Waikato Business News January/February 2020

26 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS January/February 2020
Should my business get its own app?
Since Apple launched the AppStore in
2008, smartphones and apps have literally
changed the way we interact with the world.
So, should your business get its own app?
From reading the news
to paying bills, from
connecting with friends
and family to ordering our
takeaways, from watching TV
shows to learning the road
rules – we live our life through
apps.
Recently at a food court I
noticed a group of six friends
having lunch together, but not
one of them was talking – they
were all glued to their phones,
stuck in the world of infinite
scroll. (How often are we
guilty of that?)
Since apps have taken over
the world, and are consuming
people’s attention, does it
make sense for your business
to get its own app?
The answer to that question
very much depends on the
nature of your business.
Whole businesses have
been built on apps – social
media companies for example,
plus the likes of Uber Eats,
Lime scooters and more.
Closer to home, the list
of New Zealand’s top downloaded
paid iPhone apps of
2019 featured several NZ-specific
apps.
According to Apple, the top
five downloaded paid apps in
New Zealand last year were:
1. New Zealand Driving
Theory Test
2. Coastguard New Zealand
3. The Wonder Weeks
4. Road Code Learners
Test New Zealand
5. Te Reo Māori
So, four of the top five paid
apps were New Zealand-specific.
Whereas in the list of top
free apps for New Zealand, the
highest ranking New Zealand
app was TVNZ at number 20.
The only other New Zealand
apps in the top 30 belonged to
Vodafone NZ, Spark, Air NZ
and ANZ.
Seeing that these New
Zealand household names
only just scraped into the top
30 is a good reality check. If
you’re thinking about getting
an app built for your business,
it is important to realise that a
“build it and they will come”
mindset does not work in the
world of apps.
Secondly, even when you
manage to get users to download
your app, studies by
Quettra found that 77 percent
of apps stop being used within
just three days. After 30 days
that figure jumps to 90 percent!
If that surprises you, just
pause and think about how
many apps you have installed
on your phone, and which
apps you actually use most
weeks. The number of apps
that we regularly use is tiny
compared with the vast number
of apps available.
But apps can still be beneficial
for some businesses.
Firstly, if an app is part of
your core product offering,
then of course you need to
invest in the app.
But for businesses where
an app is completely optional,
here are two key questions that
can help you decide whether
an app will help your business.
How big and engaged is
your customer-base?
The New Zealand companies
that made it onto the top
30 downloaded apps in New
Zealand are big household
names with hundreds of thousands
of customers each and
they already have customer
portals for their customers to
login to. So, it makes sense for
these businesses to have their
own apps.
While your business might
not be as large, if you have a
sizeable customer-base that is
highly engaged, with highly
THE DIGITAL WORLD
> BY JOSH MOORE
Josh Moore is the head marketing fanatic at Duoplus, a
Hamilton-based digital marketing agency that helps clients
across NZ grow faster. www.duoplus.nz
regular touch points, it could
make sense to have an app.
For example, do you have a
customer login portal and your
Analytics shows that many
customers are logging in on
their mobiles? This could be a
good indicator of potential for
an app.
In this situation an app’s
purpose would be to serve
your existing customer-base.
What doesn’t work is thinking,
“I want more customers in
my XYZ business so I’ll get
an app. Potential customers
will download it and then use
it to contact me”. This type of
strategy never works. If your
aim is to get found by more
customers, it would be far better
to invest in Google Ads or
Facebook and Instagram ads
instead.
What unique usefulness
will the app provide?
Since 77 percent of apps
stop being used within three
days, this second questions
requires that you identify what
your app will provide that is
uniquely useful and will cause
your customers to use it again,
and again, and again.
If your website is mainly
information and marketing
material, then having
that information in an app is
not useful enough to get the
user to open your app again.
They’ll just visit your website
in their mobile browser.
Whereas, do your customers
need to upload images or
forms to you regularly? An
app could give them a much
more user-friendly mobile
experience.
Perhaps you have some
specific tests or reporting that
your customers need to do
while out and about - offering
an app could make it much
easier for them.
If you can define a clear
unique useful purpose, that
can’t be easily satisfied on
your website, it could be a
good reason to look at developing
an app.
But if instead you were
wondering if an app will
help you get found by more
customers, the answer is a
very definitive “no”. We find
the best way to get found by
more customers is to use digital
advertising to get your
ads inside of those apps that
people are already glued to.
I recommend ads in Google,
YouTube, Facebook and Instagram
as powerful ways for
getting found.