Why Should a Health and Fitness Business Develop a Mobile App?

The demand for health and fitness mobile apps has been steadily increasing. In this article, you’ll find a list of reasons that might convince you to build your own.

If you run a health and fitness business, you should consider building a mobile app for it. You’ll need to allocate a budget for your app, find experienced developers and control them. Once the app is ready, you should maintain it, update it and provide fresh content. All your efforts and expenses should pay off rather quickly — read this article to know-how!

Thanks to the App, You’ll Raise Your Brand Awareness.

This is one of the primary reasons why health and fitness businesses resort to mobile app development services today. Users will see your app’s logo on their smartphone displays every day. The surrounding people will also see that logo when looking over their shoulders. App stores will suggest your app to users who will be searching within the Health and Fitness category. Bloggers and media will share ratings of top apps of this segment. By building an app, you launch an ongoing advertising campaign for your business.

The App Will Help You to Attract New Customers

You might try to offer a referral program to your app’s users. This is just an example of how it might work.

1. A user generates a unique invitation link in their profile in your app.
2. The user shares this link among their friends, colleagues, and family members.
3. When new users sign up for your app using that link, the person who invited them receives a bonus.

Otherwise, you might offer group discounts for users. Such promotions are viral among fitness clubs: you bring a friend with you, and if you both buy a membership, you get a considerable discount. You can invent offers of this sort for your app’s users.

You’ll Increase Your Income.

These are the most common monetization strategies for fitness and health mobile apps:

• Ads
• In-app purchases
• Paid subscriptions
• Premium statuses

If you want your app to show ads, you might consider connecting it to an ads network. Users who purchase a premium status might be able to turn off the ads. Also, premium clients might access other perks, such as secret sales, contests, or lotteries.

Paid subscriptions are optimal for apps where you regularly upload fresh content, such as yoga video lessons, music for meditation, or video recipes for those who want to use weight. Some part of the content should be available for free so that users can assess its quality.

As for in-app purchases, you might either sell your goods and services or team up with some other brands. In the latter case, you’ll get a commission from every purchase.

User Experience Will Improve

Unlike a site, a mobile app can work offline. Users might watch videos, compile checklists and carry out other tasks while being disconnected from the Internet.

Compared to sites, apps offer better personalization. They remember users’ behavior and come up with intelligent suggestions. They can identify the user’s location in real-time and provide geography-specific content.

Apps work faster than websites. Users tend to spend more time in an app rather than on a website.

Your app can utilize features of a mobile device that a website lacks — such as a camera, contact list, GPS, accelerometer, compass, phone calls, and so on.

Last but not least, if you build an app, that would raise your business’ prestige and accentuate your ability to keep up with the times. And if you lack an app, your clients might think, “Your competitors have apps, so why don’t you build one? Maybe, you lack funds, or you’re too conservative?”…

You’ll Be Able to Send Push Notifications to Users.

This is one of the best tools for increasing your customers’ loyalty. Notifications can inform users about the following events.

• It’s time to take medicine or go to sleep.
• An item that the user has marked as their favorite is back on sale
• A sale has just started
• The fitness trainer that the user follows has just uploaded new content
• And so on

Users should be able to adjust the settings of push notifications. For instance, they might agree to receive no more than two notifications per day, only from 8 am till 9 pm.

You Can Provide Customer Support Through the App

Users should be able to get in touch with your support team through the app’s interface, using the following communication channels:

• Phone
• Live chat
• Email
• A fill-in form where they can leave their queries

Of course, clients who haven’t installed your app should be able to contact you too. But if they do so from the app, they will be more likely to check the new content, get to know about your special offers, make a purchase, and so on. Besides, it might be more convenient to systematize and analyze the queries that you receive through the app.

The App Is Indispensable for Gathering Feedback

You might allow users to share their opinions not only about the app but about other aspects of your business as well, such as:

• The quality of your goods and services
• Payments
• Delivery
• Customer support
• And so on

Users should rate a particular aspect (for instance, 1-5 stars) and leave a text review. You’ll be able to use this information to improve your business and get an additional competitive edge. You won’t need to conduct costly polls or marketing research because your clients will be ready to provide their opinions for free.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this article came in handy, and now you better understand why a health and fitness business might need a mobile app. The app will raise your brand awareness and will help you to attract new clients. You’ll be able to gather feedback, improve customer experience and boost your income. The competition in this market segment has been growing steadily over the past few years — so the sooner you introduce your app to your audience, the more you should benefit from it.