Do I need an app?

You would be surprised to hear more often than not, that the answer to that question is no! Apps seem like a great way to market your business, people would always have your brand and content with them and would constantly be exposed to your company name and so on, but in reality, the majority of apps published by small businesses, serve no purpose to the user. I can see three good reasons for a small business to create an app:

1. You are providing a premium service digitally to your customers like exclusive content, competitions, offers or discounts and your users can benefit regularly from this.
2. You have a podcast, create videos or publish articles regularly, which makes your app the ideal first point of entry for your followers and listeners to find it before anyone else.
3. You provide a certain kind of service or support on products, that makes it ideal for your customers to have you accessible from wherever easily; for technical assistance and so on.

I have seen examples of apps from smaller businesses which are like compiled versions of their own website, having a gallery, some details about services, contact information etc. which is something I personally would never use my very limited iPhone storage on.

You have to consider what the app can do for you. Having an app is essentially a way for you to maintain contact and communication with your current clients – not really a way to get new clients. So if you plan to spend the money on building an app, you should first make sure if it can benefit your engagement with your current customers. You have to consider that apps can cost anything from 20.000 € to 2.000.000 € not to mention that they have to be maintained monthly to support OS updates and code deprecations.