Many businesses are building their own mobile apps and there are many reasons why you should invest in a mobile app. We are in a digital era and if your business does not have a mobile app, then it means you are lagging behind your competitors. You could be missing out a huge opportunity to attract potential clients, no matter how far they are. Just having a website will not give you an edge over your competitors. It is a matter of ensuring that you have got the right strategies in place for online marketing.
Owning a mobile app for your business is probably the most rewarding solution to give an edge over competitors. The world has shifted from desktops to smartphones, and is offering tremendous ROI. If you are planning to establish a mobile presence for your business, you should first know about the benefits of mobile app. Mobile websites and apps can look similar at the first glance and it is difficult to determine which is most suited for your business requirements. There are a number of factors such as – target audience, available budget, features, purpose etc that decide if the mobile app is suitable for your business or not.
Mobile apps are great way to reach out potential customers. You can enhance the experience of your customers by building the best mobile app. Some of the benefits of a mobile app are:

• Gives more value to the customers

A business is all about reciprocation and it is must to nail down the best way to encourage more customers. If you want to increase the interaction of your customers with the business to promote sales, you should provide a level of value to the customers so that they don’t go anywhere else. You can create an app with loyalty program to make more customers interact with your business and products.
There are many companies that use their mobile apps to their advantage by offering rewards to the app subscribers. This will eventually motivate the customers to buy their products. If you already have one such program, you can integrate it into your mobile app.

• Customers don’t have to wait

Mobile apps provide a faster and easier alternative to web browsing. The user needs to launch a web browser and enter the URL and wait for the site to load for accessing the business website. On the contrary, mobile apps are quick and take only a few seconds to launch. As most of the information is stored in the mobile application itself, it is possible to use it offline.
As there is no waiting time, customers will be attracted towards your mobile app. Additionally, there are chances of being converted into potential leads.

• Reduces cost and increases customer engagement

Mobile apps reduce the cost compared to instant messages and traditional advertising. The communications are secured and directed instantly to the messaging customers. Moreover, the mobile apps reduce the staff work. A majority of customers tend to use mobile apps as they allow them to connect with your business easily. Businesses are using apps to improve the processes and increase the level of accessibility their customers have. No doubt, mobile apps are the most valuable tools for today’s competitive business world.

• Mobile apps aid promotion and offers great support

You can create mobile apps with great offers and deals to lure many prospective customers to your business. Be sure to create an offer that is irresistible and notifies about it through an app. If you want to promote your business and reap the benefits quickly, you should have a mobile app.
Customer support is another important factor that hooks up potential clients with the business. Responding to customer queries and resolving issues will become much easier, if you have a mobile app to do it. You can sure win the approval of customers by having a mobile app that offers instructions and help customers resolve issues on their own.

• Enhances the visibility of your brand

In today’s competitive world, mobile apps are the best tools to enhance visibility of your brand. The awareness and name of your brand will increase tremendously with a mobile app. In fact, it works like a billboard sign. If you have a mobile app with great looks and features, nothing can stop it from increasing your brand awareness.
Mobile apps have the ability to serve multiple functions such as playing games, audio & video, news feeds, instant chat and many more. In short, it works as a direct channel that provides the user with all the information they need.

• Mobile apps are the best social media platform

People of today’s generation are obsessed with social media. If you want to be a part of their obsession, you should have a mobile app. If you have a mobile app that can be shared on social sites, they will be able to discuss about your products or services. People spend a lot of time on social media and mobile apps are the future of social interaction.
Mobile apps have made sales much easier than ever before. It is changing the way people review, buy or sell products. Hence, it is important to provide your client with a dedicated mobile app.
Why you should invest in mobile apps?
In today’s competitive world, people are making use of mobile apps to stay in touch with their favorite brands. Whether it is their smartphone or tablet, mobile apps offer all the information to potential customers in an easy way. Regardless of what business you do, mobile apps are useful in getting new customers while retaining the old customers. Being available online round the clock will be a big boost for your business. It will be an added advantage, if the information is available in the form of mobile apps. With different mobile apps developed for platforms like – Android and iOS, you can create brand awareness among huge number of new and existing customers. Here are some of the reasons why should you invest in mobile apps.

• It is a known fact that the world has gone mobile and there is no need to look back, if you have a mobile app. Consumers use smartphones for local search and your online marketing efforts are seen via different mobile channels. Just having a website is not enough to sustain in today’s competitive business world. Mobile apps thrive as browsing alternative and you can gain a lot by investing in mobile apps.
• When you have a mobile app, you are allowed to showcase your products and services in a better way. Your customers can use the mobile app as a one stop destination, whenever they want to make a purchase. Smartphones have become a new tool to chat with family and friends, purchase products, check services and do many more. You need a mobile app to do all the above tasks easily.
• Mobile apps are very convenient for customers, as they are usually designed with usability in mind. The benefits of mobile apps are even greater when businesses decide to develop a custom mobile app with more flexibility and features. You should invest in a mobile app, if you want to enhance the level of professionalism.

Today, almost all the business processes has become virtual. Hence, there is an ever growing need of mobile app. If you want to provide better service to your customers, you should consider investing in the best mobile app development. With the rising popularity of mobile apps, it is worth for every business to invest in mobile app development.
www.nofabusinessconsulting.com

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Technology is an essential part of our lives today and few can imagine living without.
Since 2016 the internet usage by mobile devices has increased. Today 51.3% of people worldwide use their mobile devices to connect to internet, compared to 48.7% desktop usage. Around 111 million people use their smartphones or other mobile devices on regular basis. About 177 minutes a day we use our mobile devices to check for something on internet by using an app. These figures show how important is, as a business, to have an internet presence and more importantly to have a business app.


A mobile app is more effective than a web site and helps your business in the following three areas:
Operation
Marketing
Reputation
Which will result in selling more products or services.


Contact us for a business consultation, design, building and hosting a mobile app
NOFA Business Consulting, LLC
451 Hungerford Dr.
Suite 119-115
Rockville, MD 20850
farhad@nofabusinessconsulting.com
www.nofabusinessconsulting.com

An App for Churches

For a long time, businesses have wrestled with the question of whether they should develop dedicated mobile applications or if responsive websites would suffice to give consumers a good browsing experience regardless of the device and network status.
Google made responsive websites the industry standard a few years ago. But the question of whether it is worth investing in native apps remained.
In my book, anyway, the answer has finally arrived.
With PWAs, your clients do not need to choose between the two anymore. PWAs override the limitations of a website and bring to consumers the usability and rich functionality of an app. This arrangement makes everyone happy.
How do PWAs work?
In Google’s own words, PWAs are reliable, fast, and engaging.
And that is because businesses can pre-determine what aspects of the website will load when accessed via a PWA, to give users a lightning-fast experience regardless of whether they are online or not.
This is done with the help of “service worker,” a JavaScript agent that “puts you in control of the cache and how to respond to resource requests.” This, in turn, ensures that certain (pre-cached) elements will always load for users even if their mobile devices are not connected to the internet.
PWAs are progressive, responsive, secure, and always up-to-date.
How can PWAs help your clients?
Now comes the big question. If PWAs are all this and more, do they make a difference to a business’s bottomline, and if so, how?
PWAs cut down on costs
Businesses can finally rest easy with their decision not to invest in mobile applications. Developing dedicated apps is an expensive process. The barrier to entry in the App Store is high, and discoverability is low. This makes it probably not worth your time to set up a dedicated mobile application team.
The sheer genius behind (and the usefulness of) PWAs was rammed home when I attended CloudFest 2018, the world’s largest conference for hosting companies, in Germany earlier this year. Duda CTO Amir Glatt made a great point that even though apps are universally favored for their made-for-mobile formats, the vast majority of users spend their time on only a select few apps. YouTube, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Twitter are often the main culprits.
Where does this leave small businesses even if they were to create a great app?
PWAs, with their combination of the best of the website and app functionality, can be developed and rolled out at a fraction of the cost, leveling the field to a great extent.
And because Google is backing the format, we will see wide embrace of the concept soon. In fact, many big retail websites have already begun on this path. And if they haven’t, small businesses can catch up too.
PWAs are hassle-free and fast to load
PWAs are easy to install since they don’t require the user to leave the website and hop over to Play Store or App Store to download the native app, which may or may not be a minor inconvenience for them considering how interested they might be in a business in the first place.
And yes, in my experience, even removing minor friction points has the power to dramatically increase installs.
On Anfroid, the website prompts users with the message ‘Add to Home Screen’ that appears at the bottom of the page. Users only have to click on the prompt, and the PWA is loaded onto their home screens just like an app would. This happens fast. You have to try it to believe how fast.
PWAs provide an app-like experience
Let’s face it. Even though consumers love websites, no one is entirely happy about the prospect of opening a website on their mobile device, especially those laden with features and images, and using it all the way to check out things.
No matter how responsive or well-adapted to the interface, using full-fledged websites on mobile is still slightly cumbersome and time- and data-consuming.
We love apps because they are devised for our phones and tablets. They maximize the potential of mobile devices and provide users with a rich and immersive experience.
But there are extra steps involved in downloading an app, and this might be where you lose potential customers. What if the app has negative reviews on top, and what if it takes long to install because the user’s internet connection is fluctuating? They will abandon you in no time. Apps also make users skeptical because of the array of permissions they often ask for.
PWAs, on the other hand, bypass all of that and are secure. They load on the home screen instantly and open in the blink of an eye. Users click on the PWA shortcut (which looks exactly like an app shortcut) to find an interface that looks and behaves like an app would.
They don’t have to deal with the website anymore and can avail the streamlined and mobile-friendly features of an app with ease. It’s convenient for them and beneficial to businesses as this seamless shift causes users to continue to browse their site, thus increasing the chances of a transaction taking place.
There is no downtime for a PWA
Again, this is where businesses risk losing customers. The dreaded downtime. Apps, too, falter – sometimes they just crash.
Also, what if the user has no space on their device to update it?
PWAs don’t take up space on user devices like apps do. And because they operate on the pre-cached concept, you have full control on what elements will load each time users access your client’s PWA. Downasaurs are a thing of past.
Will this make apps redundant?
That remains to be seen.
In its bid to keep improving user experience, Google is pushing websites to adopt PWAs en masse, while promising enhanced conversions to businesses.
It cites examples of companies that have benefited hugely from PWAs. Take the case of AliExpress, for instance, which “increased conversion rate for new users by 104 percent with their new PWA.” You should pay attention to that.
Apple has also added support for PWAs with its iOS 11.3 update.
The most popular apps will continue to flourish. But small businesses now have a chance to considerably better their performance and hold on to the forever fluttering user attention.
With PWAs, the game has changed.
PRATIK DHOLAKIYA