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Posts tagged mobile first screen
4 Steps To A Creating A Successful Mobile App Marketing Plan
May 13th
It used to be that smart phones and other devices were primarily used by young people and business persons, but that isn’t the case anymore. These days, everyone seems to have a smart phone. Young, old, professionals, students, and everyone in between.
So with such a large market spanning over different ages and lifestyles, how do you cater your app properly for an audience?
The answer lies in mobile marketing. There are several things you’ll want to consider when developing a mobile app from a small business marketing standpoint.
1. First of all, be aware of your audience.
Understand customer who comes to your business. Find out their average age, their likes and dislikes, their interests, their needs and specifications. Find out what they respond to, and how they use their devices. Design your app accordingly. Narrow it down to features and functions that will benefit and interest them.
2. Communicate with customers through your mobile app.
Once you’ve got the audience pinpointed, continue on that theme and learn how to reach out to them. Design your app to function based on their schedule, location, and other important details. Enable things like geofencing to find local customers, and design your app to contact the customer at times that are convenient and relevant to your goods and services.
3. Once you’ve decided when to reach out to them, decide how.
What kind of content will you be presenting to the customer? It all depends on the audience – they are the ones viewing and interacting with the app, so it should all be customized to their needs and interests. Design an eye-catching, modern looking app without too many flourishes that will distract and annoy. Keep it simple, but keep it trendy. Keep it engaging while also functional and marketable.
4. Keep track of your mobile app’s analytics.
Monitor your mobile app’s built-in analytics to see how your customers are interacting with your app, and what kind of returns your business is seeing as a result. You can even adjust the functionality of your mobile app based off usage. For example, you may consider moving your most popular features to the front of your app’s navigation.
Mobile marketing is really important when it comes to apps and mobile optimized websites. With just a little effort, you can have a really great mobile presence and see it pay off in dividends.
How to Use Mobile Marketing to Benefit your Small Business
Mar 28th
We live in the age of the smart phone – there’s no doubt about it.
Nine out of 10 Americans have a cell phone, and over 50% of those cell phones are smart phones. The technology isn’t going anywhere, either. With smart phones getting “smarter” by the day, offering more and more helpful apps and features, people’s dependence on them is only going to grow. For a small business, the time to adapt to this market is now.
Making your business mobile-friendly is the best way to make yourself indispensable to your customers.
Below are a few tips to help you use mobile marketing to grow your small business:
• Start with developing a Mobile App – This is the first and foremost one that you need to do. Develop an app for your small business, and get it up and running as fast as you can. You’ll want a reliable, easy-to-use app that customers can navigate quickly, that will enable them to access all the features they need to do business with you. You want it to be functional, easy to maneuver, and also fun to use.
If you offer goods and services, make it possible for customers to order right from the app, and to enter their data (like payment info and addresses), to be saved for future reference. Those are the kind of features that customers love because it saves them time. You can also have two versions of your app – a free version, which is simplistic and easy, but also a “premium” version, for a small cost, that will offer some perks and content that the first one does not.
• Rewards and Perks – Everyone loves a rewards system, and you might be surprised at just how much more business you can get if you have a loyalty system in place with your customers and clients. If there is some incentive involved, customers are more likely to engage your app more often.
You can reward them with freebies every time they spend a certain amount, offer them weekly exclusive coupons for signing in every day, or even have contests and promotions every so often. Having these kinds of perks on your app will ensure brand awareness, bring more people to download the app, and then keep it.
• Push Notifications and User Specific Messages – More and more companies are implementing direct messaging into their apps. Allowing your customers to sign up for this will ensure that you can reach them at any time to offer them special deals, promotions and incentives – if you use geofencing in conjunction with your push notifications, you can even send messages to them when they are in your area! Keeping the messages short and sweet is imperative – flashy fonts and other flourishes only distract the customer and annoy them. Send small messages every now and again, based on the customer’s interest and needs. They will come to look forward to them, and keep using the app in the hopes of receiving more.
You’ll also want to make sure that the customer IS able to opt out if they so choose – not everyone wants to receive messages or notifications from the businesses they frequent. They need to be able to sign out of that service if they so wish, otherwise you could lose a customer.
These are just a few simple tips on how to get your small business mobile-ready.
Setting clear, obtainable goals for your business is really important when it comes to creating apps and making your business mobile friendly. The idea is to be more accessible to smart phone users, so always keep your website and its content optimized for mobile use, make sure your information is easily obtained and that the customer can access order pages and product information quickly.
Make sure you advertise regularly to bring new customers into the fold. Promotions, incentives and push notifications, used sparingly, will go a long way once you’ve got your app established. Also remember, excellent customer service is key! Having ease of access is nothing if there isn’t excellent support behind the scenes.
Looking to create a mobile app for your business? Check out Bizness Apps today!
Mobile Is Becoming the “First Screen”
Mar 12th
Screens, screens everywhere and not a moment to think…
If you’re like most people, your field of vision is generally full of screens throughout the day. Televisions, laptops, tablets, smartphones… you’re almost always looking at one or more of these things. And when you’re not looking at a screen, you’re trying to wrangle a pile of charger wires and get your device back in business.
But, when it comes to the relative importance of these screens, things are changing.
The “first screen”
Each person is different when it comes to which screen they consider their “base of operations.” For some, it’s the television, from which they get their morning news and unwind after work. For others, it’s a laptop (that they probably use with the TV on in the background). But for a growing number of people, and not just those that are highly mobile, the first screen has become a mobile device – either a tablet or a smartphone.
And in the near future, this increasing popularity of mobile technology is expected to lead to time spent on mobile overtaking time spent on desktop.
The trend makes a lot of sense, since mobile devices are always with us. They’re in pockets and pocketbooks throughout the day, so while we transition from place to place and perhaps use a variety of devices, the mobile device remains constant. Thus, time spent learning to use it pays off quite a bit, and familiarity continues uninterrupted. In addition, as many devices are released in successive generations year after year, fans and loyal users can become strongly attached to and deeply invested in their devices.
Implications for small business owners
Same as always!
As the evidence for continued mobile growth piles up year after year, mobile’s position as a critical marketing, customer service, and customer satisfaction tool becomes larger and larger. With customers migrating to mobile as a first screen, business owners that ignore mobile will experience a constant decline in the total number of people they can reach through traditional digital means (e.g. a non-mobile website). As of today, there’s no telling where this trend will stop, but it’s clear that a steadily growing portion of your audience is focused on mobile.
