Every longtime retail marketer remembers when their mobile app was the absolute centerpiece of their strategy, and when submissions and re-submissions to the Apple and Google app stores consumed a disproportionate amount of internal team meetings. This didn’t really go away – at least for certain functions within a retail org – but apps don't quite have the center stage they did 8-10 years ago.

This has a lot to do with consumer behavior, of course. While a brand’s app is a high-engagement channel, particularly when push notifications are turned on, it’s also a notoriously low-reach channel that often only engages the superfans. These are often your most loyal and engaged consumers, the ones who are taking up precious real estate on their smartphones with your marketing-focused retail app – and that’s fantastic. There just aren’t enough of them. They are expensive to acquire, and only a select few highly motivated consumers are willing to download apps from the brands whose products and services they use.

So what about the 70-80% of customers who didn’t download your app?

RCS (rich communications services) messaging is poised to leap into this gap in a big way in 2025-26. Because of its ability to reach every customer and every opted-in potential customer via the messaging app already on their device, it opens up a world of interactive, rich and engaging messaging that will snowball very quickly as brands and consumers alike realize just how “app-like” and immersive the RCS experience is.

Yet it needs to look the part as well – and it does. RCS allows for suggested one-tap action and reply buttons, rich cards that provide sharper images, videos, and more; as well as carousels of up to 10 rich cards users can easily scroll through. It even allows for “verified sender” checkmarks, so users know they’re talking to the brand they expect to be interacting with.

Combine this with the ability to put forth offers or store loyalty balances within a Mobile Wallet – again, something already native to the smartphone – and much of the behavior we’ve associated with a brand’s mobile app now moves to something that reaches 90% or more of a retailer’s audience, rather than the 10-15% who’ve downloaded their app. The app may very well still have its place in a multichannel digital marketing strategy, but RCS + Wallet has every opportunity to subsume its core features and drive increased revenues from a much wider audience in what’s looking to be a fast-moving and exciting year to come.