Apps are everywhere and it seems there is an announcement of a new restaurant app weekly for both national and regional brands.
See how the statistics on apps add up:
- There are over 2.2 million apps available on the IOS marketplace and over 3 million Android Apps on Google Play
- “Games” are the most popular app download category ranging from 21-25% of the market share
- The average user will only use 9 phone apps per day
- $60 – average hourly rate charged by professional app developers
- 131 – average amount of hours to develop a successful app
- Too Many – amount of individual restaurant apps
After years of customers attempting to recite coffee drinks with more modifications than ingredients, Starbucks decided a mobile app would help make ordering simpler. The customers who downloaded the app received perks such as quick ordering, gift card/loyalty card storage, and mobile payment options. While customer after customer downloaded their app, Starbucks received endless data on customer trends and engagement. Seems like a win-win scenario. This led many smaller restauranteurs to wonder: Does my concept need a stand-alone app?
The simple answer is No. Consider the stats presented above. The average cost for a presentable v1.0 app (first version app) is $7,860. After the money is spent on app development and testing, restaurants then must compete for screen-time with the millions of other apps available to consumers. Often, customers will download a restaurant’s app while inside the restaurant and never reopen it again. The next time the customer’s memory is running low, restaurant apps are among the first to be purged from users’ phones, leaving the restaurant with a hole in its budget and very little return on the investment.
What is a viable solution to remain relevant on customers’ smart phones and increase traffic to a restaurant’s website? Mobile Optimized Websites.
Mobile Optimized Websites enable customers to view your website on their smartphone or tablet without the clutter of a desktop version. Yes, the beautiful flash graphics you scrutinized and edited look beautiful on a laptop or desktop, but mobile users want streamlined content that is easy to navigate. When a customer Googles “restaurants near me” and your site pops up, a long load time or difficulty located a menu will almost immediately end in the user tapping the “back” button and finding a different restaurant.
Mobile Optimized Websites should feature larger, clearly labeled buttons guiding potential customers to the most sought-after information: “About Us,” Reservations, Menus, Address and Hours, and Contact Information. By slimming a website down, a restaurant reduces the percentage of users who give up on the site and look for other dining options. This is also a much more cost-efficient method of bringing a concept to mobile devices than investing thousands in a mobile app that most users view only once and remove from their devices as soon as they need extra space for the newest version of Angry Birds.
To find more information on transforming your digital presence into a sales building tool, email Goliath Consulting at GetResults@GoliathConsulting.com and visit our website goliathconsulting.com.