Mobile landscape: compelling consumer trends Whitepaper
INTRODUCTION
If you haven’t been stranded on a deserted island for the last three
years, you probably realize the use of mobile devices has sky rocketed.
How much you ask?
From 2011 to 2013, there was a 21% increase in smartphone
ownership (35% to 56%), with global mobile traffic accounting for 15%
of all internet traffic. More importantly, the way consumers are using
their phones is strongly trending toward mobile applications.
In 2013, 80% of consumers used mobile apps compared to only 20%
using the mobile web. In 2014, users are already making a climb in
mobile app use to 86%, and 64% of app users say they view brands
with mobile apps more favorably.
If that’s not enough to give you a clear picture, here are a few other
dramatic statistics.
• In 2013, 102 billion mobile apps were downloaded.
• Mobile apps are rivaling television: 127 minutes per day on mobile
apps vs. 168 for television.
• Mobile search will generate 27.8 billion more searches than
desktop searches by 2016.
It’s pretty clear that a heavy majority of consumers are using
mobile phones, and many of those users are downloading mobile
applications.
QUICK AND EASY SHOPPING
From all the advantages provided by having a mobile app at your
consumer’s fingertips, the most favorable amongst users is its quick
and easy accessibility. In today’s on-the-go society, consumers are
using mobile apps to do their shopping at lightning speed, whether at
home, at work, waiting in traffic, etc.
Rather than having to find a store, walk through aisles and deal with a
long line at the checkout lane, customers can use a mobile app to get
all of that done with a few screen taps.
In 2013, 80%
of consumers
used mobile
apps compared
to only 20%
using the
mobile web.
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Providing your potential customers with the availability to do their
shopping at your store on a mobile app is a huge advantage. Paypal
has already charged $27 billion dollars via mobile payments during
last year. During the holidays, imagine being able to offer your promos
with the tap of a button to drive specific information to your mobile
app.
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
Mobile apps can add value to your consumers’ experiences. The days
of one-way communication are long gone, and consumers are looking
to voice their opinions and interact with the companies, charities and
other institutions they interact with.
With a simple-to-use app, businesses can provide their customers with
surveys to encourage product ideas and to leave feedback. A mobile
app will also provide you with the ability to engage back, answering
any questions or concerns.
Providing two-way communication between your brand and your
consumer can help create loyalty among your customers. This, in turn,
expands your marketing efforts through word of mouth from those
customers.
BRING YOUR BUSINESS TO THE FOREFRONT
Most people have their phones on them or at their side throughout
the day — 79% of 18-44 year olds have their smartphones with them 22
hours a day. This is a fact that should be used to your advantage, and a
mobile app can do just that.
Once a user downloads your application, push notifications come into
play. So what exactly are push notifications? You may think it’s just an
alert, but it’s much deeper than that.
Push notifications will notify a user of anything that’s new — a message,
a sale, change in hours or location, etc. While a push notification
is an alert, it also brings your business to the consumer’s attention.
These alerts can instantaneously be sent to consumers’ home screen,
bringing your business to the forefront.
Mobile landscape: compelling consumer trends Whitepaper
Recall how often people carry their phones on them? This makes push
notifications a golden item for businesses, putting their products, sales,
etc. directly into their customer’s pocket.
GET USERS TO MARKET FOR YOU
There’s nothing like free marketing! And that can happen if you show
your customers that you care about them by providing excellent
customer service.
One of the strongest forms of marketing is word of mouth. Once your
users are talking about your product or app, you know you’ve got it
right. Before you know it, your users become an integrated network of
marketers for your app and you.
This can be done by providing great customer service, which just about
everyone talks about. If you care about your customers and provide
them with great customer service on your app, your happy customers
will be sure to let others know about it.
COLLECT DATA
One of the most powerful tools with any online marketing campaign is
acquiring the ability to gather specific information about your users.
With a mobile app, you can set up a registration form for users to
fill out in order to further market your business. By gathering email
addresses or phone numbers, you’re allowing yourself more marketing
channels to let your potential customers know about upcoming
promos, events, major sales, etc.
You can also set up weekly, monthly or yearly email blasts that can be
sent to those users who filled in an email address on your registration
form.
SALES TEAM SUPPORT
Imagine having your entire store catalog at the tip of the fingers of your
sales team. With a mobile app, you don’t have to imagine it anymore.
Providing a mobile app as a sales tool to your sale force is a great way
to assemble all of your product information in a single, handy location
that will make your people look even more polished when meeting
Push notifications pop up on
the phone’s screen, similar to a
text message and can include
links to specific items within an
application.
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with customers. Additionally, this also saves the salesperson time from
having to lug around costly and sometimes outdated print materials.
Instead of customers having to visualize your product in their head,
they can now view your product directly on a mobile phone. This helps
make sales trips smoother and quicker all while demonstrating your
strong level of organization and professionalism to your customers.
THE COST OF TECHNOLOGY
The traditional path of defining a mobile app that relies on custom
coding by a developer requires time and money that many companies
do not have. This cost can be compounded by the need to support
multiple operating system formats. Additionally, as information
changes, there is additional cost and time investment to update the
application.
There are many cases where a custom app may be overkill and the
requirements can be fulfilled using an app service. Today, there are
many software providers with online offerings that enable companies
and individuals with little technical skill to create, launch, and maintain
their own mobile app.
Most of these providers offer a Software-as-a-Service subscription
model, where subscribers pay a monthly fee to create and maintain
content within a Content Management System (CMS) framework. A
key advantage of this approach is the ability for the application to have
content easily updated in near-realtime. Changes are made in the CMS
and that information is immediately available to the users who have the
application on their mobile device. This provides the agility needed
in today’s fast-paced world to enable easy updates in response to
changing market drivers and trends.
79% of 18-44
year olds have
their phones
with them 22
hours a day.