Mobile website or app: Which is better for your business?
Source: Nash Sherchan
The one thing I always get asked about going mobile is whether a restaurant should build a mobile site or mobile app.
Before I begin telling you which one you should focus on, let's first find out the differences between them.
Mobile website
A mobile website is self explanatory. It is similar to a regular website but specifically designed for mobile phones. The contents are optimized so that they fit perfectly on those tiny screens. It is not as extensive as a regular website but has enough information to help mobile users find basic info, such as phone numbers to call with one click or maps with directions.
Also, since mobile websites can be built on Wordpress they can be optimized for search engines. What I mean by this is that by placing the proper keywords on the pages of your mobile website, they are more likely to be found by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Let's say if you're Mexican restaurant in Kansas and you place the descriptive keywords like "Mexican Restaurant in Kansas" on your mobile website it is likely that when prospective customers are searching via mobile or desktop your restaurant will be found.
Mobile app
A mobile app is a software application for smartphones. Since it's more complex than the mobile website, it can be expensive and require more technical knowledge to implement with proper execution. You can always out source this, but I'd advise you to know a little bit more about apps and how people use them and to make sure it works for your restaurant business. One disadvantage of a mobile app is that since it's an application and not a site, it's not necessarily optimized for search engines. There is a way around that, howevere. You can build a mobile website first and optimize your site for the mobile app. This allows people to find your mobile app when they discover your site.
Recommendation
Most restaurant businesses don't have the huge marketing budgets often found at large chain restaurants. Even if you have money, you wouldn't want to invest all at once on both.
If I were you, I'd first focus on a mobile website. I'd hire a firm to build a mobile site with all the online marketing integrated including email and mobile text marketing. This is vital because without a marketing system in place for capturing the leads that are your prospective customers, there is no way you can communicate with them for future restaurant promotion opportunities.
Once you have their names, emails and mobile phone numbers you have the power at a push of a button to send them email or text messages and fill up your empty seats in your restaurant on those slow Tuesday afternoons.
This will give you some time to test if your mobile website works. You'd be able to track how many customers it brings into the restaurant. If you want even more detailed info, you could send a small survey to find out if customers would usea mobile app.
Hiring an app designer
You should consider several things before choosing a company to build your app.
First, contact several app developing companies to get quotes. Not all apps developers are the same. Find those that specialize in building mobile apps for restaurants. Price may vary from company to company depending upon how fancy and feature rich you want your mobile apps to be. I'd look at a price range of $1,000-$2,500. There might be monthly fees too for maintenance and other related services.
Just building an app is not enough. You must make the app work for your restaurant. Otherwise, why would anyone build the app in the first place? Don't get into the trap where you are just building it just to look cool. Remember, you are building a mobile app so it brings more business into your restaurant.
So how do you do that?
Your app must engage your customers and make it easy to reach you. Let them contact you fast with a "click-to-call" button. Every now and then you might be able to surprise them with deals and offers. GPS capabilities will allow you to deliver mobile coupons to customers' phones when they are near your location. You can also have loyalty points integrated into mobile apps. For example, if customers check in via mobile phone they get the points that they can redeem later for free pizza or beer.
Make sure that the company you hire can deliver these features.
Do you have a mobile site or mobile app or both for your restaurant? Are they helping you to get more new customers, build raving fans and loyal customers? What are your views on mobile site or mobile app? Please share your thoughts and ideas by commenting below.
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