Every startup company has the same dilemma: Choosing between launching a product/service on a responsive website or an app?
The most commonly asked question from professional website design and digital branding agencies by startup companies is whether to go for a website or app for their products or services? This involves seeking expert opinion on what media should be used for their product launch and that whether they should focus their efforts and resources on one or all the mediums available.
Nonetheless, one thing’s for sure that you don’t build for all three mediums at the same time, because as a startup owner, you usually don’t have tons of resources at your disposal to launch your product across all mediums and also it is not necessary that your target customer will be experiencing your product/service on all the media touch points at the same time. Therefore, you should concentrate on starting from one touch point initially, and build your communication strategy around that. Once you’ve developed a strategy, you can then customize that strategy according to the requirements of other media touch points.
Following factors influence the decision whether a startup company should go for website or app development:
Product Offering and Target Audience
Communication objectives, letting the intended audience know what a company’s product offering and brand is, can either be met through websites or through apps, and depend on which medium are mostly used by the target customers to experience the product/service, demographics and psychographics of your target audience, location where the product/service gets consumed/experienced For example, if you are building a direction app that navigate users on every step taken, there is absolutely no point of building a website for this purpose. However, it gets trickier when your product holds relevance to both mobile applications and websites. In such a scenario it is the business owner’s responsibility to decide which medium presents the best use case and ideally the more beneficial.
What are You Trying to Achieve?
Both mobile app and a responsive website can greatly contribute to your overall brand building efforts. It is the business owner’s acumen that determines the right proportion of mediums to be used here. As discussed earlier, the basic benefit lies behind the core idea recognition of your business.
A brand that is set to benefit users on the go will greatly build upon the mobile app as according to latest reports more than 90% of smartphone users look for local information online through their phones only, thus in this scenario a mobile app offers increased visibility for your brand in comparison to a website.
Budget and Time Constraints
Launching on multiple platforms will translate into higher levels of allocation of resources, both in terms of money and time. No matter if your product is a masterpiece created completely in-house or is a result of outsourced development, you require specialized skill sets for each of the different platforms used. The appropriate thing to do here would be to see which medium is the most appropriate and focus the allocated budget on it. One more factor that you as a startup owner should keep in your sights is the time you have for development. Usually apps require more time compared to responsive websites, and therefore it’s feasible to develop first touch point in the form of a responsive website. Later on, once you’ve built a sizeable customer base, you then work on developing an app to further engage the customers who seek your service on the go.
Testing and Reiteration
Product launches are basically rehearsals that are continuous. Once a product is launched, its tested upon its design, its user experiences and so on and then you get the data regarding the customer feedback. Based on this feedback, you bring it back into the development phase and re-iterate to release. That’s how a product remains in the customer development process. You launch, you check and you re-iterate.
Plan Your Efforts
Now imagine, you are launching your product for the first time and you choose to launch it on multiple platforms at the same time, how tedious it can be. The more platforms you chose to launch, the more effort it will require, thus, lessening your concentration from each of them.
A multi-platform launch is advised only when the product has achieved a prior market fit. The customer knows about the product and is excited to see and check the upgrades you just made to it. The business owner also has a clear idea as to where these upgrades will take the company.
You Distribution Channels
And last but, definitely, not the least challenge that a business owner faces at the time of product launch is the distribution, especially for a mobile application-only product launch, is acquiring customers.
Why? Since mobile applications do not have a single place for discovery as websites have; the search engine. Therefore, in order to get featured on Apple or Google on their respective app stores, you need to have taken care of the distribution prior the launch.
For example, if you are planning to launch an application for eateries in your vicinity, try signing up at least 10 eateries in your area, so that when the app is launched and you start the publicity process, the new customers will get something meaningful after they join your mobile app. It’s similar to crowd funding, but the idea doesn’t work properly here.
Final Words
In light of the aforementioned factors, it’s obvious that there aren’t any set rules to decide which medium to use for launching your product/service. They are to be decided based upon the product choice and customer profile, and once a market fit is achieved, you can invest further and move on to explore more opportunities.
Having said this the latest trends show that with an ever-increasing number of mobile device users and fast-paced lifestyle of the customers, successful companies, in the future, will focus more on developing apps more than a merely relying on website to engage the target customers.