I’m constantly surprised by the ignorance of businesses in their marketing campaigns. While spending so much money on getting in front of customers, companies often shoot themselves in the foot by not creating an easy way for customers to engage with the company afterward! Consumers are flocking toward smartphone usage like never before, here are six reasons you should embrace mobile technologies by developing a mobile website or mobile application for distribution to your customers.
6 – 79 percent of smartphone customers use their phones to help with shopping
Think about it. You’re in a store, you’re wondering if this is the best price, if there are any coupons, or where else you can go to find the product. It’s pretty easy to use the built-in (camera-based) bar code scanner to check the product out. Even laptops can’t offer the portability that mobile smart phones do, and embracing social media “check ins” is the best way to ensure that your customers continue to see the value in your brick-and-mortar storefront. Don’t forget, there will always be another low-cost leader elsewhere, embracing technology and delivering a more complete “experience” to your customers is really the only way to win them over simply going to Amazon for their purchases.
5 – They make your employees more productive
For the first time, employees are bringing devices to the workplace, and improving upon the technology that already exists in the workplace! Gone are the days where employers are forcing employees to embrace new technology. Conglomerate communication firms have successfully sold us all on the benefits of smartphone ownership, and employers are the beneficiaries!
Employees are now investing in their progression through the corporate ranks through their adoption and mastery of smartphones, and we’re doing so with open arms. Huge organizations like ESPN and Disney are hiring companies like AndPlus to develop and deploy large scale mobile applications for use by the companies’ respective top personnel. AndPlus can help your employees more closely integrate into business processes, be closer than ever to your security systems, and have on demand access no matter where they are to the most mission critical functions within your company.
4 – Your fans will love you more
Small businesses with huge exposures like the Phantom Gourmet have engaged AndPlus for mobile development. The Phantom Gourmet has a strong support of “Phans” with which they engage on a daily basis. The brand utilizes facebook and twitter and other social media platforms to access their Phans, so moving the websites and interaction platforms toward a more mobile medium was the perfect fit for their messaging. AndPlus helps companies gain market share and exposure through the devices closest to the consumer and employees, our lifeline, our support, our smartphones!
3 – I’m hungry, and need information fast
It’s always blown my mind why restaurants aren’t the first organizations to embrace mobile. Frankly, I can’t remember the last time I visited a restaurant’s website on my computer. I, and those I talk to, almost exclusively access restaurant websites through our mobile devices. We’re on the go, we want information on a particular restaurant (such as an address, or menu items, specials, and the like!), and our mobile devices are in our pockets, so they end up being the way by which we interact.
We pinch-zoom, tap with hopeful anticipation as terribly-written flash applications are trying to load on our Android devices, fat-finger small links which are grouped way too closely, and get frustrated only to find that the only way we can read your menu is through a PDF download.
Optimize your site with an AndPlus developed, specialized, mobile menu-management console. Yes, it will take you an extra hour every time you update your paper-based menus to keep your online menu updated, but it will also replace your ridiculous PDF download link and increase your customer retention and satisfaction when you offer a mobile app which pushes your daily or weekly specials to your potential clientele. Get with the program, and get with AndPlus to make it happen.
2 – It’s likely you are already being visited with mobile devices
I was watching television the other day (yes, I do have down time sometimes, it’s winter, I can’t golf, and I pretty much stopped watching the Buccaneers around week 7), and I was shown a commercial which was really well done. It was a familiar, graphically-drawn and animated butterfly. I recognized it immediately as the Lunesta butterfly (For those wondering which commercial I’m referring to, check this out: Youtube Link). I don’t have insomnia, nor do I really feel like I need or could benefit from the drug, however, I found myself so intrigued that I wanted to visit the site. Did I run to my office where I had my computer (laptop) set up so I could see the site? Absolutely (!!) not. I took out my Android and I went to the site on my mobile device.
Would Lunesta really expect me to have gone to my computer, with a full desktop screen and high resolution monitor? Apparently, because visiting the site on my mobile device was a terrible user experience. There’s a “cool” flash butterfly going across the screen, a large background image of a woman asleep on a pillow, and two major action areas which took up my entire mobile screen.
Lunesta: You showed me a commercial in a world where it is well known that there is a major trend toward mobile traffic overcoming desktop traffic. Why would you ever lead me to a website that wouldn’t render nicely on my mobile device?
Rest of the world: Think mobile first if you are showing me content away from my desktop computer.
1 – Be “push”-y
The number one reason you should think “mobile first” is because you can now “push” content to your customers. Develop a value proposition and utilize that proposition to get on users’ phones. Once you’re there, the world is your oyster, pushing specials, content, and engaging with customers on your timeline, rather than hoping that you have viewers and listeners when you pay for a television or radio spot. For the first time, consumers are asking you to market to them. Talk to AndPlus to see how you can answer their request.
Our company just did a mobile app too. Reason number one was our reason got doing an app, too…. We needed to push information to out customers. Getting the app downloaded was tough, but we now have about a hundred customers that we routinely market to and are able to remind then to check us out more often. Next step is location aware push notifications, if they are close, why not stop by? Nice post.
Our company evaluated using mobile devices to engage with our customers, but we decided it wasn’t the right solution for what we were trying to do. What we did agree with was number 5, though. We engaged with a company which developed an application which allowed our customer service reps to move questions up and down our priority levels so that management could take care of only the questions which required human interaction. We also had the mobile app develop metrics for all of our employees so that management could look at on-demand graphs at employee production. It increased productivity by 10%, and our customers ended up being happier with our service.