How to Develop a Mobile App for Your Business (No Coding)
Mobile apps have become a must-have for businesses in nearly every industry. Today’s post lists six essential steps for developing a business app successfully.
Businesses must have a solid mobile presence in today’s exceedingly digitized and competitive market. Customers demand accessible, intuitive, and personalized online experiences beyond what websites can offer. With mobile apps, enterprises of all sizes can offer their target audience the convenience, value, and engagement they crave and gain a formidable edge over the competition.
Creating a mobile app (No Coding) could be very important, especially if your enterprise is a small business with minimal IT resources.
Nevertheless, with meticulous planning and execution, you can develop a world-class app that meets your needs and delights your customers.
Read on for a step-by-step guide for developing and deploying the ideal app for your business.
1. Define clear goals for your mobile app
Outlining what you aim to achieve before embarking on mobile app development may sound like an obvious first step. Still, you would be surprised at how many businesses dive in with only a vague picture of what they want their app to do.Without defined goals, it is easy to get side-tracked and end up with an app that only ticks some of the boxes. Worse still, you might waste significant time and money on ad-hoc changes that you could have avoided from the onset.
So, take some time to understand your app’s precise purpose, considering your intended app users and the pain points you intend to solve for them. This knowledge will help you create an app that fulfills its purpose effectively, rather than one with a handful of impaired functions.
2. Create a budget and timeline to design your mobile app
With a clearly defined purpose for your app, you can now assess your finances. Work with your finance team to come up with a reasonable app development budget, considering the expected ROI down the road.Standard app development costs to take into account include developers, designers, infrastructure, hosting, and maintenance. You must also factor in marketing and user acquisition expenses.
Developing a budget makes it easier to define your project’s timeline. Because you can picture how your business will support the app’s development, you can set an achievable target date for the launch.
3. Assemble your app development team
Most businesses developing their first app stumble when getting the development team together. The usual mistake is undermining the resources you need and choosing an approach that requires a complete Agile development team when you only have one or two developers.So, instead of merely tasking your staff and waiting for results, assess their capabilities to understand what they can do and what you need to outsource.
If you are a small business, your budget might not have room for third-party developers. According to a study by The Manifest, nearly half of small businesses rely on in-house staff to develop and maintain their mobile apps. Without adequate expertise, this approach often leads to a buggy end product that falls short of fulfilling its development goals.
Fortunately, a modest mobile app development budget is no longer the deterrent it was in the early days of development. Thanks to no-code app builders like iBuildApp, you can now build a high-quality business app without breaking the bank.
4. Design your app
Your App design approach depends on how you proceed in the previous step. For instance, if you have enough resources to build a custom app from the ground up, you can trust your in-house designers to design your app using the most appropriate methodology.If you go with an app builder, all you need to do is find a template that suits your business, integrate your data, and customize it. It is also essential for other stakeholders to participate during this stage to ensure their vision aligns with what the designers make. Gaining alignment helps avoid the costly and time-consuming process of changing designs after the app is complete.
5. Incorporate the key app features
Choosing the features that go into an app is another step many organizations make without much forethought. While it may be tempting to cramp in as many features as possible in your first version, this approach often adds unnecessary complications that compromise the user experience.Instead, only add the features that align with your goals. For example, your retail app only needs to facilitate online customer orders and payments. Therefore, you do not have to include a social-media type feature for customers – at least not in the first version.
An approach worth considering is starting with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which includes the bare-bone features your app needs to achieve its purpose. This strategy allows you to get your app to market quickly and make changes along the way according to user feedback.
6. Test, debug, and deploy your app
Before submitting your app for publishing, you need to do a top-down check for bugs and usability. Although your app will likely be far from perfect initially, it must still offer a fairly seamless experience. Your team needs to include a quality assurance agent who can lead continuous testing sessions and make objective improvement recommendations as each design milestone is reached.Successful apps are tested on multiple platforms to ensure the experience is the same across most, if not all, user devices. For example, you need to test your app on both iOS and Android since the two systems have different screen ratios and usability standards.
After testing and debugging your app, you can submit it for publishing on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Each platform has its rules and guidelines, with Apple being generally stricter than Google. Also, consider app store optimization (ASO), which ensures your app is highly discoverable in the stores.
Save Time and Money by Creating Your Business App with iBuildApp
A mobile app can have significant benefits for your business. It can improve customer loyalty and satisfaction, facilitate better communication between you and your customers, and boost sales. However, the results you get will depend on the quality of your app.If you are worried you may not have the financial muscle to build an app from scratch, iBuildApp is your best alternative. As one of the best no-code app builders available, iBuildApp enables anyone to create beautiful, functional apps with minimal time, effort, and cost, regardless of their coding and design abilities.
iBuildApp has an extensive library with templates for all sectors, from restaurants, dealerships, and service agencies to real-estate managers, institutions, and non-profits. Once you find the template that matches your development goals, you can use the platform to customize it to fit your brand.
Want to see first-hand what you can do with iBuildApp? Sign up for an iBuildApp account and start building your app today!
