It’s no great surprise that, with the meteoric increase in smartphone use for shopping, branded apps are likewise gaining in popularity. These apps give retailers a direct link to their consumer’s mobile devices, and studies show that those consumers spend six times as much of their smartphone shopping time using them over the more generic offerings.
And yet, many businesses are missing the boat with poorly conceived and developed apps. Here are four tips to avoid when building a own branded app for your business:
- Don’t try to recreate your business’s website, which will probably translate poorly to branded apps on mobile devices. Think responsive design, with mobile-only functionality such as bar-code scanning and location-based recommendations.
- If it’s a branded app for Apple be sure to read the company’s guidelines to ensure it meets their criteria. The company has lots of rules about what it accepts for its platform.
- Don’t lose sight of your brand identity. Maintain a visual consistency with your other user experiences, such as web and print, through color and typography.
- Know your audience and identify their desires, then build your app backwards to meet their needs.
