ENTERPRISE54 – The fact is – not every business will (or should) go mobile; websites will do just fine for a lot of us. So, at what point do you need to pursue mobile leads for your business? How should you go about it?

According to Abiodun Thorpe, a consultant with digital strategy company – Rainy Lemon, Africa has become a mobile-first continent and entrepreneurs must take this into account. The least that your business must possess digitally, is a responsive website. That is if you decide against, or are not ready for a mobile app. It goes without telling that any business that would become and stay relevant must become a part of the digital movement.

I for one, have had it on my TO-DO for some time, to attend one of the #FreelanceFriday clinics hosted by Nkiru Asika’s Enterprise Creative. Freelance Fridays are a series of free training and networking clinics for freelancers and solo entrepreneurs in the Nigerian creative industries. Get more details on the Enterprise Creative website.

Just like professionals, entrepreneurs must learn continuously and participants did just that at the Social Media Week edition of the monthly clinic, themed ‘#SMWFreelanceFriday: Taking Your Business Mobile’. The session was anchored by social media strategist, John Obidi of obidisocial.com

Completing the 3-man panel of course, was Onome Ojigbo, Founder and CEO of Mobiapp Nigeria. According to the seasoned business consultant, the value of a mobile app is unquantifiable: your product/service is available to customers round the clock on their phones and tablets, internet server downtimes don’t affect your availability, and you can collapse some of your processes to gain time and resource.

Every business that decides to go mobile must first understand the value such a mobile app will bring to its peculiar audience and also understand how the audience connects. Mr. Ojigbo recounted how one of his company’s early projects had to be recalled because the app had been built for high end phones, but it turned out that most of the target population did not use those phones and so could not use the app. Your mobile app must be optimized to your audience’s kind of phones and mobile devices.

The one simple rule in all this is: do not create an app for the sake of creating an app. Many businesses out there are seeking help to build apps without even knowing why they want one; perhaps because the competition has one, and they fail to assess the real business benefits of such an app. Thus, developing a strategy and answering all relevant questions is essential before a decision on business mobility is made.

Young business owners have the responsibility to view how their websites get displayed on a mobile phone or device. A non-responsive website looks distorted and muddled up on mobile devices even though the layout displays perfectly on a computer. Having a responsive website does the job if you are not yet up for a mobile app.

Yet again, not every business needs a mobile app. Have you had one built for your business? Do share your experience.