting listings, and potentially earning new clients.
Your Mobile App Helps Buyers Find What They are Looking for
Just as unknown buyers can use your app to browse listings, current clients can use it to view inventory, flag listings, and ask questions. It opens up a communication channel that can help you deliver better client service. You also can send push notifications if you come across a new listing that a client should see.
You can even include a mortgage calculator, or other useful resources, to add value for your users.
Earn New Clients
As discussed above, by offering an app, you create a number of opportunities to connect with prospects. Apps also help you stand out from your competition. In a highly competitive industry, every advantage you can get is worth having. As users continue to increase the amount of time they spend on mobile devices, the value of publishing an app also increases. Simply put, they offer you a chance to connect with people on one of their favorite platforms.
As any agent knows, giving clients what they want is one of the best ways to keep reviews and referrals high. With a dedicated mobile app, you can better serve and better connect with your market – and that’s good for business.
To learn more about how simple and cost effective app creation can be, click here.
ZDNet: “The Mobile Web is Dead, Long Live the App”
Jan 22nd
A recent post by Matt Baxter-Reynolds over at ZDNet raised some interesting points, with the central idea being that mobile apps are triumphing/have triumphed over the mobile web.
“The Mobile Web is Dead, Long Live the App”
Many people, ourselves included, have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of developing for the mobile web versus mobile apps. Our viewpoint generally tends to favor investing in both, given that they serve different purposes, but we understand where Mr. Baxter-Reynolds is coming from.
In his post, he talks about two forces operating on the mobilesphere.
The first is that customers have come to expect excellent experiences, which they typically get with apps, but don’t necessarily get when browsing the web via mobile device. Native apps are faster, more full-featured, and generally offer a smoother experience than the mobile web. This is natural, given that native apps are developed with a specific platform in mind, while the mobile web is a one-size fits all experience. And plenty of pages aren’t mobile-optimized, leading to unreadable text, clunky interfaces, slow loading, and an all-around irritating time for many users.
The second force is the ease with which a native app can be developed. In an earlier time, developing downloadable software was more difficult, and was riddled with problems for many developers. However, as Mr. Baxter-Reynolds points out, developer tools like those offered by Apple for those creating apps for the App Store, were a gamechanger. Instead of being difficult and plagued with issues, native software now works with greater regularity than the mobile web does. Thus, his conclusion that the mobile web is “dead.”
We believe both the mobile web and mobile apps are important to any business.
While some developers will be better served by focusing in on mobile apps, from a perspective of small businesses trying to reach the maximum number of prospects, the mobile web is critical. Mobile search traffic is high and any business with a decent, mobile-optimized website can capture a portion of it, boosting walk-ins, orders, and revenue on a regular basis. Ignoring the mobile web at this point would be a very costly mistake, so readers are cautioned to understand the context that Mr. Baxter-Reynolds is speaking from.
Of course, with Bizness Apps, no one has to make these hard decisions! Our packages include easy-to-create mobile websites AND apps for both iOS and Android platforms.
No matter where the mobile world is headed, we’ve got you covered.
Which is Better – Mobile Apps or Mobile Websites? [Infographic]
Jan 15th
By 2015, it is estimated that close to a billion consumers will be using mobile devices only (no laptop, no desktop). And many, many others will be using their mobile devices more often than their other devices. For small businesses, this means that maintaining a mobile presence is highly important, if not essential.
The main choice many business owners face is, “Should I have a mobile website or an app?” Luckily, the answer is clear: both!
Recently, we surveyed 500 small businesses that have mobile websites and apps, and 81% said both are equally important!
Here are the highlights:
Mobile website versus mobile app:
• Value. 61% said an app provided a better return on investment.
• Customer preference. 81% said customers preferred the app to the mobile website.
• New customer generation. 75% said app was better for customer generation.
• Repeat business. 86% said app was better for creating repeat customers.
• Usage. 61% said app was used more often.
The app pretty clearly has the edge in the opinion of most small business owners. But that doesn’t mean that apps are right for everyone. The infographic found below contains the rest of our findings, and a wealth of information for small businesses considering “going mobile.”
Click here to download the high resolution white label version.
(Right click link above and save link as.)
Here at Bizness Apps, we are all about taking you mobile with full featured mobile app solutions and HTML5 mobile sites. See more about what we do, along with our mobile app reseller program below to help your business grow.
Think Your Small Business Doesn’t Need an App? Think Again.
Dec 23rd
Yeah, we would say that. But only because it’s true!
An app is quickly becoming a must-have item for businesses of all sizes. Obviously, leading companies are finding that their customers have at least one function they would love to have in an app, if not more. Insurance companies are allowing mobile bill payments, pizza chains are offering mobile ordering, and hot brands have put their shops into condensed mobile forms.
But what about small businesses?
What about the neighborhood restaurants with one location? The real estate agencies that aren’t known nationwide? The salons, law firms, and quirky local boutiques? Do they need apps?
Absolutely.
Why?
Costs have come way down.
Once upon a time, creating an app was a major expense and took a long time to get right. Everything had to be built from scratch. Now, however, custom app builders are available to all at super-low cost. In just a few minutes (with a service like, oh . . . Bizness Apps, say), anyone can create a unique app for their business with their own images and text, and can also select from a variety of functions to make it perfect for whatever your customers want to do.
The neighborhood restaurant can offer a mobile loyalty program and reward regulars. The real estate agency can send notifications of new listings to its user base. The salon can let customers upload photos, the law firm can allow for mobile intake appointment scheduling, and the quirky local boutique can share videos of impromptu outrageous outfit fashion shows in-store.
Small businesses can now create a mobile app for less than the price of a newspaper ad!
Pretty much every business can afford that, especially when increased revenue from the mobile strategies are taken into account. Mobile apps are no longer the province of the large enterprise.
Okay, it won’t break the bank. But that doesn’t make it mandatory. Why should I care about mobile apps?
Mobile has seen outrageous growth in recent years, and in many places and niches is now ahead of traditional desktop computing. That is, in the very near future, you can expect the majority of your business’s visitors online to be using mobile devices to connect. This means that mobile-optimized websites and apps will be the primary channels for connecting with customers online. For that reason, not having an app is already quite costly in terms of lost opportunities, and will only become moreso in the coming years as trends continue.
With importance increasing rapidly and costs down to a very affordable level, apps are no longer optional. The time is right for all businesses to get in on mobile strategies and meet the users where they are: on mobile!
Holiday Sales are Through the Roof at Smartphone-Friendly Websites
Dec 4th
According to recent data from Branding Brand regarding Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales, about a third of all e-commerce traffic over the holiday came from smartphones. While this may not sound like a lot, the year-over-year gains are what we found most striking.
Smartphone sales are skyrocketing, and are on pace to dominate the market in the very near future. Consider some of the Black Friday increases on smartphone-optimized sites from last year to this year:
• Visits were up 76%
• Views were up 88%
• Average order value was up 22%
• Mobile sales increased 187%
187 percent! The Thanksgiving Day increases were also staggering:
• Visits were up 69%
• Page views were up 103%
• Average order value was up 16%
• Mobile sales were up 258%
258%. We can’t even put an exclamation point on that one. It’s an absurd increase. Mobile device shopping is exploding in popularity, and these numbers show just how drastic the changes are.
Good for mobile sellers, I guess. Why should the average small business owner care?
These data show that it’s more valuable than ever before to offer mobile-optimized sales. With easy-to-implement mobile stores, the profit potential has become much more attractive than in past years. For many small business owners, the idea of offering a mobile store was once a costly proposition that offered little return. Now, the above figures show that generating a significant amount of revenue via the mobile platform has become a lot easier.
There are two forces driving these changes: 1) user behavior and 2) the availability of solutions.
As for user behavior, when only a small segment of the consumer market was shopping via mobile, it simply wasn’t worth it to cater to them. Now, with users flocking to mobile stores and huge volumes of transactions happening on mobile platforms, the critical mass is there. And if trends continue, the majority of online shoppers (or perhaps just “shoppers”) will soon be making purchases via mobile.
As for the availability of solutions, creating and managing a mobile store once required major IT expenditures, took lots of time to implement, and was difficult to maintain and control. Now, there are cost-effective solutions that can be set up and configured in record time, like Bizness Apps!
The mobile sales revolution is definitely here. And if you want to join in the fun before this holiday season is over, we can absolutely help.
5 Tips for Sending Mobile Coupons and Offers
Nov 14th
Using Bizness Apps gives you the power to send push notifications and deliver mobile coupons, offers, and other messages to users. But this amazing power has to be used in the right way, or it will be ineffective, or even worse, irritate users.
The five tips below deal with the most important points to remember. Follow them, and your mobile offers will become a significant pipeline to bring you increased sales and revenue in short order.
Value
Mobile offers need to provide users with something of value, or they won’t be compelling and generate action. If your offer is for a 10% discount on an item that no one really wants, you won’t see much of a response. If, on the other hand, you offer something that people can’t resist, you’re going to have a much more successful campaign.
Of course, this is obvious to most people, but when designing an offer, it’s important to stop for a moment and think about whether people will really be interested in what you’re offering. If you’re merely doing something that’s convenient and free for you in the hopes that it will create a bit of buzz, it probably won’t work.
Urgency
Time limits are a great way to boost response rates for your offers. If a coupon is only good for the coming weekend, people will be much more likely to redeem it. If it’s open-ended, however, they’ll file it away on the theory that they can pull it up if and when they decide to use it.
Selecting the right deadline will depend on your product and the nature of your offer. But remember – it doesn’t have to be a strict timeframe. You can give your offer a sliding structure, where earlier redemptions get better terms. Or you can offer second-chance redemptions after the offer expires. The key is to motivate people to act.
Advertising
Don’t just push out an offer and leave it at that. Create signage for visitors to your physical location, post the offer (or a solicitation to download your app) to your social media profiles, leave up a banner on your website, include the offer in an email to your subscriber list, and more. Promote the offer so that it can succeed!
Timing
Experiment with days and times to find the sweet spot that maximizes redemptions. If you’re running a bar, for example, an offer sent out on a Friday afternoon will probably do better than a Monday morning offer. If you’re running a sub shop, an offer sent out an hour before lunch might be right for you. Analyze response rates at different times and days of the week, and find what works best for your business.
Frequency
Don’t irritate users by sending offers too often. Daily is probably way too much. Think about businesses you enjoy – how often do you want them blowing up your phone? Every few weeks, maybe? Track your offers and user base, and send offers at a frequency that doesn’t negatively impact redemption and subscription rates.
If you decide to just send offers rarely to avoid these issues, don’t forget to stay regular. If you disappear, your messages will come out of the blue and customers will be less likely to redeem them. A certain level of regular communication is necessary to keep things “hot.”
Click here to learn more about our powerful push notification system.
Why the Bizness Apps Membership Tab is So Awesome
Oct 16th
The majority of apps created with Bizness Apps are designed to be used by as wide a user base as possible. But for some organizations and businesses, it’s preferable to publish an app that is only usable by a specific group of people. For example, a fraternity might want only members to have access to an app. Or a fitness studio might want an app to be usable by existing clients only. Or a government entity or group might want to create an app just for its own personnel.
The membership tab is a way for you to set a username & password for users to access your app. This feature can be a great way for exclusive groups to create mobile apps for their audience.
– Fitness Clubs
– Organizations
– Fraternities & Sororities
– Local Governments
– Internal Business Apps
– Chamber Of Commerce
– And many other industries
Whatever the reason, the Bizness Apps membership tab can help you lock down your app and restrict access to just those users you select. With a secured app, you can keep your app restricted just to those users that you want to have access. This enables you to employ a number of features that you might not otherwise offer with a public app.
Setup is fairly simple. Once you access the membership tab from your Bizness Apps dashboard, you only need to make a few selections, and the feature will be setup instantaneously. It then works via a simple login and password that is shared with all desired users. When they launch the app, all they have to do is enter the general login information, and they’ll be able to use app thereafter.
That’s it!
For step-by-step instructions on how to set things up using the membership tab, click here.
Bizness Apps Tip – Use a Loyalty Feature to Boost Repeat Business
Sep 12th
More revenue! More revenue! More revenue!
In a material world, this is the obsession of many business owners. And in order to get it, they try many things. Most of these revolve around gaining new business through promotions, special offers, discounts, referrals, and more. But while most owners are chasing new business, they’re overlooking a far more reliable and profitable source of new revenue: current customers.
“Current customers? I already have them! I need to increase revenue, not solidify my current revenue streams.”
Focusing on current customers CAN increase revenue. Just because a person already knows about your business doesn’t mean that they’ve maxed out their usage capacity for your products or services. Instead, current customers are one of the most cost effective sources of new revenue available to your business, because repeat shoppers spend more and are far easier to persuade than strangers. In fact, as one marketing strategist and author reports, repeat shoppers can spend up to 33% more than first-timers.
So, how do you get current customers to spend more? A simple strategy: start a loyalty program using your app!
With Bizness Apps, loyalty programs are included at no extra cost in your monthly bill, and they’re quite powerful for increasing the revenue you get from your existing customers. According to a recent study by the National Restaurant Association, 72% of customers say that loyalty programs are “extremely” or “very likely” to drive repeat business.
The logic is fairly straightforward. If a person already likes your current offerings, they’ll like them even more when they get rewarded for making purchases or for visiting your location. And that’s just how a basic loyalty program works.
We’ve all used one before. The most popular example is a program that rewards customers after a certain number of purchases. For example, “Buy 6 Ice Cream Cones at 7th Heaven Creamery and you’ll get the 7th Cone Free!” The count is usually kept on a punchcard or stamp card.
A Bizness Apps loyalty feature operates the same way, just virtually.
Instead of a physical punchcard or stamp card, each user will track purchases through your app. When they make a purchase at your location, they can pull up the loyalty program tab and your team members can tap the screen and enter a simple code to record the purchase. The purchases will then be tallied onscreen. When the virtual card is “full,” your team members can process a redemption and reset the card.
Your customers will love it, and will probably spend more at your business after implementation. And it’s already included with your Bizness Apps mobile app subscription! Give it a shot, and you’ll be glad you did.
Learn more about Bizness Apps loyalty features here.
Loyalty Tab from Bizness Apps on Vimeo.
