Poised as the Silicon Valley of the East, Raleigh has become a hotspot for local businesses to start their digital transformation journey.
In recent years, North Carolina is getting serious about becoming America’s next technology and innovation hub. The tech wave has led local businesses in Raleigh to quickly adopt custom mobile app development and stay ahead of their competition. And, many of them have been pretty successful.
So, in this blog, we will be discussing how businesses in Raleigh are driving success through mobile apps, along with some examples and case studies.
How Are Mobile Apps Helping Businesses Thrive in Raleigh?
Mobile and web applications can highly impact the success of your business. They can help you increase business productivity, employee performance, boost marketing efforts, and much more. It’s no wonder why many businesses are opting for custom mobile apps these days.
Here’s how developing a business mobile app is helping businesses thrive in Raleigh.
1. Improved Customer Engagement
Failing to engage local customers is one of the common business bottlenecks. Whether you are selling groceries or healthcare services, you want your customers to find your products and services in the simplest way possible.
Having a mobile app can do just that.
With a custom mobile app, you can keep your customers engaged and stay on top of their minds. You have to think from your customers’ perspective, how they prefer communicating, via text or phone, and add those features in your app.
An enterprise mobile app can increase customer engagement and retention in many ways. You also use your app to get feedback, reviews, and crucial insights on customer behavior.
What’s more? You can use push and in-app notifications to remind users of your latest offerings and important company updates.
2. Local Branding
A mobile app can help businesses improve their brand awareness in the market. You can create an app with user-centric design and with consistent colors to reinforce your branding. To drive more engagement, you can also use infographics and other graphics materials that are trending locally.
When customers get used to your line of thought and services, it can improve trust in your business. The more engaging your app, the more it creates anticipation. Customers will wait for your sales pitches and even commit to your brand.
Think for a moment—how random memorabilia like calendars with the company logo helped serve as an advertisement and increased awareness. Your mobile apps can do more than the traditional methods of reaching out to customers. Your services will always be just a click away, and that’ exactly what businesses need!
3. Building Leadership in Local Market
A mobile app is a useful tool to build recognition and business leadership in your local market. Mobile apps can help you to get noticed and reach out to thousands of people at the same time.
What’s the underlying strategy?
The secret mantra is “effective frequency.”
As a rule of thumb, when your customers hear and see your brand (maybe approximately 20 times), you start getting the recognition. It can eventually help your business establish a strong presence and become a leader in your industry.
The more often you get customers involved with your app, you will find that they are more ready to buy your products and services.
4. Cultivate Customer Loyalty
Local businesses face a lot of competition. With a lot of online and offline marketing, customers face an intense amount of advertising.
A mobile app that’s just a fingertip away can help you stay closer to your customers. It can help you increase customer loyalty as well.
To incorporate unique features in your mobile app that can keep your users wanting more, you can always hire an expert app development agency such as Imaginovation. We help local businesses in Raleigh build high-performance apps.
(PS. Keep reading to find interesting case studies of how businesses have driven success with mobile apps we developed.)
5. Expand Your Reach
Mobile apps can help reach out to more customers. You can use the mobile app as an omnichannel marketing platform to expand reach.
With mobile apps, you can implement integrated marketing techniques, such as special promos, personalized discounts, and referral commissions.
Users typically enjoy promos such as referral rewards and other perks, which makes them influencers. The most powerful voice is that of your customers engaged with your app.
6. Stand Out from the Competition
Forward-thinking organizations always keep customers at the heart of everything. When you offer a mobile app that keeps your customers delighted, you can stand out from the fray.
The unique features and offerings can help your business succeed. However, not all companies take advantage of their mobile apps. So, if you can make your first steps in using mobile apps as a marketing and sales tool, your business becomes more resilient.
7. Track Valuable Analytics
One of the most beneficial facets of your mobile app is tracking valuable business analytics. You can track impressions, click-through-rates, conversions, and much more. In simple words, you can track how many people visited your app and what actions did they take at each step.
The insights can help you tweak your business marketing strategy to enhance user experience. It can help you designed more personalized marketing strategies that can ultimately lead to success. Personalization can also build trust and confidence in your brand, leading to loyalty.
Let’s take an example. You can focus on the products that your customers buy the most or how much time they spend on the app. You may also try and look at the most used and least popular functions. Based on this data, you can create an exceptional customer journey and improve the way users interact with your app.
The key is to improve the customers’ pain points and help your local businesses thrive in Raleigh. Click To TweetLearning From the Brands That Gained Business Success through Mobile Apps
Whether you are a business unicorn or a high-performing organization, you can offer improved customer experience through a mobile app. It’s best to look at brands that launched mobile apps and gained success.
1. Under Armour
Under Armour, Inc. is an American company that manufactures sports and casual accessories. The company found success through investing in the mobile space.
Under Armour invested around $150 million on the exercise app MapMyFitness in November 2013. Established today as a lifestyle and fitness brand, the team can align itself with the most popular fitness apps. They also have over 100,000 new users per day.
2. Starbucks
myStarbucks app was launched in 2009. The application can allow users to locate nearby coffee shops, types of coffee brews, and even suggest their preferences.
Starbucks has increased its digital presence, and customers benefit from the ease of use. The innovative mobile strategy has helped Starbucks with increased revenue and more.
3. McDonald’s
McDonald’s is famous for its interaction with customers. The American fast-food company leveraged its mobile app and also used Instagram to keep customers informed and engaged.
McDonald’s has a plethora of mobile marketing campaigns that serve different business goals. The company has a strong Instagram presence. They also effectively use a ton of user-generated content that has a significant impact on customers.
Note that although Starbucks and McDonald’s are big brands, custom mobile apps have helped them leverage local markets more efficiently.
Raleigh Businesses Driving Success Through Mobile Apps—Case Studies
Let’s take a look at some case studies now. We will take a look at two businesses that approached the Imaginovation team to build their mobile apps.
Let’s find out how expert app developers at Imaginovation set out to turn challenges into engaging user experiences.
1. Curating Valuable Fitness Journeys with STRIVE App
Picture this—you are a young mom who needs to take care of meal planning, workout routines, etc. A fitness app would be a blessing, wouldn’t it?
The Strive app is a fantastic success story. The app basically helps you with your fitness goals. It’s a brainchild of Megan Ewoldsen, who is a well-known fitness expert in Raleigh, NC.
Megan partnered with April Shine, a food blogger, and nutritionist and they looped in the Imaginovation team to build their app.
The Expectations
Megan wanted a fitness app that was very distinct and flexible. She states, “They [Imaginovation] had to translate everything I wanted.” (Source)
So what was everything?
An array of App Feature Expectations
- A fully-fledged system for uploading/playing videos
- Managing thousands of users
- Managing meal plan recommendations on a basis that’s person-to-person
- High app performance and intuitive
- A three-tiered subscription system that could be integrated with in-app purchases
- Give users access to specific features
- Free trial option to users
The Strategy
Imaginovation’s creative team got together to design the application that keeps users at the heart of everything. The team wanted users to find the app intuitive, with zero confusion when navigating through the array of features.
They came up with an app interface that was smooth and had fast screen loading times. The team curated the app using technologies, such as Swift, Java, PHP, and more.
The Outcome
The app turned out to one of a kind!
It has thousands of users, hundreds of workout videos, a caloric intake calculator, Spotify player integration, and a local music library player. The admin can log into a web-based interface and start uploading workout videos.
Other admin features include customized meal plans and recipes, managing users on a personal basis, and much more. The result—a fantastic end-user experience.
Key Highlights
- Mobile-first development (Admin Panel/Portal)
- Intuitive and navigable interface
- A sleek and modern color palette
- To display content in the app, complete customization from the back web interface
Client Speaks
Megan Ewoldsen said, “I liked their design…They [Imaginovation] made it come to life, and it is pretty awesome.” (Source)
2. The Winning Scavenger Behavior Story
Imagine—savoring the best burgers in the East or a vegan cuisine in the West. When you have cravings, a mobile app for on-the-go food truck services can help.
So, next time you want to enjoy the best possible food truck experience—think Scavenger Behavior.
The Problem
The customer came to Imaginovation after years of working on an app with another vendor with no success. That vendor offered no support and built an unfinished product, even after significant investment.
The Next Steps
Imaginovation’s unique Discovery process with the client brought out a timely and affordable proposal. Not only the client’s expectations were met, but also exceeded expectations.
The Strategy
Imaginovation team analyzed the existing app. They found that the app needs to be re-built from scratch, including the designs. As an expert app developer, the team knew that the app features needed to be simple for the app’s initial release (aka Minimum Viable Product).
The group recommended designing apps with simplicity in mind and walked the client through the excellent yielding features for the initial launch. The technologies used included AWS, Java, React Native for iOS and Android, and more.
The Solution
The client had already lost a lot of time during the process with the old vendor. So, the team wanted to go to the market quickly. How the team handled the scenario?
They broke the app down to core modules where people could order food trucks. Next, food trucks could get their money straight into their bank account. Finally, the client could get his cut of the transaction to generate revenue for the business.
The Results
The app started generating revenue for the business. The client gained a 3000% increase in user growth within the first month of launching the app. The client also saw a 100% increase in revenue growth within the first month of launching the app.
Client Speaks
Max Hinton said, “Imaginovation doesn’t sell dreams, they build them.”
There’s nothing more powerful than client and user stories. It’s empowering to find out how you can drive success through custom mobile apps. It’s time you start journeying on your own success story and transform your dreams into digital realities.
Boost Your Local Business with Powerful Mobile App
It’s your turn now.
The mobile ecosystem is a unique landscape for you to explore your marketing opportunities. We at Imaginovation have helped many businesses in Raleigh to create powerful app solutions.
If you want to build a custom mobile app for your business but not sure where to start, get in touch with us. We have designed an in-depth Discovery process to perform research on your ideas and help you turn them into a digital reality.
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