To do this you’d usually have to hire someone to design and develop a mobile app of your business.  This means creating one mobile app for Android devices and another for Apple.  That can get expensive.

But there is another way that’s quick, easy—and free—for your customers’ phones, regardless of whether it’s an Android or Apple device.

How?  Read on.  Plus, more importantly, you’ll also find out how to best use your business app to generate repeat business for you!
 

Turning Your Website into a Mobile Business App

People know to see your website on their phone they just have to type in your website’s address on their phone’s browser.

What they may not know is they can easily create a shortcut of your website to their phone’s home screen from the browser.

Once they do this, they can conveniently tap your website shortcut to view it without having to type in your address each time.

You can show interested customers how to do this by sharing the following instructions below.

For Apple devices, they just:

1. Open the Apple Safari Browser and type your business’ website address.
2. Look for an arrow pointing up from a box icon at the bottom middle of the Safari window (see images below).  Tap on that icon.
3. Next, scroll down until you see “Add to Home Screen”, about 8 rows down, tap on it and then tap “Add” to create and place the shortcut onto your phone or tablet’s home screen.

Here’s a video that shows you how to do the above in a genealogy context, but it applies here as well:

 
For Android devices, it’s even simpler to create a business app of your website:

1. People type your website address into the Chrome Browser.
2. Next, they click on the menu in the upper right hand corner of the browser and
3. choose “Add to Home Screen” in the drop down that appears. This creates and places the shortcut onto their home screen.  Here’s a video of these steps:

For Amazon Fire Tablets, the process is likely similar on Amazon’s default Silk Browser.
 

How to Use the App to Market & Generate Repeat Business

You may be asking yourself why would people go to the trouble of creating an app of your website on their mobile devices?

You will likely have to make it worth their while; reward them to create an app of your website by:

• Giving them a one-time discount once they show you they have created an app of your business on their phones and tablets and then
• Also, give them their own “insider” coupon code that gives them a discount on any future orders they place from your business app.  This incentivizes them to keep and use your app.

*Note, to carry the above out, this assumes your website has online ordering capability. Adding online ordering to your present website can easily be done.  You can read about adding ecommerce to your website here.

If your business model allows for online ordering, this is a great way to increase customer loyalty and repeat business.

For example, you can see the coupon code in action by trying out this online demo ordering link for restaurants (opens in a new window).  Click through to Checkout and you’ll see where your customers would enter their coupon code to apply a discount to their order.

What do you think of this unique strategy?   Feel free to comment below.  Welcome your feedback.

if you find this article helpful and know someone who would benefit from it, please share it with them. I appreciate it and thank you for reading this article to the very end.  I wish you the best in applying this mobile business app strategy.