How to select the best digital app strategy for your business.

Developing a visitor or audience experience app involves more than just design; it must integrate with your overall digital transformation strategy. Whether you're digitally mature or looking for a fully integrated management solution, the approach to app development should consider the bigger picture. Are you aiming to simply enhance the visitor experience, or acquire a mobile application that's part of a wider software suite to improve operations, boost engagement, gain insights, and increase revenue?

Before committing, research your options: purchasing a custom solution from a digital agency, building an in-house app, or licensing a ready-made Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. This article provides essential information to help you make the most informed decision for your attraction.

Option 1: Commission a Digital Agency

Engaging a digital agency means you're responsible for briefing developers and designers, defining outcomes, and to some extent, project managing the process. They will design and build a custom app tailored to your needs.

• Costs vary significantly based on design, functionality, and software integrations.
• Finding the right agency can be challenging; review their portfolio and expertise within the experience economy.

Option 2: Build an App In-House

Building an end-to-end solution in-house offers flexibility for revisions and updates. However, it demands significant resources in terms of time, team, and money.

• Requires a dedicated team of experienced in-house app developers, UX/UI designers, and a qualified project manager.
• Recruitment can be costly and time-consuming if you don't already have the expertise.
• App development uses specialist operating and coding languages, which typically fall outside the scope of existing marketing or web teams.

Option 3: License a Ready-Made SaaS Solution

The ready-made app market provides flexibility for attractions to enhance their digital capabilities. A SaaS solution, like n-gage.io, combines a powerful operator platform with a highly customisable mobile visitor app, acting as a new breed of attraction management software.

When you license a SaaS solution, you acquire the right to use existing software and an app. These solutions are often packed with features and functionality, allowing for partial customisation (e.g., branding on the mobile app) by simply adding your content. Commercial services are available to assist with content creation.

• Cloud-hosted platforms offer 24/7 access and control from anywhere with an internet connection.
• A monthly or annual subscription provides the benefits of a highly customisable app without high upfront development costs.
• Subscriptions typically include new features and product updates, often driven by sector feedback.
• Look for products that support third-party integrations with e-ticketing and other attraction management functionalities.

Key Factors to Consider

Regardless of whether you choose to buy, build, or license, several crucial factors demand careful consideration before selecting your product.

Investment and Development Costs

• Commissioning a digital agency for a custom app can be expensive, with basic development ranging from $50,000-$100,000 over 3-6 months. More complex features can push costs well over $100,000 with 6-12 month build times.
• In-house development requires significant recruitment and salary costs (e.g., $50,000-$150,000 annually per developer, plus design and project management).
• SaaS solutions generally cost far less, as providers spread demand across a market. The n-gage.io operator platform can be deployed in minutes, with average lead times as low as four weeks depending on integrations and customisation.

Maintenance and Updates

• Custom builds (agency or in-house) often incur additional costs for ongoing maintenance and future updates, either through increased agency retainers or in-house resource requirements.
• SaaS solutions typically include maintenance and fixes as part of the Service Level Agreement (SLA). They also offer regular updates, leveraging industry knowledge and user feedback to enhance the product.
• Updates ensure you stay current with the latest industry developments.

Quality of Performance

• SaaS products are pre-existing, allowing you to assess quality and suitability through demos and free trials before committing.
• Building from scratch means quality and performance can be uncertain until the app is live, making issues difficult to rectify quickly post-launch.

Delivery and Lead Times

• Building an app yourself or through an agency takes significant time.
• Ready-made SaaS solutions are both affordable and quick to deploy, often going live in as little as four weeks, depending on individual circumstances and customisation.

Customisation Capabilities

• The extent of customisation for off-the-shelf software varies.
• n-gage.io, for example, is built with the visitor/audience experience in mind, offering extensive customisation for brand colours, logos, fonts, images, and even fixed text to suit specific use cases.

Making the Right Choice for Your Attraction

The best approach (buy, build, or license), depends on a combination of factors, including your organisation's size and specific circumstances. If you have an experienced in-house app development team, building might be suitable. A well-briefed digital agency could also be a viable option, but both require substantial investment in time and resources, alongside realistic deployment timescales.

While custom-built apps can be excellent, they demand significant investment. Exploring the market for SaaS solutions may reveal unexpected functionality that extends beyond just the app, offering comprehensive attraction management software. For many, a ready-made SaaS solution, like n-gage.io, provides an out-of-the-box yet highly customisable platform that incorporates both operator and mobile app functionality to improve operations, enhance engagement, gain insights, and boost revenue, all without the heavy upfront investment of agency commissions or recruiting a specialist team.