Businesses today have a lot to think about.
The modern economy is no longer a local one, but a global one.
That means, pretty much no matter what goods or services you sell, you’re influenced by what’s going on around the world.
And what’s been going on around the world lately has been uniquely challenging for businesses.
Pandemics and conflicts? Supply chain shortages.
Stimulus-focused government policies aiming to raise countries out of spending lulls? High demand in a time when you may already be struggling with supply.
Simultaneous (and huge) interest rate increases to dampen the resulting rocketing inflation? Now the supplies you can get your hands on cost 3x as much!
Indeed, being in business is tricky business right about now.
Surely you’ve been brainstorming ideas for keeping your business profitable in these trying times. But allow us to introduce a creative tactic you might not have considered yet: building a no-code app.
Intrigued?
Then keep reading to learn all about:
All the ways in which businesses can benefit from having apps
The no-code revolution that’s making building business apps more attainable than ever
Why no-code apps are the best way to go for businesses that aren’t in the tech space
How to build the flexible, affordable app your business needs using Glide’s no-code platform
Why Might My Business Need an App?
We think all businesses can benefit from having an app — especially now that app building and maintenance are becoming more attainable than ever (more on that later!).
Here are some of the leading ways in which businesses can benefit from having their own mobile and/or web-based apps.
To Engage Customers and Leads Where They Already Are — On Apps
Chances are, the customers you already have and all the leads you want to convert are using apps — often.
The average adult in the U.S. spends around four hours per day using the internet on their smartphone. A whopping 88% of those hours are spent within mobile applications. In addition, 83% of tablet time is spent using apps. And these numbers don’t even take into account all the apps folks are using at home and at work on their laptops and desktop devices!
If you believe your target audience is made up of folks who use apps quite often — and chances are, it is — and it makes sense for what you’re selling, why not develop an app to engage with your shoppers where they already spend their time?
When you have a strong presence where your audience already is, you’ll be more available when they have customer service needs and top of mind when they’re shopping for something in particular.
To Improve Customer Service With a Self-Serve Channel
To build upon that last point:
No, you’re not leaving your customers out in the cold when you enable them to take customer service needs into their own hands.
Why?
Because the majority of people (73%) want to try to solve issues on their own before contacting companies!
Today’s typical consumer connects with customer service 65 times every year. By putting an app at their fingertips that makes solving most of their issues achievable, you’ll not only be delivering a user experience they find pleasant — you’ll also be saving time and money as your customer service agents focus on issues that actually require their expertise.
To Create an Especially Effective Owned Marketing Channel
In addition to giving your audience the information they need to answer their own questions, an app also gives you the chance to get in front of them with some other valuable information about sales, promotions, new offerings, and other marketing messaging.
If a customer has already committed to engaging with your business via an app, chances are they’re at least somewhat interested in hearing from you when it comes to your marketing campaigns.
Of course, that doesn’t mean spamming them with notifications — that would have the opposite effect. Remain thoughtful about asking them to opt-in to any data tracking, push notifications, and marketing messages. And use that personalized data when possible to make sure this marketing is as customized as it can be. In 2022, 62% of consumers report being less loyal to brands that don’t personalize their experience.
To Automate and Streamline Internal Operations
We should note here that not all business apps are consumer-facing.
Today, apps are being implemented across industries to digitalize and streamline records, automate and manage workflows, improve internal communications — especially in businesses that have gone remote, reduce instances of human transcription errors, disseminate company information more effectively, and more.
But even when your apps are internal-facing, they still impact consumers: better processes mean faster service and lower overhead — the benefits of which you can pass on to buyers.
For the above reasons and beyond, startups and established businesses alike are adopting apps to connect with consumers in a modern and meaningful way.
But how are they finding the time and the resources to create engaging apps? That’s next.
What’s No-Code App Development?
It’s no surprise that almost 80% of small businesses outsource web and mobile app development.
However, a fact that’s a little harder to accept is the average amount of money these businesses are shelling out for their apps.
The average cost of having an app built in 2022 is $150,000.
Wow!
That’s a lot. Yet, it’s still not quite as much as a business would pay to hire a full-time developer and design pro to take months building a custom, traditional app.
Back when these were the only options, businesses were stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to building the apps they needed.
But today, there is another, better option: no-code app development.
As you likely know, the traditional approach to application development requires keeping on top of operating systems and programming languages — JavaScript, PHP, HTML, and so on. Something that, for the most part, only professional developers have the time to do. This meant that, even for a simple app, businesses needed to hire a developer or agency with development capabilities to make their dreams come true.
Costing, of course, thousands of dollars and lots of time — and requiring a retainer for upkeep and codebase maintenance.
It’s this pain point that the no-code app development process was born to solve.
No-code application development platforms do exactly what they say on the tin. With one of these software platforms, people who don’t have any programming skills can still build mobile and web apps to help solve their business needs.
Most no-code app-building solutions enable users to start with their own data + pre-made templates, which can be customized to match your ideal functionality and look. They also often integrate with third-party tools to further increase features. Maintenance is built in and, best of all, you get to pick the pricing tier that makes the most sense for your needs and budget.
No-code app development is the solution for modern business owners and leaders who require professional-grade apps with reasonable pricing and maintenance requirements.
See The No-Code App Creation Process in Action with Glide
Let’s take a peek at Glide, for example.
Glide is a no-code platform that can turn anyone and everyone at your business into citizen developers — aka people with little or no coding experience who use software approved by their IT manager to create apps that solve business problems.
Here’s how to use Glide to create a no-code app in no time:
1. Sign Up and Add Your Business Data
It’s free to sign up and get started with Glide.
Once you’ve created your account, you can create iOS and Android apps with the Glide Apps platform. Or, build websites and web applications using the Glide Pages platform.
The first thing you’ll notice is how easy Glide makes the spreadsheet-to-app conversion process.
Want to build an app based on employee, product, customer, or other data you already use every day? Once you create a new project in Glide, you’ll be able to import an Excel worksheet, Google Sheet, or Airtable Table full of your own data. Glide will build out the back-end structure and functionality of your app using this information.
Need to add, remove, or change data? No problem — that’s where Glide’s open source Data Editor comes in. Edits to your app made in the Data Editor will be reflected in the original data source in real-time, and vice versa. This is how you ensure your new business app remains the most trustworthy source of truth for your company.
2. Choose and Customize Your App Template
You can also choose to start building your no-code app in Glide via a template.
Glide’s templates come pre-loaded with dummy data in the Data Editor that you can swap out for your own once you’ve seen how it all works together. Change up app pages, screen components, data sources, and more with the easy drag-and-drop user interface in the Layout portion of Glide’s app editor.
And to make the front-end look and feel more like your own, switch over to the Settings tab to add your app name and icon, change colors and fonts, and customize important features like privacy controls, terms and conditions, and more.
3. Integrate to Power Up Your Functionality
Also in the Settings tab is Glide’s Integration option.
Here is where you can do things like connect your Excel and Google Analytics accounts to Glide. Or, use the granddaddy of all integrations — Zapier — to connect Glide to tons more services that can help you do all kinds of things like automatically send emails, create new spreadsheets, and more.
If you happen to be taking a low-code approach — in other words, you have someone with some DevOps savvy on staff — you can also tap into APIs to integrate hundreds of software tools with your Glide app!
4. Publish, Share, and Start Enjoying All the Benefits of Your New App
When your Glide app is ready in just days, not months, you can even launch it on your own.
Just use the Publish button at the top of the editing panel to make your app live on the internet. Once published, you can share your app via link or email so your team can start using it right away.
Yeah, that was easy, wasn’t it?
Why No-Code is the Way to Go When It Comes to App Development
We hope the benefits of going the no-code route when it comes to business tools are pretty clear. But just to drive the point home even further, check out these top reasons why you should consider no-code apps the next time you’re budgeting business improvements.
Get Your Solution Online in Days or Weeks — Not Months
Whether your app is an external-facing tool to better service consumers or an internal-facing platform for improving business processes, you’ve probably been thinking about it for a long time — with a no-code app builder, you can finally get it live. No team to put together. No drawn-out timelines that come with creating everything from scratch. Just apps that are quick to spin up and fast to iterate on if you ever need to change or build out more features.
Here we should mention that the templatization required to make no-code software development quick may mean you won’t be able to pull off every minute customization under the sun. If this is an area where you’re not willing to sacrifice, you’re likely a better fit for a traditional app-building team or professional, along with a maintenance retainer. Apps with heavily-custom features often require more oversight and upkeep, anyway.
Empower Your Team’s Great Ideas
We mentioned citizen developers. The thing is, there are more of them out there than you think — even at your own company. And they’re full of awesome ideas.
When these creative minds see how easily their awesome ideas can be achieved using a piece of software like a no-code app creator, you’re bound to find your business saving record amounts of time on processes and reaching consumers in bold, lucrative new ways.
People value autonomy at work, especially in a post-pandemic world where they’re thinking more carefully than ever about how they’re spending their lives. Prioritize and reward independent thinking by giving workers the power to use a no-code tool like Glide to create apps that help them in their day-to-day, and may eventually save time for the rest of your team, too.
Scale at a Moment’s Notice
Things change so quickly in the modern business landscape. You need to be able to keep up with the experiences and offerings your customers and users demand. But at the same time, you don’t necessarily know which features you’ll need in the future when you’re building your app.
Being able to quickly and affordably scale up, without having to migrate to or build a new platform, is hugely important for businesses today. No-code development tools make your business scalable. With one, you have the flexibility to start with a minimum viable product (MVP) then add new features, upgrade your plan to accommodate more users, increase file storage, etc.
No-Code Apps Make for Lower Cost of Ownership
As we’ve of course noted, reasonable app builder costs is a feature that makes no-code apps insanely desirable compared to their traditional, from-scratch cousins.
But we want to really hone in on the fact that it’s not just about up-front costs. Sometimes, even the most initially affordable custom apps can bankrupt you — either you’re paying for regular maintenance and updates or you’re paying in the form of business downtime when your app eventually breaks.
With app-building platforms, overall cost of ownership is more affordable because support and uptime are included in your subscription! You don’t need an internal IT team or a retainer with an agency to keep your app up to date when it’s hosted on a no-code app platform like Glide.
It’s Time to Glide Into Your First No-Code App Development Project
What’s your mission? To build business apps fast and, probably, affordably!
What’s our mission? To help you, and every other business on the planet, do just that through our intuitive and approachable no-code app-building software.
After all, how else will we reach our goal to be the software that empowers a billion new no-code developers by the year 2030?!
Help both of these great missions come to fruition by building your brilliant business ideas on Glide.
Sign up for free today. Then, once you’re sure Glide is the best no-code app builder for your biz, go ahead and select the pricing package that works best for you.
Then keep reading to learn all about:
All the ways in which businesses can benefit from having apps
The no-code revolution that’s making building business apps more attainable than ever
Why no-code apps are the best way to go for businesses that aren’t in the tech space
How to build the flexible, affordable app your business needs using Glide’s no-code platform
Why Might My Business Need an App?
We think all businesses can benefit from having an app — especially now that app building and maintenance are becoming more attainable than ever (more on that later!).
