What are the most effective ways to use mobile apps for business expansion?

I remember a case 10 years ago when I was responsible for Internet Banking for small banks, we had 14 investment banks using it then. iPhone was launched 3 years before, when I had an HTC smartphone with Windows Mobile 6, it was a very niche-specific use case for smartphones, but after 3 years, every businessperson owned an iPhone or other smartphone variants. Here comes the sad episode, that Internet Banking solution had 15 years of existence, with legacy technologies all around. I realized that it was urgent to create an app for it, the target audience of those investment banks was people who between flights (sometimes in their out planes or helicopters) and negotiation meetings, wanted to check their investments. It wasn't possible!

Okay, you had that 15yo legacy Internet Banking solution, and now Mobile First is the law. How to get started??? That reminds me of some already old-fashioned artifacts and tools from methodologies such as design thinking, digital marketing, value stream mapping and others. The. Client. Journey. Yes! That old friend that we still use in Marketing and Sales strategies. When your end-user is Offline, makes sense to bring him online and see something urgent? When your user is already online, which relevant information is he seeking? Remember that it must be a special thing, we are living in the "sorry, I have no time, friend" era, respect your user's time and attention, don't make him stop for nothing important, or he'll hate you for it.

Launching a mobile app is at the same time a great opportunity for your company to shine, or to miserably fail. Not planning well your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and taking too seriously the "Minimum" portion of the methodology, can be extremely frustrating for your users. Time-to-market is important and multiple, frequent releases will help you to test scenarios, get user feedback, and achieve the so-desired fail-fast, fail-cheap environment, but... Not starting with a solid foundation base, with features that really matter and the ones that are "obvious" and already expected from the client side when we talk about the mobile experience, can ruin your quest. On App Stores, it is easy to drop ratings and hard to raise them! Careful!

Mobile apps are one of the single most powerful channels a brand can bring their customers in to. But how does that brand drive that download in the first place? QR codes can be incredible powerful tool in that regard. Whether it is on product packaging, advertising, socials, or retail, a brand can gather vast data once the user downloads the app. And in the process, they are able to drive higher brand loyalty, offer personalization, and accelerate sales because of that deeper customer + brand connection.

Before thinking about promoting your mobile app, and of course, before thinking about money, make sure it works and mitigates your user's pains or accomplishes his objectives. Many companies launch mediocre apps and invest heavily in advertising, sometimes even misleading, demonstrating features that don't exist in the app, or promising to solve problems that they don't solve. They may grow fast at first, but after a while, the damage is done and usually, it is too late to repair your reputation. If your company does that "launch fast, grow fast, profit fast, die fast, repeat" strategy for living, I'm sorry for you. Most companies' reality is that they want to build something solid and evergreen, it requires massive planning!

From my experience and practicality, I think the most important aspects to have a successful mobile app is to make it scalable and able to integrate with other platforms. Inteoperapability between tools nowadays are expanding in amazing way and they complement each other in some ways.

Talking again about Omnichannel, it is not only for outside the company, but most importantly, for inside the company! How many systems do you have? CRMs? Messaging? Loggins? does your mobile app integrate and bring the full experience that is expected from the user/client/customer? Your app will be the kind that frustrates or the kind that surprises your user? When we talk about a market that is based on over 70% of purchases being accomplished on mobile devices, I would be worried at it. Soooo.... Integrate your mobile app with all the other upstream and downstream systems that you have that are interesting and desired from your clients, or.... Die in the infinite hole of haters users, who will write extensive, detailed, bad reviews.

I remember when I was a Windows Mobile OS 5 user, and Apple launched the never-before-seen iPhone device. I owned an HTC Touch device, with 3G, dual-chip, memory extension, and Bluetooth for both audio and file transfer capabilities. But Apple was convinced that this iPhone thing, with half of my HTC's skills/technologies, and with almost no app on their app store, was going to be the revolution for smartphones, the game changer. They were right. I never bought an iPhone or a MacBook for myself, I was using them because my company was providing me those as a tool for my job. After some years, I have doubts about replacing my MacBook with other market products. How much does your customer measure you, and by which variables?

Think further, when the market started to focus on mobile devices, mobile tools, and mobile apps, half of us were only skeptical about this movement. Technology and Innovation are unstoppable, no matter what you do, no matter what the government does, no matter anything, it. will. happen. "ohhhhh what about the jobs? the families?" Yes... that's the sad part of innovation, technology and, why not, apps. They replace and automate people's activities and daily repetitive routines, what should we do with that? That's one of my main life purposes, "Responsible Innovation", how can we do innovation and at the same time, consider the human being as one of its main powers and drivers? Make sure that you have the correct strategy and people.