Native vs Progressive Web App?
In the past, you would usually have to build a native mobile app to engage your clients on a mobile device. This was and still is an expensive and long development process. You must build for multiple platforms if you want to target all mobile devices and the cost is high to build and maintain your app going forward.
There is another approach and that is by building a Progressive Web App (PWA). With a Progressive Web App you can instantly create a mobile app and deliver content directly to your customer’s devices, without needing to build a native app or sending your customers through an app store.
Deborah Meaden on BBC’s Dragon’s Den TV show recently said about Beezer.com’s Progressive Web App Builder – “I really like it and I love that it’s disruptive”. She went on to say, “At the moment, businesses don’t have a choice and they are forced between ‘Do I have an app or don’t I have an app?’ Instead of thinking, actually, there is a different way of doing this”.
How will a Progressive Web App improve customer onboarding rates?
A Progressive Web App will be delivered to a customer’s mobile phone via a simple web link. This can be shared to the customer using SMS, e-mail or social media.
When the user clicks the link, they open the app directly in the mobile’s web browser, instantly gaining access to the app, the content and its features. A user can then choose to install the app onto their homescreen. With Android, which makes up more than 70% of the Global App Market share, a PWA mobile app is installed as a first-class citizen: An app like any other on your phone, with the ability to gain App Info, view storage and data usage and of course Uninstall. Apple iOS devices have PWA support but will display notifications ‘in-app’ rather than a Push Notification in the home screen as seen on Android (even when the user doesn’t have the app open).
This means that there are less barriers and less clicks for the user to access the app, with the option of viewing and using the app BEFORE installing. The PWA typically takes less data to download than a native app and then loads further content only when you access it.
Clicking a link to a native app means you first need to select the correct link to the correct app store, view summary information about the app (whilst being distracted by adverts about other possible apps), be asked for a password if not already stored when asked to click an install button. Therefore, native apps result in customer’s dropping out of the process and therefore companies losing a significant percentage of their customers along the sign up or conversion stage.
You can see many example of how PWAs have improved the customer onboarding and conversion rates at PWA Stats.
PWAs deliver content directly to the end user across all device types and also provide rich, native-like capability such as Geolocation, Payment Gateway APIs and Offline capability which a standard mobile responsive website cannot deliver.
Now there really is ‘a different way of doing this’ (building mobile apps) and you can be part of the ‘app have’ generation rather than the ‘app have nots’.
You can see how well your PWA is working by seeing how many views, installs, and shares are happening directly in the Beezer Analytics dashboard.
Download a Beezer-built PWA to your device today to see for yourself by clicking https://tedxglasgow.beezer.com/ on your mobile device.
Sign up for a free full featured 30 day trial today to make your own PWA today. No credit card required and at the end of 30 days you will be reverted to the basic plan.
