In Mobile, Focusing On Impact Is Key

Caid Christiansen• June, 26 2015

In her Internet Trends 2015 report, KPCB’s Mary Meeker highlighted an important change in the way American adults spend time with digital media. Mobile traffic now accounts for a larger percentage of traffic than desktops and laptops.

Enter marketers and other executives scrambling to figure out how to capitalize on this trend. Demand for mobile apps has skyrocketed in the last couple of years, and it’ll likely only increase as more and more traffic goes mobile.

Developing one-off apps must be the solution to meeting customers where they already are, right? Not so fast.

A Forrester Research Study titled “Your Customers Will Not Download Your App,” highlighted recently by Fortune, tells a very different story. According to that study, mobile development teams should spend more time seeking ways to engage people through apps they already use. A user of United Airlines’ app has the opportunity to export boarding passes to Apple Passbook, meaning they may only spend seconds in the app before going to the native solution.

Attention is stretched thin, and companies hoping to inject themselves into customers’ lives with a one-off app will likely find themselves struggling to find value in the apps they’re developing.

Of course, that leaves companies going mobile in a tough spot. Mobile apps absolutely can have value in certain situations. Companies must learn, however, that the moments consumers spend with these apps will likely be limited. If the app is convenient and helps a customer complete a task more easily, all the better. But your corporate ordering app probably isn’t going to turn into the enterprise equivalent of Candy Crush.

We say all of this as app developers ourselves. Mobile app development is part of our large suite of interactive offerings; Chris got his start in interactive and has been mobile since the beginning. As with adopting a new social media platform, silver bullets rarely exist. Finding ROI takes an impact- and results-driven approach.

In mobile, don’t focus on building an app first and asking questions later. At the beginning, ask what you want your app to accomplish and who you’re trying to target. Mobile is great, but only when executed directly.

In today’s mobile-driven world, prioritize impact over apps for their own sake. It’s fine to have apps–you just have to know if they’re adding value for your business and customers, or painting a pretty picture for a C-suite that’s gung-ho about “going mobile.”