Tag: mobile app

Creating a Mobile App that Gives Value to Your Customers

You are constantly told that your business needs a mobile app to gain and keep customers and stay competitive, but how do you actually achieve this?

How can you develop an application that will prove to be a profitable tool for your business?

Let’s take a look at what you should focus on when creating user experience for ensuring high engagement and returns on investment.

App Doesn’t Equal Website
One of the biggest mistakes which businesses make is to think about a mobile app as an alternative to or a continuation of their website. What is the point of having both if they offer pretty much the same features, experience and value in general? Before you make any plans for app development, you should first get a clear idea of how this new tool is different from your website.

The typical business website is primarily about presenting the company and its products and communicating with customers. It is easy for anyone to visit it and use it regardless of their relationship with your company. A mobile app, on the other hand, is more than just a source of information. In order to deserve a permanent place on the smartphones and tablets of users, it has to offer more. The reality is that people perceive applications as personalised tools that help them in their daily lives. For this, you need to give them value by providing the following:

  • Solving a problem – Think about the goals which your customers want to achieve with buying your products and help them get even more in an even faster way. If you sell sports equipment, for instance, your app could offer personalised training plans with gym session reminders, calorie calculator and more. This is just a simple example, but mobile has lots of potential for adding value to practically all kinds of products.
  • Enhancing the customer’s experience with the brand – This is where you can win big time and really stand out among competitors. You can make it easier for customers to find you and to reach you with features like a map and a store locator. You can offer faster servicing to mobile app users both online and at your store. It is also possible to provide unique services like the creation of personalised wish lists for special occasions.
  • Unique offerings – This is all about giving your customers an incentive to download your mobile app. You can reward them for this by giving them special offers first plus some exclusive bargains too. You can also run entire loyalty programs solely via your app.

Taking Advantage of Mobile Technology
The unique features which smartphones and tablets offer aren’t simply “cool”, but can be invaluable for businesses, especially when it comes to marketing and sales. Localisation, for example, allows you to target your mobile app users given where they are, the time of day and their proximity to your physical location. Another one of the coolest trends is digitalising your loyalty cards and gift cards and integrating them with apps enabling payment via NFC. The sky’s the limit, literally.

What kind of mobile app do you need for your business? Contact me to receive professional consultation.

Some thoughts on mobile app development

If you own a small, medium, or large-scale business or you are simply an individual looking to gain more attention and direction aimed at your specific cause, charity, product, service, or individual persona, then you might want to think about mobile app development.

As of late, mobile technology has taken over as the easiest and quickest way for anyone to get their voice across to millions of individuals from around the world. And with perfected mobile app development, anyone from anywhere is able to create their own personal app that will be able to speak to legions of potential customers instantly.

The great thing about mobile app development is that the opportunities for creativity and ingenuity are endless. No matter what your idea is, no matter what your strategy happens to be, you can make it happen with mobile app development. It could be that you have a unique sales pitch bubbling inside you, or an artistic focus that is geared towards your passion or cause, if you envision it, it can definitely become reality. You can customize the look of your app, what you would like the app to do, and what you want the app to say. And, when it comes to android app development and ios app development, the secret truly lies in working with the right company to create your app that speaks to people in a way that they can understand and respond to no matter where they happen to be in the world.

The reality is that practically everyone has their smart phones on them at all times these days, and these are the people who are constantly on the search for new and innovative apps that are interesting to use, fun to engage with, and tickle their fancy just a bit.

Do yourself a favor and try your luck today by having the right company create your personalized app that you have envisioned, you will see that what you want to promote and sell will fly off the shelves instantly and it will be all because of this little app that anyone can access anytime.

Contact me for more information on how to create your customized mobile app today!

Increasing Customer Engagement with a Mobile App: How Does It Work?

The sales made through mobile apps in the UK account for a third of all retail spending made via mobile devices. This is just one piece of data showing how important the applications are for doing business in the digital world. Now you can engage consumers even more effectively to increase your sales with the help of your company’s mobile app. Let me take you through the features, tools and methods necessary for this.

Unique Functionalities
The main purpose of having a mobile app for your business is to use secure yet another distribution and/or marketing channel. It should build up on your website. That is why it has to offer an even richer user experience. This can be easily achieved with a native application which is designed to take advantage of the functionalities of smartphones and tablets.
For example, users can get the opportunity to make voice searches to find content, products and services more easily and quickly. If you are in fashion retail or another business for which images sell, you can have the app integrated with the camera of the smart device enabling users to share photos or to see how they look with different garments and accessories. The sky is the limit.

Attractive and Valuable Content
While some app users are ready to convert and become your customers, others simply want to gather information in a pleasant way. Target all of these segments by offering high-quality content via your mobile app. Having written content, images and video will enable you to engage the largest possible number of users.
How do you make content valuable? Use demographics and data on user behaviour and preferences to give customers what they want, be it entertaining content, practical advice related to your products and services or both. As long as your app has integrated analytics, you will receive accurate consumer data in real time and have all the tools necessary for analysing it and optimising your content and overall marketing strategy.

Easy Social Media Sharing
You know that the social media are among the most effective digital marketing channels. Around 33% of businesses in the UK generate significant lead and sales volume via them, according to a recent survey. Then why don’t you integrate your mobile app with the social media? Enabling users to share content with just one click of a button will increase your brand’s exposure without additional investment on your part. This is how you can engage new consumers interested in your products and services and in your application too.

Target Marketing
A well-built mobile up must come with a system for push notifications. These are among the most valuable tools for target marketing which you can use in the digital world, even though they have been around for a fairly short time. These notifications are automatically generated on the mobile device even if the user isn’t engaged with the app at the moment. They are useful not only for making people open your app, but for distributing powerful marketing messages. You can make announcements about new products and send promotional offers. The key to success is to segment the audience and to target them with the right message at the right time. Use your app’s analytics to help you with this.

Count on me and my team to give you a mobile app equipped with everything necessary for consumer engagement.

Planning on getting a mobile app for your business? Contact me to share your vision.

Mobile App Development: Planning Is Key

With more than half of Google searches being made via smartphones and tablets and mobile sales experiencing double-digit growth, it becomes essential for businesses of all types and sizes to have their own mobile app. The big question is how to go about this project. You will need a clear strategy and a precise plan for action. As a mobile app consultant with solid experience, let me tell you more about the preparation and the development process.

Native Is Fundamental
What’s all the hype about native mobile apps? It’s true that they require a greater investment compared to their hybrid counterparts, but they have several major advantages. This is because they are developed in the native language of the platform which they are for, be it Android or iOS. This gives them direct access to the mobile device’s hardware for seamless interaction. All graphic features including multimedia are flawless. Easy navigation, attractive and functional interface and fast and hassle-free performance are other major benefits. Simply put, if you want to engage your customers and to have effective marketing, you need to go native.

Features and Functionalities
These are the factors which planning is primarily focused on. The first step of the process is to outline your goals clearly. What do you want to achieve with the mobile app for your business? The more specific you are about your marketing objectives, the better. The app can be a fantastic tool for engagement-based programs and building loyalty as well as for product promotion.
The next question to ask is: what should your app give to your customers? The age, gender, interests and habits of your target audience will help you find the answer. The user interaction patterns on your website are also helpful. When my team and I work on building a mobile app for a business, we research and analyse the behaviour of the target audience and their expectations in detail. The research on competitors enables us to come up with features and functionalities that will make your app stand out.
Once the plan for action is in place, our job is to create a prototype for structuring the app’s content and interface. The development of the beta version is followed by strict quality control for perfecting every feature. This is how we create the final version, which is ready for publishing.

Launch and Marketing
The mobile app’s promotion is also something that you need to plan in advance. In order to use it as a powerful marketing tool and for delivering better services to your customers, you have to ensure that they will have it on their smartphones and tablets in the first place. My team will create an attractive icon and provide a set of graphics for capturing the interest of mobile users.
It pays off to develop a complete strategy for promoting your app with the use of all fundamental digital marketing tools. Optimising the application’s presentation for app store searches, creating special blog articles and social network posts about it and creating buttons which take visitors to your website to the app’s page in the store are among the fundamental and most effective ways to grab the attention of your target audience.

Since mobile competition is rising quickly and mobile app building isn’t an overnight project, it’s time for you to take action.

Want a native mobile app for your business? Share your vision with me.

5 Key Advantages of a Mobile App for Your Business

Just a decade ago many companies, and especially small, medium-sized and local businesses, need convincing about the importance of a website for getting found by prospects and for building customer loyalty. Now managers are asking, “Why do I need an app when my website’s optimised for mobile?” As a mobile app development consultant, I’d like to introduce you to the unique marketing opportunities which the applications for smartphones and tablets have to offer.

App Store Presence
Mobile users access Apple app store and Google Play with the push of a button and watch out for new offerings every day. This will give your business’s mobile app exposure to all smartphone owners in the UK, accounting for over three quarters of the adult population. This is a fantastic way to promote your company and products on some of the most powerful platforms at present.

Customer Engagement
Once an existing or prospective customer downloads your app, this person is already engaged with your business. You will have constant presence on their mobile device and this is the foundation for getting repeat purchases and building loyalty. The application practically gives you a shortcut to retaining customers which is one of the most challenging and money-consuming tasks in marketing. My team and I will ensure that you not only have a well-functioning mobile app, but that it is especially created to engage your target audience.

Push Notifications
These messages are delivered automatically even if the customer is not actively using your app at the moment. This is a valuable instrument for telling users about new products, special offers, app features, events, company news and anything else that you want. Do these really work? A recent study has shown that the average push notification opening rate is 65% while the peak one is 80%. A marketing expert will be able to create attractive messages with compelling call to action targeting your audience for achieving top results.

Offline Interaction
You can readily choose what app features to be accessible offline to increase the level of customer engagement. These could be product catalogues, posts, audio content and much more. Nowadays, people rarely go offline, but when they do, they actively search for something to fill the gap. Wouldn’t it be great to have customers checking your products or articles instead of magazines, newspapers and other content on long flights or while travelling in the London Underground? When they go online again, they can be ready to make a purchase or take another action.

Effective Management
The performance of a website depends on the speed of the internet connection and the browser’s loading speed. A mobile app is used directly and can offer great experience even offline, as pointed out just now. These are important factors for gaining solid presence on the mobile devices and minds of customers. Furthermore, when you have an application especially tailored to the needs of your business, you can derive accurate performance analytics directly and use it for giving your marketing strategy a further boost.
The latest forecasts show that in the second quarter of 2016, there will be 43.2 million mobile app users in the UK. Your business can secure a permanent spot on their devices.

If you consider a mobile app for your business, email me or send me a message.