Updated: May 26, 2023

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Why Is A Mobile App Important For Your Church Website?

Table of Contents

Introduction to Mobile Apps for Church Websites

Mobile apps have become increasingly popular in different segments of the market.

Take food delivery as an example. It is now a segment almost exclusively dominated by mobile apps. Ease of use and accessibility have made apps the best medium to order food online.

Other major verticals like eCommerce and social media are similarly becoming overrun by mobile apps.

Church websites are a substantial niche used by communities across the board. Generally, congregations remain updated with church activities through websites.

It is obvious to see the advantages of having a mobile app for your church website. Users can get fast updates of their church from a mobile app. Here are a few big reasons a mobile app is just what your church website needs.

Ease Of Use

Apps are easy to use because they’re instantly accessible to users. Your users need to go through a web browser to reach your website.

Instead, a simple tap takes them to your app.

For older people in your congregation that want instant accessibility, apps are perfect.

There are other added benefits as well. Apps are faster than mobile websites, offer a simpler interface, and can leverage key native features of a device.

These things are difficult to achieve with mobile websites. You can also simplify discovery with apps as users can find important content and updates instantly.

Allow Better Engagement

Engaging your users with a website can be a little challenging. Websites generally behave passively, thus making engagement more challenging.

This is especially true for mobile websites. Generally, mobile websites are optimized versions of their desktop versions.

In case your website has elements that are not completely mobile responsive, you can face issues with user experience and design.

Apps on the other hand are designed for mobile devices only. This makes them the perfect vessel to consume content on smartphones.

Other engagement tactics like push notifications and in-app messaging are also simplified to a great degree with apps.

You can send notifications through a website as well. Desktop notifications are however not ideal because most users don’t spend a lot of time on their desktops.

However, they do spend a lot of time on smartphones. Phone notifications drive more engagement, and apps make them possible.

Distribute Content Seamlessly

Sharing content with congregation members can be a very tedious process. Doing it offline takes a lot of time, from printing to distribution.

You can easily publish content over a website. However, this again brings up the problem of website accessibility and content discovery on the website

Apps don’t have this problem. You can send simple push notifications any time you publish new content, and make it visible on the home screen of the app.

This is a big step in simplifying content discovery.

Apps are also much more conducive to delivering ideal content experiences on smartphones. You can embed videos, or present your content in a variety of different mobile responsive ways with apps.

On mobile websites, this can be tedious and complicated.

Apps are the perfect medium for easy content discovery and experience.

Send Church Updates Instantly

Why do communities take an interest in starting a church website in the first place?

It is difficult to get the word out when there’s an update in the church’s timings, or a special event is about to take place.

This lag in communication can be solved with digital assets. For an increasingly smartphone-savvy audience, apps are the best medium for this.

You can send out church updates with simple push notification blasts. Other marketing activities like announcements, reminders, and more can also be deployed this way.

New Channel For Getting Donations

Church websites have donation pages that are crucial for the basic functioning of any church. Apps make it easier for users to donate money and maintain their church.

As explained earlier, websites are comparatively inaccessible, thus making it tedious to accept online donations.

Church apps can simplify this issue, and even open up a new channel for accepting donations.

If a particular user is not comfortable using a website for giving donations, they can do it on your app. This further makes it easy to collect donations online.

How To Make A Church App For Your Website?

So having a mobile app for your church is important. The next challenge is building a church app for your website.

You can hire a custom development agency to build an app for your congregation. However, this can be an expensive process and takes a lot of time as well.

Using a mobile app builder can solve these issues. You can use AppMySite to create a mobile app using a WordPress website.

These apps can be uploaded to the app stores, thus making the entire process easy and fast.

The best part is you don’t need to compromise on key app features. From push notifications to social login, you can integrate a number of powerful features or church management software with your church app.

Some of the essential features you can add to your app with an app builder like AppMySite are:

Push notifications: Sending notifications to your app users is essential. This is the main reason website owners start a church app in the first place is to update users. Sending notifications is the best way to do it.
Simple login: You should offer social login to make it easy for users to log in to your app. It is also a good idea to allow users to skip user login entirely.
Accept donations: Your app should be able to accept donations. AppMySite allows you to easily sync the payment gateway active on your website.
Easy navigation: You can make several app sections easily accessible from the home screen of your app. This makes it easy to discover new and important content.

In Conclusion

It is always a challenge to launch a mobile app and make it successful. Even while using an app-making tool, it takes a lot to make an app a success.

And yet, it’s worth it. Audiences are moving towards apps. Website owners have endless incentives to create a mobile app and add another channel of marketing to their digital portfolio.

Church websites are part of the same discussion as well. A mobile app can help your congregation stay updated with church activities and connect with greater ease.