Top 10 benefits of mobile apps for your business

A woman uses a mobile app on her phone to grow her business.

Mobile app usage has increased tremendously, and it’s a trend that’s only gaining steam. Nearly 90% of smartphone users spend time on apps, and 49% of people open an app more than 11 times a day. Consumers are increasingly making purchases on mobile devices, which can have a big impact on the customer journey — and on your business.

If your company doesn’t already have one, a mobile app can help you nurture deeper relationships with these mobile-first users and increase product or service sales. But investing in an app is no small feat. It’s important to weigh the benefits of creating a mobile app to see if it’s the best investment for your business right now. Read this guide to learn about the benefits of mobile apps for your business.

The benefits of mobile apps

While your business website needs to be optimized for mobile, it still can’t beat the experience of an app. Apps have fewer distractions, are faster for mobile users, and come with useful features like push notifications and geotargeting. If you’re on the fence about creating a mobile app for your business, check out these mobile app benefits to justify the time and resources required to build an app of your own.

Among their many benefits, mobile apps help businesses:

  1. Build a stronger brand
  2. Connect with customers better
  3. Provide value to customers
  4. Improve customer engagement
  5. Personalize a marketing channel
  6. Improve customer interactions
  7. Capitalize on a niche
  8. Utilize social media channels
  9. Improve customer loyalty
  10. Boost profits

1. Build a stronger brand

Creating a mobile app can help your business build a stronger brand. Through design and the right communication strategy, a mobile app serves as an always-on brand ambassador. It also provides the right service to the customer at the right time, which helps your company consistently deliver on its brand promise.

Aside from strengthening your brand on the customer side, a mobile app can also help you learn more about your users. You can use data from the app to understand your target audience better and improve your brand in response. For example, if app users frequently post about the same issue in your app’s customer forum, you can use that information to improve the quality of your product or service.

2. Connect with customers better

Mobile apps allow you to connect with customers while they’re on the go. You can send push notifications to users about promotions, sales, and more to engage with them. This is one of the best ways to keep your business top of mind when users aren’t necessarily thinking about your brand. Thanks to features like geotargeting, you can even interact with customers when they’re within a certain distance of your brick-and-mortar location (if you have one).

Channels like social media, email, or your website can help you connect with customers, but an app gives you yet another avenue to explore. Since people use their phones more frequently than other channels, mobile apps can ensure they see your message. App notifications help you interact with your customers in an environment with fewer distractions — and less competition.

Users spend 7x more time in mobile apps than in mobile browsers. 85% of consumers prefer to shop in a mobile app instead of a browser.

3. Provide value to customers

Businesses are competing for shoppers’ attention, which means you need to deliver value to your customers at every turn. Developing a mobile app can help you deliver value to shoppers in the form of unique mobile shopping experiences. Create virtual try-on augmented reality (AR) filters for your clothing line or make it easy for B2B customers to manage their SaaS subscriptions with just a few taps. By making your products or services more accessible to users, they’ll be more likely to support your business.

Keep in mind that business apps need to offer more than a simple contact form or product feed. Your current customers want convenience, but the app also needs to provide a unique benefit that they can’t get anywhere else. Evaluate your products and services to see how an app will benefit your consumers the most. For example, maybe you offer app-exclusive discounts or an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot to improve the shopper experience.

4. Improve customer engagement

Users spend seven times more time in mobile apps than they do in mobile browsers. Mobile apps are naturally more engaging than other experiences, which helps brands deepen customer engagement. Plus, it’s more likely that your target audience downloaded your app in the first place, which means you have more opportunities to engage with the right people at the right time.

Customers can engage with your brand in a variety of ways via an app. If you have a product feed, give customers more control with features like favorite products or shopping lists. You can also integrate your app with a review tool, which allows you to collect reviews easily from your most engaged customers.

5. Personalize a marketing channel

Nearly two-thirds of consumers expect brands to understand their needs — and 52% expect every offer to be customized. Your customers expect more personalization from you, and a mobile app can help you personalize their experience. With mobile-optimized targeting tools, businesses can customize marketing offers for every app user at scale.

Mobile apps allow for interactive personalization features like shopping history, customized discounts, and more. In addition to recommendation algorithms, your app can also include AR features, like color swapping or mix-and-match clothing. A mobile app can also make it easy to recognize important milestones in your customers’ lives, like anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and more.

6. Improve customer interactions

Mobile ecommerce will account for 43.4% of all ecommerce sales in 2023, a significant increase over 2022. Thanks to the proliferation of mobile apps, shoppers aged 18 to 34 make the majority of mobile ecommerce purchases. These consumers want to interact with brands via apps because they simplify the purchasing process, holding a shopper’s favorite products and payment information to speed up the process.

A mobile app also offers more cross-channel marketing opportunities, which means shoppers can move from a social media ad to your app to make a purchase seamlessly. Of course, the quality of the app matters. The more user-friendly your app is, the better the customer experience — and the more likely you are to see conversions.

Mobile will account for 43.4% of all ecommerce sales in 2023.

7. Capitalize on a niche

Regardless of your niche, you’re competing for customers’ business. A high-quality mobile app can help you earn a larger market share in your space. If you need a differentiator in a crowded niche, adding innovative communication features like a chatbot in your branded app could give you a much-needed edge. This is especially true if you’re in an industry where it’s less common for brands to create their own apps.

Consider that 85% of consumers prefer to shop in an app instead of a browser. If you’re in the ecommerce space, creating an app could give you a much-needed boost. Shoppers expect instant communication, reliability, and convenience. Mobile apps deliver in all of these areas, which can make it easier for brands to capitalize on their niche.

8. Utilize social media channels

One of the biggest benefits of mobile apps is their ability to connect to other online services, including social media. Since most social media is used on a mobile device, shoppers can connect more easily to an app than your website. Many social networks allow businesses to use their APIs, which allow you to create a seamless integrated social experience in your own app.

Social media can get the word out about your business and provide much-needed social proof, which is a big selling point for mobile apps. This is an easy way for brands to encourage user-generated content with a frictionless social-sharing experience. Shoppers can even request customer support via Twitter or Facebook Messenger through an in-app browser.

9. Improve customer loyalty

Loyalty programs are one of the best ways to incentivize customer loyalty. In fact, 84% of consumers say they’re more likely to be loyal to a company that offers a loyalty program, and 49% say they’ve spent more because of a loyalty program — so this is a clear way for businesses to boost revenue. Instead of relying on physical punch cards, many businesses create a mobile app as a straightforward way to track customer loyalty programs.

While your mobile app can perform several functions, offering a loyalty or rewards program within it will reward repeat orders and encourage shopper loyalty. Offer tangible rewards in exchange for these repeat purchases. Offer even more rewards, promotions, or discounts when users share your brand on social media. You can also use rewards program data to recommend more relevant products and foster return customers.

10. Boost profits

Mobile apps benefit businesses and consumers because they create a better experience, which often translates into higher profits. Since mobile apps improve the customer experience, you’re likely to see your marketing dollars go further. Through the power of engagement, loyalty programs, and greater perceived value, you’ll likely spend less on paid ads while generating more conversions.

Mobile apps allow businesses to learn more about their shoppers and create a hyper-personalized shopping experience. With the right targeting tools, businesses can use this information to generate more sales for less marketing spend. Since every $1 companies spend on improving the user experience yields as much as 100%, a mobile app can be a wise investment for your business.

Use a content platform to help manage your mobile app

Consumers are using mobile devices to gather information about the brands they love, but they’re also using smartphones to make purchases. Chances are, a mobile app can help your business give consumers a better all-around experience while deepening customer relationships at scale.

When you’re ready to build your own mobile app, evaluate a content platform that helps you manage them. Adobe Experience Manager lets businesses source, adapt, automate, and deliver one-on-one digital experiences with the power of AI.

Watch the overview video to see how you can combine your digital asset management and content management into a unified solution.