Mobile App Vs Mobile Web: Making the right Choice

As the no. of mobile internet users have surpassed the no. of desktop users accessing the internet, a mobile presence has become the latest trend in the marketing strategies of businesses of all sizes. However, figuring out the best channel/medium among what fits your brand depends upon a number of factors.

[Source: Techcrunch]

For small businesses, when it comes to both mobile websites and mobile apps, it’s not always necessary to utilize both. It is important to recognize the benefits and downfalls of each.

Mobile Apps

A mobile app is a software application made specifically for use on smartphones and other small, wireless devices such as tablets and smart watches.

Benefits

1. Best choice for interactive gaming for the foreseeable future. For Example – Angry Birds.
2. Apps provide a way to target personalized fashion on regular basis.
3. Helps to take data and allows to manipulate it with complex calculations, charts or reports (such as – banking or investment)
4. Native functionality – certain mobile-specific functions such as click-to-call, SMS, and GPS.
5. Provide offline access – perform functions without a network/wireless connection.
6. Holds huge amount of potential for marketers.
7. Easily available on home stores such as Google Play Store, App Store, etc.

Downfalls

1. Extra Setup – need to setup the app and submit to the app stores.
2. Extra cost – supporting and maintaining an app (upgrades, testing, compatibility issues and ongoing development) is more much more expensive.
3. It takes a lot more work time to learn app marketing and optimizing your app to get a good ROI.

Mobile Website

A mobile website is usually not a separate website, it’s a responsive web design that works for all screen sizes.

Benefits

1. Make your business reachable from any mobile device that has a browser.
2. Easy to update, share, find, and have a huge and faster reach.
3. Instantly accessible to users via a browser across a range of devices (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc).
4. Website improves your search rankings.
5. Easy to make a mobile-friendly version of your site.
6. Cost Effective – Responsive websites are usable and can handle all screen sizes so that users can easily visit, search and shop without the need for multiple websites.
7. Website URLs are easy to integrate with other technologies such as SMS, QR codes, etc.
8. Can be developed as an app. A website can be integrated with a database with capabilities similar to a native app.

Downfalls

1. No push notifications (apart from select browsers) – can be the easiest way to communicate with the target audience.
2. No offline access – web sites need the internet to work.
3. App store doesn’t exist.
4. A Poor design may cause problems like:

• Performance issues
• Cluttered design
• Poor usability

So, Which one of the 2 is Good for your Business?

As mobile usage continues to grow worldwide, the “App vs Web” remains a big dilemma for businesses. However, the combination of both can leverage the maximum distribution of your content.

Therefore, if your goal is to deliver content and build a marketing presence that can be easily managed, shared by the audience, and indexed by search engines, a mobile website/web app makes more sense.

On the other hand,  if you need access to a user’s phone storage and native functions or build a game-like interface or a program which solves a given task, then choose an app.

For developing mobile apps/responsive websites for your business, Click Here!