In three years health and fitness apps had their usage grow by 330%. The popularity of digital products hands out a lot of market opportunities. Digital products, just as physical ones, provide people, your customers and you, a value. This value can be different depending on the product form and how socially or personally crucial it is for the user to own that product. As of now, people tend to put physical goods before the digital products, however, nowadays, many types of physical products are being transitioned into a virtual world as well, so it could change in the future. One of the reasons for that possibility, is that the digital product is in a way superior. For example you can not easily damage it.
What Do People Buy in a Computerized Format?
Electronic Commerce defines digital products as something you buy online, and it’s format stays electronic after a purchase, meaning in a final e-shipping phase you would download a product from a link or get it as an attachment in an e-mail to your computer. Products sold this way vary from eBooks and studies, digital art and graphics, music and videos, online courses, templates and plugins, different services to a full software. Software business is huge and very diverse, worth billions of US dollars. Investing in a digital product can be beneficial for you if you make your vision come true with the right type of software.
Web Apps
In Code & Pepper’s research, it has been found that web app is the most popular shape for the software to take, chosen by product creators. But of course, wether you should choose it or not, depends on your goals and target audience. It is said that web apps are typically good in a B2B relation, in which you offer your services to another business, rather than directly to a consumer. The main major difference between a regular website and a web app, is that that web app is interactive with broader funcionality, while the website is more informal. Because of it, it is good for B2B in a way that it helps your potential clients to keep in touch with you, fully get to know your product, and invites them to negotiate the price of your service that tends to aim higher than other business forms, as well as often such item’s price is not estimated on the web app at the start.
Is a Web App Right for You?
Obviously, just because web app is a standard choice for B2B, it is not the only thing it will do a wonderful job for. They have many more advantages such as: they are available everywhere that the Internet is, without requiring to download the app; they are accessible on all devices; or that they have tighter security than, for an instance, desktop apps, bacause they are easier to monitor. Some of disadvatages are that: the web app relies on browser technology, so you can not make the best code possible for your digital product, but you have to fit it to a certain language; also the usage of app relies on the Internet connection, so starting it is not always available. In one of our previous posts we dive into the topic of what is a web app in more detail.
Mobile Apps
Just like web apps are written in a defined code, mobile apps are as well. While the web app is corresponding to the Internet language, the mobile one has to be written for a specific platform, Android and iOS being the leading ones. Even though Android’s market share is higher, actually more apps are being developed mostly for iOS. There are other platforms such as Blackberry or Windows too. Once you analyze all markets, you will be able to predict which one, or ones, your app would bring the most value from. Talking about market, mobile apps have to be sold with the help of one, such as App Store or Google Play for example, which also links with paying those market places fees and sharing profit. When it comes to money, pricing on such apps is typically expected to either be free or low to download.
Which Way to Go with Your Mobile App?
Before you start developing such an app, you should decide the technique for it. There are two basic types: native, wirtten solely basing on the mobile OS (Operating System) and hybrid one, that combines native with web app. You can read more on that in our post about mobile development. Creating a mobile app may cost you more than making other kinds of apps, especially if you want to expand on different platforms. However, it is an investment that will let developers do the job of realizing your vision as best as they possibly can. They also load faster than web apps and allow better consumer personalization. They are promising in terms of user experience, but they take longer to get developed fully.
Desktop Apps
Desktop apps are alike to mobile apps in a way, that they both are written for a distinct computer OS (Operating System). They are the most code-complex apps, and therefore, they are able to have the best functionality and interface out of them all. Again, with Apple’s macOS being most popular to develop apps for. After dominating iOS, there is Windows, and next Linux. They all are somewhat unique, causing them to be used by different groups of people. Sometimes, an application developed for one OS is revolutionary and raises OS’s popularity and desire to use it. Such apps are generally called „killer apps”. Of course your digital product can work on many systems, but to check if it is a killer, you might want to start with just one. Especialy considering cost and hardships of desktop app development.
Should You Go for a Desktop App?
Desktop software’s price range is very wide. It can be free, but it can also cost thousands of dollars. Desktop app traffic seems to be falling down in comparison to mobile app traffic, but then again your vision might be working perfectly on a desktop. Also, you do not need to worry for mobile apps completely overtaking, because some work can only be done on a desktop app, or at least is more convenient to do so. To check out desktop app development in practice you can look through Windows guide. Desktop apps are benefiting you in being: faster in performance and secure, because the user stores data on his own computer. They can be a drawback, because: it usually depends on the user to install an update for the app, so a lot of people can miss out on new, fresh functions you would wish to impress them with, they also need a lot of storage space on the computer, unlike a web app that is stored in a Cloud.
Websites
A webpage is a great way to introduce your brand and a product to your client. Informative character of this kind of digital products, combined with good marketing and a pleasant design, leave you with an attention grabber. Important for it to bring more potencial client traffic is to take care of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which will help people find exactly what they were looking for. If you take care of your SEO, when the users ask for help to find a solution (for example via Google), which your website would provide, then it would be found thanks to using correct tags, keywords and titles. While you are introducing your product on the website, you can also link all your socials, to let your clients know they can follow your progress and stay updated, find out more about you. Another way to use a website as a marketing tool is to take your client behind the scenes of your product’s creation with a blog or perhaps a guide. Regular publishing was found to bring more traffic to your website. For example companies publishing 16+ posts a month, got 3.5 times higher traffic rating, compared to companies that were letting out 0 to 4 posts a month.
Customer First
Digital products such as websites are a very useful tool for your business, whether it is small or big. No matter where someone is in the world, there is always a chance they may come cross your webpage. It is a opportunity to attract potential clients. Costs of maintaing a website are relatively low and definitely are an investment to gather your audience. Of course, with Internet comes publicity and your customers’ opinion, which can easily threaten you. But this doesn’t mean you should delete any negative ratings! If you only have positive feedback, Google (or other serach engines) may not think your are credible. And it’s the same for your customers. It is important that you treat your customers right and always have their best experience in mind, but negative reviews are inevitable. Rather than deleting them – deal with them through great customer service! Another challenge is to creathe a both desktop and mobile friendly website, that will run on various devices to ensure that everyone who wants to use your website can actually do it and have a great experience. As Jay Acunzo says:
Actually talk to your customers. Use the language that they use. Talk about the things they talk about. Never feed salad to a lion.
Digital Products Inside Your Business
The reason why digital products are rising in popularity is their efficiency and convenience, that not only your customer can benefit from, but you and your work execution. With a fast pacing industry and a lot of tasks to complete, it can be hard to keep up. There are softwares in forms of mobile and desktop apps that will come to your rescue and make it easier. For instance – internal communication software. Once all team members have their set of assignments, there is always unexpected waiting around the corner. Someone can run into a problem which can not be fixed, and that will follow with changes in project planning. To have your work be smooth and consistent, everyone needs to communicate the progress and any obstacles that they have found along the way. Having a communication software, that all team members have access to, would prevent any confusion in such situations, because everyone gets immediately informed. Or a project management software that shows your schedule, project scope and exact progress made. Such software can be used to test the performance of your digital product or for example analyze your client base to get to know it and fulfill their needs better as well. Use software to make your efforts maximum.
How to Know if Your Vision is Right?
If you wish to check if your idea is needed on the market, you can research monthly phrase volume that is connected to your vision description. You can use Google Keyword Planner for that. It lets you compare phrases and states if the creator competition is high. You can also use tools like Ahrefs. Another way to “check” your idea is to simply ask around – ask your friends, family, make an online poll or ask people via a post on LinkedIn: what do they think about the idea, what such a digital product should do, are there similar digital products on the market? If you need help with carrying out your idea, we highly recommend our eBook on “How to Put Your Idea into Action?“. We explain there the initial stages of every project. There is also a list of handy list of questions to ask yourself before you decide to meet with a software development team.
Value: How to know if your product is good?
The first measure to a value, except the client having their thirst quenched, is UX (User Experience). It sums up all impressions the user gets while using your digital product. After the need for the product appears, your potential client will try to find a way to entertain it. If the UX is good, the product will have higher value, estimated by the user. UX basically answers the question: how usable your product is? The more wireframe and prototype testing you will put into creating your product, the better it will turn out. All layout, visual and accessibility elements are important. And as well how they do compare to competitors’ digital products.
Two Types of Value
There are two primal values: absolute and relative. Absolute value describes how precisely you have met your client’s expectations. The relative one describes the same one thing, but towards other alternate products available on the market. Everybody knows that the first impressions count. Absolute value of your product can change based on what your customer saw the product as before having used it. This creates a „perceived” value that either is lower or higher than it’s real value. Even if product’s quality is most important, if you do not advertise it well, you might not get the same good results you believed to get with your creation. Other situations that change perceived value start once the client have used the product for a while. In one case, they might have gotten used to and to know it, which makes them appreaciate the product or realize it is not that great. In the other case, it must be noted that people like options, so they might have tried a few. Comparison is in our human core of measurment. In this situation your digital product will also be rated higher or lower. Keep track on your competitors, try to find loopholes in their digital products as well as realize it’s strengths. This way you’ll know how to improve yours in an interesting way. Keep in mind the words of Philip Kotler, a great marketing author and one of the professors at the Northwestern University:
Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.
Digital Era – Digital Products
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Technology is constantly growing and the digital products market along with it. We slowly push the border between real and virtual world. We find new ways to use it: in terms of storage, creating products and online market or even voting online. Software industry is a tough one. It demands flawless analysis in order to achieve success, however it brings great revenue. Software development can be a hard nut to crack and choosing the right type of the software for your product can be testing. A good team at INVO will make sure that the option you have picked will be best for your vision and realize it to it’s best form with your help. We hope to achieve teamwork between you and us and cooperate on the journey to your product’s success. While you are investing in the digital products, you are investing in the future. Perhaps your product will hold the biggest part of market share one day. As the author of “Permission Marketing”, Seth Godin, says:
Content that builds trust is human, personal, and relevant. It isn’t greedy, and it doesn’t trick people. If the recipient knew what the sender knows, would she still be happy? If the answer to that question is yes, then it’s likely it’s going to build trust.
