Is there an app for knowing if you need an app?

Apps are the rage. Downloads have gone from zero to two billion in one year. You now have a choice of more than 85,000 apps for your iPhone – and they’re growing almost exponentially.

For marketers apps can be a boon. Even if the application itself doesn’t lead to a sale, it’s a great way to advertise. Your customers or prospects have already taken the step to download your app, and they’re engaged – whether focusing on the task in hand or forwarding it to a friend.

To app or not to app?

So how do you know if you should app, or not? Should you jump in so you’re not left in the dust?

The answer, as you might expect, is “it depends.” Success stories abound, but not by chance. If you decide to app, keep these criteria in mind. They’re what we’re hearing from the Field:

• Keep it simple. Even if your app can spin straw into gold, if it isn’t intuitive, no one will download it or use it.
• Solve real-world problems – or entertain. Come up with something in your customer’s daily life that they couldn’t live without. Or entertain them in a way that becomes addictive.
• Make sure they come back. An app that’s one-and-done isn’t an app. Come up with something they’ll use and reuse.
• Tie it to the medium. Take advantage of the smart phone technology that’s already there. Link your app to the address book, calendar, GPS, camera or video recorder. Or how about the iPhone’s Accelerometer? It engages “shake functionality,” for playing games or exchanging address books.
• Don’t make your app a mini-website. You want something that plays well to portability, quick access and even impulse. Anybody can download a website.
• Innovate. First-mover advantage counts for a lot. Unless your mousetrap is clearly better, break out from what’s been done.
• Imitate only if you can improve. If the power of your brand can trump the first mover, go for it, but only if you’ve really made your app as good or better. (Go to the Apple Store to search by content.)
• Be excellent; then extend. Your app will be among some pretty smart company, and savvy users. Make sure it excels, or don’t bother with it, or its next iteration.
• Invest. Apps for $5,000 a pop? Not quite – for a quality app, expect to invest at least 15 times that to do it right.

We can help. Got an idea for an app? We can help you build it. Got an open mind? We’ll come to you with ideas for your next app.

Or be in touch and we’ll share with you Mobile Apps, A First Look, our backgrounder on the state of app development today.