With the increasing popularity of mobile marketing, companies are developing mobile app and mobile sites to attract clients. Apart from adopting unique strategies to be successful in mobile marketing, it is necessary to analyze mobile apps and sites of competitors. Assessing competitor’s apps and mobile sites help to determine whether similar apps can be beneficial to the company or if any improvements are required in the existing apps or mobile sites of the company.
Here are some important factors that should be analyzed while assessing the mobile channel effectiveness of competitors:
- Functionality: Functionality is the app's ability to meet the needs of the customers. It also refers to whether the app is being used to purchase or deliver a product, or if it is intended to support a product or service. For instance, if a company is providing personal transportation services, then its app should enable the customers to book for personal transport. Hence, it is necessary to test the functionality of the app before making it live. Checking the functionality of the competitor’s app also helps to get new ideas that may be lacking in the company’s app.
- User interface: This factor refers to the quality of design, ease of navigation and responsiveness of the app. It is important to assess these features of a competitor’s app. Even if an app is functioning well, if its graphic quality is low, the site is slow, navigation is not intuitive then the users may abandon the site or app.
- Search rank: It is important to assess the search rank ofthe competitor’s app. A higher rank indicates a high level of popularity. If the app is more visible, then the number of downloads of that app is generally high.
- Number of downloads: The number of downloads depends on a number of factors Such as search rank in the mobile app store, the promotion effort and marketing spend, accessibility, popularity, the quality of the site from which customers download the app. A high number of downloads indicates more reach.
- Reviews: Good reviews of the competitor’s app indicate that the customers like the app. A detailed study of the competitor’s app provides valuable insights into the app from the customer’s perspective. It enables you to understand the strength and weakness of the app and can be helpful in developing a competing app in the future.
In this digital era, generally people prefer to search for products or services online and often search for apps related to that particular product. Mobile apps and sites are considered to be powerful tools to reach target audience. Hence, it is necessary to consider all factors, including competitor’s app to attract customers in numerous ways.
