In any business, there is no certain path to reach success. But there are not many businesses in the world that have tasted success with a plan. It’s quite necessary as it guides you through different stages of development and marketing. When you put the required effort into writing a business plan, the plan then influences you to have discipline in your thought process.
For mobile apps, one of the most strategic ways to play a significant role in the emerging market is through a business plan. Smartphones have become pervasive, there’s no doubt about that. The tasks that earlier required heavy consoles and computers can now be accomplished through a small flatscreen device. A fact sheet by Pew Research Center shows that around 96% of Americans own a cell phone, and out of this number, more than 81% of people use a smartphone.
The above-mentioned numbers are enough for companies to jump into the mobile application business. Mobile apps are one of the best ways to capitalize on the huge user base of smartphones. Before developing an application, you’ll have to find an idea through which you can target your demographic audience. And to really ensure that this idea goes all the way, it is essential that you have a foolproof business plan for your mobile app.
Why Building a Business Plan Is Important for Mobile Apps?
The mobile application market is continuing to grow with each passing day, and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. And a large number of companies are trying to get a grip on this industry before it reaches the saturation point. A report by Statista claims that by the year 2023, the worldwide mobile app revenue will be somewhere around 935 billion USD, which was 97.7 billion USD in 2014 and 461.7 billion USD in 2019.
As appealing as these stats might sound, creating an app that provides value at the right cost is not an easy task. For its successful launch, the first thing that needs to be done is to create a business plan.
A competent plan can act as a guiding force for everyone who’s involved in the plan. The plan also shows a clear way to launch the app so that it can generate profitable revenue. The two major reasons behind the requirement of a business plan for mobile apps are to captivate funding and to enthrall founders.
Moreover, business plans also help in degrading the risks. And it’s obvious that business plans increase the chances of reaching the goal rather than not having it. It provides a clear vision for the long run along with the logistics of finance and marketing. It ensures that you keep moving with the project and face fewer hurdles.
Writing Business Plan for a Mobile App
No matter what industry you are talking about, there is no better way to organize ideas than documenting them. And mobile business plans are also the same in this regard. The business plan should generally include several sections like executive summary, company description, product and services, marketing and strategy, and management & organization. Let’s discuss these sections in brief.
Executive Summary
In this section, you can concisely summarize your business plan. Ensure that this section is interesting without adding any irrelevant content because the motive of this section is to draw the attention of readers to your business. Your goal through this section should be to make them want to know more about your goals. You can leave this part for the last. When you have written the whole plan, you’ll be able to write this section in a better flow of words.
Company Description
As the name suggests, here you can give a general overview of your company as well as the owners. The people reading your company description should get to know what you as a company and owner stand for and how you plan to provide value to society. That said, you can be as detailed as you like to be with this section. The goal here is to form an emotional connection between the reader and your company.
Product and Services
Without using too many words, this section is all about what you are selling. This section is for a detailed description of the products and services you are selling. And mind you, you must include how the customers will benefit from using these. About the above section, you can be as descriptive as you need to be in order to convey all the necessary information. Here you can include patents, copyrights, research proposals, development proposals, and how you expect the product to fare in the market.
Marketing & Strategy
At this point, you must have access to the market analysis you have done, and then draw conclusions from it. This section should include details like a rough picture of your target customers, an overview of the target industry, market projection both historical and current, and convincing analysis of your competitors in the market. All the information that you include in this section should be based on comprehensive market analysis and also backed by both quantitative and qualitative data.
Amalgamate all the information that you’ve put in the marketing section, and then put strategic ways that you and your team think will help you in reaching your business goals.
Management & Organization
This section is mainly about the roles of the employees of your company who are involved in the mobile application project. Advisors like accountants and attorneys should also be given some space in this section. You can include stakeholders with the percentage of their ownership. Moreover, you should also include how the team is going to manage the project at hand. You can use project management templates to demonstrate and elaborate the roadmaps in an appealing way, there are many available on the internet.
3 Most Important Steps for Building a Marketing Plan
Having a successful app is much more than developing an app that provides value, it goes beyond the development process. You need to know exactly when and how you’re going to launch the product so that it can reach the right set of audiences and start generating revenue right from day one. Other than features, the UX aspects should also be top-notch to allure people to use your application over the others available in the market. Here are three points that a good marketing plan must address.
Identification of USPs
If it is done right, unique selling propositions (USPs) can set a strong foundation for an effective marketing strategy. It is one basic element that’s been overlooked from time to time. One of the reasons why so many products go unnoticed in the market is because of a missing USP to hold the attention of customers.
A USP defines your product and services and adds a distinctive line between you and your competitors. After all, there’s no point for customers to switch to your new products which are the exact clones of the product of some established company. But when your USP is clear, your product appears to be bigger than the rest and gathers more crowd.
User Persona in Target
These are the people you are targeting. You need to have as detailed an outline about them as you can possibly create. You should know their interests and things that they won’t like very much. While creating a user persona, you can put in demographic factors like age, gender, location, occupation, income, marital status, etc. It might not appear to be, but psychographic data is also very helpful in creating a user persona as it allows you to understand the mindset of the people you are targeting.
Having a user persona in advance ensures that you stay on the right track in all the project management phases. It helps in building the right roadmaps. Moreover, with the help of the buyer persona, you can prioritize changes based on what your customers need the most.
Focus on Right Marketing Channels
Depending on who your target audience is, you should use some specific channels to reach out to them. For example, if your user base is going to be people who love to post photographs, the best place to market your application would be Instagram. Marketing extensively on LinkedIn or Twitter will be a waste of time and resources. You should think like a fisherman. It’ll allow you to find the spot where your target audience congregates.
Business Plan Example for a Mobile App Startup
If you want to see a sample of a business plan for a mobile app so that you can understand things in a better way, do not worry, we got you covered. However, keep in mind the thought the plan on offer here is structured according to the rule, the calculations are all imaginary. Mind you, the information that you put in your business plan should be very accurate. Click here to see the business plan example by The Mind Studios.
Final Words
It’s not at all easy to create business plans for your mobile app, but it’s definitely something that’ll have a good impact on the business. Whatever your application concept might be, it should be supported with your knowledge about the industry, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and practical research about your customers and market. Your business plan must reflect that the approach of your company is lucrative and that you are viable and attractive financially. The steps outlined above should help you create a more effective business plan.
