Monday, March 10, 2014

Deploying Mobile Strategy? Better Have an App for That.

Changes in technology and how people interact with it are rapidly accelerating. It was in the late-1990s that businesses came to realize that they had to develop a website and an Internet strategy. It took over a decade until, in the early 2010s, smartphones and tablets became almost ubiquitous and businesses realized that they also needed a mobile strategy. Typically marketers have interpreted this to mean that they must optimize their website for display on a smartphone.

But if that is what you think, then please think again, because consumer engagement with their smartphones and tablets has evolved rapidly as the number and functionality of apps has exploded. Flurry, a firm that conducts research on mobile-device usage, has reported that smartphone users now spend 80% of their time using apps and only 20% or less using mobile websites. If you are relying on a mobile-site alone, you are missing out on 80% of your prospective customers' attention. The challenge is that consumers often download apps and then scarcely use them. Putting a lot of money into app development and then conducting unstructured marketing to drive downloads may not produce the results you desire.

However, most every such problem is typically met with a solution, and Twitter and Facebook offer ads specifically designed to get customers to install and then actually use apps. Google is working on such offerings as well. These services make use of a concept called "deep linking," in which a link can be directed to a specific portion of an app. Facebook has reported that its app-install ads have been quite successful in driving app downloads. These ads can drive downloads from both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

It is no marketing secret that you must be where your customers are, and your mobile customers are on apps!

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