Why Mobile Apps are the New Coin of the Realm for Busy Brands

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The most important real estate in the world is no longer owned by Donald Trump. You are holding it in your hand. Well most of you are.

Mobile phone saturation has arrived, regardless of the county, culture or demographics. They are embedded in our lives and an integral part of any marketer's digital reach and strategy.

First, the cold hard facts, mobile usage grew 25 percent last year and penetration around the world is at 50 percent and growing rapidly. It's estimated by 2017 more than one third of the global population will be smartphone users. And, we have over 7 billion mobile phones in use today.

Today's consumers can't seem to "experience" anything valuable without capturing it via an image or video, texting about it immediately or talking about it.

Mobile Phone Apps Drive Brand Awareness with Millennials

In today's world, the small screen is the biggest challenge for grabbing and keeping a millennial's attention. No offense meant, but if these people are using a smartphone in the shower or anywhere else (let your imagination run wild) where they can hold it with one hand, your brand has to be on their phones to get their attention.

Bandwidth on phones for most is no longer an issue and the vast majority of 18-34 year olds use their phones to watch video. To many it's less distracting than watching conventional TV and YouTube is no longer an afterthought, it's now an entertainment and educational channel rolled into one and second nature to most.

And, for many millennials, home is no longer the only place where they watch video, over 34% of mobile video was watched while consumers were somewhere outside of the home.

Why Branded Mobile Applications are a Must

Your web site is competing with billions of other pages and sites. Remember Netscape? Well, your website is now competing with 20 years of legacy information and in spite of what SEO firms tell you, it's incredibly hard to get heard. Not impossible certainly, just hard. A mobile phone app is a great adjunct to web site or social media marketing.

Finding a mobile app development company is not a challenge. There are lot's of vendors in this niche; but, know going in mobile app development requires a great User Interface, attention to detail in the imagery, having an integrated and compelling reason why a distracted user should use your app and then marketing it aggressively.

We Americans think the world maps to us, our culture and more. It does not. Today, the average U.S. household has a computer of some type; but, for many around the world outside the U.S. the smartphone is their only and most reliable device for communications, connectivity and more. A mobile apps gives you entree into the global market.

Designing for the web using HTML code is fraught with peril. Most web sites will work on a smartphone, but whether or not they look good or engage the user is another story. A mobile phone is a completely tailored user experience that is defined by your brand the the firm you hire for the development.

As earlier in this post, PC/Mac usage is dropping here in the U.S. The latest figures show approximately 55 percent of users access the web via mobile versus 45 percent via a dedicated computer. If you are not marketing to the majority of consumers with an app of some type here in the U.S. you are missing a significant opportunity for brand reach.