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Choosing Between an App and a Website For Your Mobile Audience

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Harry Trott
June 13, 2017


Harry Trott
Harry Trott has written 9 articles for WebKnowHow.
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We have come a long way since 2014 when the number of mobile internet users first surpassed the desktop audience globally. In countries like the United States, China, and Brazil, over 70% of the total digital minutes consumed by users are from mobile devices. In Indonesia, the figure is well over 90%. It is now no longer a question of whether or not a business must cater to its mobile audience. As users evolve in the way they consume digital content, the important question is how to reach out to your customers on their mobile devices.

There are two primary ways to reach a mobile audience - through a mobile website, or through an app. Ideally, you should have both these options available to your consumer. But that is not always feasible. In this article, we will take a look at a few factors that should determine the right mobile strategy for your business.

Source of customers

The source of your customers is one of the primary factors that should determine your choice between a mobile website and an app. If you are a media company that gets a significant number of visitors through referral and search engine sources, then it is important for all your latest content to be accessible via Google search or from third party social media channels like Facebook. In such cases, it is important to focus on running a seamless mobile website. On the other hand, if you are a business that relies on direct traffic from loyal customers, then a mobile app could make more sense.

Marketing strategy

Customers may require a lot of hand-holding and persuasion before they make their first purchase. The intermittent phase between the time the customer interacts with your business for the first time and the time they make the purchase constitutes the sales cycle. During this stage, businesses need to constantly ‘touch base’ with the customer in order to build trust and credibility. This can be done through email marketing, remarketing ads, SMS messaging or even phone calls. Businesses that rely on any of these marketing strategies would prefer a mobile website strategy since it is easier to use a tool like MailChimp to capture the visitor’s details. On the other hand, if you have a very short sales cycle and there is very little friction for customers to convert (for example, a news media outlet), then it is a good idea to promote your app instead of your mobile website.

Repeat purchase

How frequently your customers buy or consume your content also plays a role in determining your mobile strategy. If you are an eCommerce company like Amazon that customers like to keep going back to for all their new purchases, then it makes sense to build and promote an app. Studies have shown that mobile users only access a limited number of apps. Subsequently, a business that manages to set itself as the go-to app for the customers’ needs instantly gets a competitive advantage over its rivals. Repeat consumption is a big reason why eCommerce, news outlets, video streaming and food ordering businesses have an app instead of just a mobile website.

While these are some of the major determining factors, there are a host of other perspectives you must consider before deciding on a strategy. In some cases, it may make sense to use a mobile website to hand-hold the customer through the sales cycle and promote your app after purchase. In other cases, your business may have multiple customer segments and your strategy may involve promoting your mobile website to one segment while offering your app to the others. As is often the case, every business is unique and marketers need to make an independent assessment of their needs before taking the final call.


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