It doesn’t have to be websites vs apps

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29th August 2016
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31st August 2016

Here’s a question: how important are websites in the mobile marketing world?

Apps seem set to dominate the way customers interact with brands. In 2015, Apple’s App Store grew by 1000 apps per day, and Google Play downloads are expected to triple by 2020.

At the same time visits to brand websites are declining – digital media time in the US is now significantly higher on mobile at 51%, compared to desktop (42%).

It’s tempting to think that websites have passed their best before date.

But could the rapid growth in app downloads lead to this channel becoming a victim of its own success? People don’t have unlimited space on their devices and only best-loved apps are used often. In developing markets, space and data are even more limited, so assuming that all customers are going to install and keep your app is not likely unless it’s a great user experience.

Here’s a scary stat: according to Flurry Analytics, only 36% of apps are retained after one month and only 11% for a year.

Websites can still play a dominant role

Companies and brands must manage their web and app presence as an integrated whole, rather than let their website drift as they move to apps. As well as being an important content and commerce hub in its own right, a great website can also drive app downloads and installs.

First of all, remember that visitors to your site are already interested in your product. If they’ve spent the time to actually visit your site, there’s a chance they are looking for what you are providing, so you already have a potentially interested customer.

Knowing this, it’s key to think through how getting them to install an app can deepen and enhance the experience with your product.

For many users, they are often discovering your website as a first step to understanding and using your product. Therefore, it’s critical to use this experience to convert them to installing and using your app.

It’s key to spend time thinking through the user journey from landing on your website, to discovering the value of your product (the content, the products, etc) and then to leveraging that to drive installation of your app.

Think about how your app is marketed

You also need to think deeply about the mechanics that will drive users to install the app. You can’t just put a smart banner on the top of your pages and expect users to convert. It’s critical to integrate the app install experience into the web experience and provide the user a compelling reason to download and install.

For example, make it easier to store a wish list through the app, to track collections, or to have some key functionality that isn’t as easily available on the website.

Pinterest understands this well, creating a dynamic dialogue between its website and app worlds to improve the ‘stickiness’ of both.. But relevant to this blog post, he gave a great summary of how Pinterest constantly evolved and iterated on their web to mobile flow, leading to massive adoption of their app.

The main point is that they leveraged massive incoming traffic to their website and then used that as an opportunity to get users to download and install the app, a platform where they could more deeply engage with the user.

Given the depth of modern app stores, it’s hard for brands to surface their apps above a sea of others. Just remember that ASO (app store optimisation) works, but it’s still not nearly as powerful as old school web search and SEO.

Converting existing web users to the mobile app can be a quick and easy win and should be a key element of any brand’s mobile growth strategy. Web expansion through SEO and other similar tactics is definitely still worth doing, and in many cases a necessity to have successful app user growth.