How to Write the Perfect Welcome Email

By Ryan Diess from Digital Marketer

Congratulations! You have a new email lead.

Now what?

First, know that your new lead is as excited to hear from you at this moment as they will ever be… what will you do with that power?

Indoctrinate.

Take this opportunity to…

Introduce yourself/your company
Set expectations for what they will receive
Restate the benefits of being a subscriber/lead
Get them to make microcommitments
Open a loop

If you craft this Indoctrination email properly you’ll be much more likely to convert this lead to a customer.

Let’s take each element of the welcome email in turn…

Introductions

Your welcome email (in most cases) should come from a real human being… not the company. The CEO (or other face of the company) is a good person to put in the FROM line on an Indoctrination email.

It’s as simple as stating…

“Hi, My name is Ryan Deiss and I’m the founder of Digital Marketer. I wanted to take a second to say hello and welcome you to the family.”

Set Expectations

Tell them exactly what to expect from you, when and how often.

Say something like…

“Here’s what you can expect from us…”

Then, simply list everything they will begin receiving from you via email (and otherwise) now that they are a subscriber.

This includes letting them know, in a subtle way, that you will be sending promotional email.

Restate Benefits

While you’re telling them what they should expect, restate the benefits of these communications.

Something like this will do the trick…

“I know this is going to be an absolute game changer for you because…”

Don’t expect your new subscriber to connect the dots. Hit them over the head with the benefits and take advantage of their attention to build excitement and anticipation for future communications.

Make micro-commitments

In future emails you’ll be asking your subscriber to do things such as read a blog post, download a white paper or buy a product.

An Indoctrination email is the time to start training your new subscribers to make small commitments.

The first microcommitment is to ask them to whitelist your email address. Create and link to a page on your website that gives clear Whitelisting instructions (see ours at digitalmarketer.com/whitelist-instructions/).

Let them know that they run the risk of not receiving your emails if they don’t whitelist you.

Second, ask them to connect with you elsewhere. This is where you can increase engagement with your new subscriber on social media. We’ll talk more about why “engagement” is so critical to today’s email marketer in a second. (Hint: We aren’t talking about fluffy, hippy marketer “engagement” metrics here)

Say something like…

“Take two seconds and join us on [FACEBOOK, TWITTER, YOU TUBE, LINKED IN].”

Opening Loops

Do you know why your favorite TV drama ends every episode with a cliffhanger?

Because it creates tension. And tension creates attention.

The human brain craves conclusions and a good email leaves your subscriber on the edge of their seat — anxiously looking for your next email.

It’s called “opening a loop” and your Indoctrination email should contain one.

Try something like…

“As an added bonus for subscribing, I’m going to be sending you my best [white paper/blog posts/case studies/tools, etc.] It’s about [DESIRED RESULT]. Be on the lookout for an email from me tomorrow.”

“Do you know the #1 reason why [INSERT A RIDDLE/REASON WHY/ETC]. I bet it’s not the reason you think. I’ll give you the answer tomorrow but for now…”

Then, set up a second email that closes the loop… and, perhaps, opens another.

How to Stay Out of the SPAM Folder

I saved this for last but it may be the most important purpose of your Indoctrination email.

Engagement. And I mean engagement as judged by Internet Service Providers and email clients, particularly Gmail.

The primary metric used to determine whether your future emails will make it to the Inbox or the SPAM box is Engagement.

When subscribers take actions like…

Open
Click
Favorite/Star
Reply

… they are much more likely to keep getting your email.

Many of the elements of this Indoctrination email are intended to increase these engaging actions.

Opening loops increases open rates. Whitelisting increases deliverability. Clicks on social media links increases click-through rates.

The perfect welcome email not only creates new prospects that are indoctrinated to you and your business… it also ensures that future content and promotional emails get delivered.

July 21, 2015

SEO basics for entrepreneurs: Easy tips for optimizing your website

This article was originally posted in June of 2014 by, Philippe Desjardins. It is very informative and helpful for newbies to internet marketing!

One of the obvious keys to growing a business is to get introduced to people who need your products and services. Great news! Research indicates that over 90% of people use the Internet when evaluating a purchase. In other words, the Internet is full of people looking for you.

But how do you get them to find your website?

There are two options: either you purchase the traffic by buying online ads or you don’t. If you’re one of the 100% of people who prefer free options to paid options, this article is for you.

The free option is search engine optimization (SEO).

What is SEO?

The term refers to techniques you can use to improve your website’s ranking on the results pages of search engines such as Google. If you want to attract more free Internet traffic, it’s something you need to focus on and get right.

SEO can be complicated when you dig deep into it. But, it’s relatively easy for you to understand the basics and implement them on your site. And, just by covering the ABCs, you will be putting your business ahead of the competition in many cases.

A simple SEO recipe

Here’s how to do it

First, take a look at your website and structure it so that each page is built around one single theme.

You want to do this because search engines aim to provide users with the information they’re seeking the first time, every time. In order to do that, they need to understand the content of your webpages.

Make it easier for search engines

By building each page of your website around a single theme you make it much easier for them to classify your page and present it when it’s relevant to a search.

Next, choose keywords you will use to optimize each page. Think about the keywords people are most likely to use to find the information provided by that page.

How to choose your keywords

Write down your choices for the 5 to 10 most relevant keywords for the page.
Go on Google AdWords. If you do not already have a Google Account, create one. It’s free.
Once on Google AdWords, go in the Tools menu and select Keyword Planner.
Select Search for new keyword and ad group ideas. This will bring you to a page where you can input the keywords you have written down as well as the address of the page you are optimizing and your product/service category.
Once you have entered your information click on the Get ideas button.
Right below the Search volume trends graphic, you will see two tabs; Ad group ideas and Keyword ideas. Click onKeyword ideas tab. It was a bit complicated to reach, but this is the magic page.
Here, you can plug in your search terms (the keywords you wrote down) and find the average monthly searches for each of them. Now you know if people are actually searching for the keywords you came up with and how often they do so. You want to make sure the keywords you will be optimizing your page for are as popular as possible while still being very relevant to your page theme.
Below your search terms you will find keyword suggestions from Google as well as their own average monthly searches. Look for relevant keywords with high average monthly searches.
Now, come up with your final list of five relevant keywords with the highest average monthly searches. These will be your targeted keywords for optimizing your webpage. It is likely to be a combination of some of your own keywords and ones suggested to you by Google.

Next, create your SEO tree. This is a document where, you will track six important optimization components for each webpage as a reference to use when you prepare your content. Here’s what it will look like.

Search Engine Optimization – SEO tree
Page name	Component	Details
Home	Keywords	Search engine optimization Online marketing SEO tips SEO marketing SEO training
	Page title	Search engine optimization (SEO) tips for small business
	Page description	Search engine optimization for small and medium business. How you can easily improve the ranking of your website in search engine results.
	Headings (H1, H2, etc)	Example: H1 = Search engine optimization for small and medium business H2 = SEO tips for your online marketing
	Image ALT tags	The SEO tree, a free SEO tool
	URL structure	www.bestseotips.ca

Keywords

Input your list of five targeted keywords for the page. Having them written here will help you to optimize the other components.

Page title

Search engines look at the page title, also known as the title tag, to understand the page’s content. They also show it in search results pages, as highlighted below:

Page titles have to be unique and include the most important targeted keyword for that page. The title should be compelling enough to trigger interest in 60 characters or less. Also note that the words at the beginning of the title have more SEO weight than the ones coming after. So, you should try to start your title with your keyword.

Page description

Search engines display the description under each page title on the results page to help searchers determine the best link to click on. See an example below.

Having a good page description is important because the information you put there greatly influences the decision of the searcher whether to click on your link or someone else’s. The description must be unique too and be no longer than 160 characters.

Headings

In website code, headings are designated <h1> to <h6>. These simply define the size of your headings, as they appear to the reader. Among these six levels of headings, H1 is the biggest and H6 the smallest.

The headings are more than shortcuts to quickly change the size and face of your text. They tell the search engines that the keywords in headings are more important. This is a great opportunity to use your targeted keywords. Remember, you must use one and only one H1 header per page. This is your main title and it should include your most important keyword.

You can then sprinkle your most important and other keywords throughout your text. But don’t overdo it. Using keywords too much is called keyword stuffing. It can annoy your readers and cause Google to penalize your pages in its search rankings.

Image ALT tag

The ALT tag is used to display descriptive text when an image cannot be displayed. Obviously, using image replacement texts makes sense for users who prefer to browse the Internet with images disabled. What’s more important for you is that search engines can’t read numbers or text on images, let alone understand the context of the image itself.

Your keywords may look fantastic and eye-catching on an image, but the only way for search engines to see them is the ALT tag associated with the image. Therefore creating ALT tags and including your targeted keywords in them is another efficient SEO technique.

URL structure

The URL is the address of the page. The words used in URLs send one of the strongest signals to search engines concerning the content of the page. URLs should contain the most important keyword for that page. You should also try to avoid using strings of characters in URLs that don’t make sense to the visitor. Only lower-case letters and numbers should be used, and dashes should replace spaces.

Helping your pages to climb

If you create SEO trees for each of your webpages and make sure you optimize the six components, you will have covered the most important aspects of search engine optimization. You will definitely help your website climb in the search result rankings.

In some industries where online marketing is fierce, this may not be enough for your site to appear on the all-important first page of search results. But without optimizing these components, it’s very unlikely that your website will rank for any searches not involving your brand/company name.

Implementing your work

Now that you have all your optimized content, it is time to implement it on your website. If your website is built using a content management system (CMS), such as WordPress, all the changes can easily be implemented in it without the help of a programmer.

If your website is built using an older proprietary system, you will have to give your SEO trees to your programmer so that he or she can implement your optimization work on each page.

SEO is in constant flux

The search engines are constantly changing the way they rank websites in their search results. What’s important now may not be so important two or three years from now.

One development in recent years is the growing importance of social media in search rankings. If you are regularly involved on social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, you increase the chances your website will rank higher in search results.

Great content is your best weapon

One thing that is sure to remain central to SEO is the need for good content. As long as people will be looking for answers, search engines will strive to find and deliver them the best pages to provide these answers.

So your best strategy to get to the top of search results and stay there is to create good fresh content regularly. This will help position you as a leader in your field and attract more visitors who you will be able to convert into customers.

July 21, 2015

IN-APP MESSAGES DRIVE 3.5X HIGHER USER RETENTION [NEW RESEARCH]

By: Dave Hoch

In-app messages are a great communication tool for engaging (or re-engaging) users who are already using apps. Yet, many app owners wonder how to create content that isn’t viewed as spam and doesn’t detract from the user experience. This may explain why only one third of app marketers are currently using in-app messaging as part of their mobile engagement strategy. [Share This Stat]

According to our recent research, when in-app messages are used effectively, there is a strong correlation with higher user engagement and retention:

Apps that send in-app messages show 2-3.5x higher user retention and 27% more app launches than apps that do not.
In-app messages triggered off of an event have higher click-through and conversion rates than those triggered at the start of an app session.
Photography and Sports apps see the highest lift in click-through rates when in-app messages are triggered by an in-app event.

Apps That Send In-App Messages Have More Loyal and Engaged Users

In-app messages are the perfect tool to guide users to the most valuable parts of an app, because they either act as directional guidance to get to the next step or serve as an opportunity to offer incentives delivered at appropriate points in the app. Once a user sees the value of an app, they are more likely to return frequently and often. Our latest data supports this idea.

Overall, apps that send in-app messages experience 27% more launches than apps that don’t send them, seeing an average of 13 launches per month.

In addition to a higher number of app launches, apps that send in-app messages have significantly more loyal users. For example, these loyal users return to the app 3.5X more often in their third month of using the app.

This means that these app owners are retaining nearly 50% of their users three months after their initial engagement, thanks in part to the effectiveness of their in-app messages.

In-App Messages Triggered From an In-App Event Are 4X More Effective

Delivering relevant in-app messages is the key to negating their perception as spam.

Our research observes the average click-through rate of an in-app message is 28%. But, on average, when the in-app message is triggered off of an event (i.e. an action taken inside the app), the click-through rate is 2x higher than an in-app message presented at the start of the app’s session. The same holds true for conversion rates, as in-app messages presented based on an event have 4x higher conversion rates, on average, than those shown at the start of a session. [Share This Stat]

July 21, 2015

Why A Blog Post + A Landing Page Is A Lethal Combination

Tracy Vides 6 Comments

It’s hard to run a business. You know that. And most entrepreneurs gleefully embrace this fact. The reality of it, however, can still give you goose bumps.

Think about this: Amazon has been in business more than two decades now and it still doesn’t make much in terms of profit.

While investors have undying love for the company, it barely scratches the surface of net gains. Meanwhile, it expands, offers free shipping, buys new businesses, and adds more products to its seemingly endless shelves. According to an article by Meagan Clark and Angelo Young on ibtimes.com, the online retailing behemoth recently reported $17 billion in sales but with a $41 million loss.

Meanwhile, Twitter is something everyone uses and its future is still uncertain (waiting for its advertising model to work). In the year 2011, Sprint Nextel, AMR, Sears, and MGM resorts were all losing money as Rick Aristotle Munarriz noted on Daily Finance.

Why are we discussing businesses losing money here? What has this got to do with blogging and landing pages? Now, these are large businesses. They have attractive stock prices and investors love them. Yet, these companies barely make money. What can a small business do? How does a small business hope to make a sustainable profit given a situation like this?

While there is no magic formula, a great piece of advice is “keep your expenses down and go smart”. Make use of resources best suited to lean businesses. The giants cannot adapt fast. But you can! Use content and digital marketing to your advantage; use blogging in combination with landing pages.

Here’s why it’s a lethal combination that holds its own over other free and paid options.

PPC + Landing Pages Works but it’s Expensive

Phil Frost of MainStreet ROI explains why AdWords could prove to be expensive for your business.

Don’t get me wrong. PPC is easy, quick, and gets you results. It’s highly targeted advertising and with much lower risk than other paid channels or traditional advertising. It is just that you would have to know how to do it right.

Phil points out that the default settings on AdWords are built to make you lose money. Second, not all businesses fully understand how AdWords works and they don’t go much beyond pointing simple ads to their homepages. Third, most firms do not have a framework or a checklist to work with Adwords. Finally, organizations don not always track clicks from campaigns to see if this works in tandem with their business goals (if at all they have them clearly defined).

There is a lot at stake here. If you have the budget, you can certainly do PPC with landing pages. It is just not as straightforward as you might think, though. For one, putting up ads on Google or Bing and then waiting for traffic to come in only to convert is not a one-time process. You would start with segmentation, move on to geographic targeting, adding and removing keywords, creating ad copy, assets, and message matching. You would then have to optimize your landing pages, test frequently, and then go back to work on your ads again.

It does not end. So even with a budget, you still need to have the expertise and embrace learning curve.

Blog Posts Provide Content, Landing Pages Trigger Action

If you have to spend resources, why not do it with blog posts and landing pages instead of PPC? Your budget spend is reduced, and you have more room to experiment.

That’s not the only thing in favor of blog posts and landing pages. Blog posts are informational. They provide context to your readers. When you make a relevant offer with a blog post, your chances of conversion are a lot higher than an ad with a few characters and a landing page that shows up from nowhere and only has a hope of matching the ad message.

For instance, see this WordPress Handbook for first time users. This is an excellent collection of resources for WordPress beginners, but you can’t expect users to access it in a browser all the time. As a result, it can be forgotten after a while. Giving it away an eBook or in a PDF format could get WPKube an email subscription while the PDF stays longer on the subscribers’ devices.

Some companies go even further to create landing pages, which are themselves doorways to more information instead of making any direct offers. Shopify, for instance, has a resource doorway to starting a retail business, leading potential customers to take action, with all options taken care of:

More Toom To Explain

How many times have you heard the phrase “Let me explain…”? You have heard it because it is common, and it often works. Salespeople use it all the time. People who have vested interested in your vote use it relentlessly. If you are a marketer or a business owner, so should you.

But when ads and updates have character limits, how much convincing can you possibly do? What if the prospect wants to know more? Your ad cannot explain so much to a prospect. If a prospect had to click on an ad, go to a landing page, figure out further details about your services or products, and then come back to signup as a lead, your paid advertising is not really doing justice to your budget, is it?

Meanwhile, a blog post can already be a pre-emptive explanation. A landing page with an offer directly related to the blog post can boost your conversions sky high.

Knowledge + Trust = Better Conversions

When you blog, you are letting your heart out with a voice. Your customers get to know the real you. Names have faces and your writing has a voice. This is as personal as it can get. Customers feel that there are real people behind a business.

From an advertising perspective, this beats any ad served by technology. It beats anything automated. It also beats any hard-sell tactic.

Landing pages, of course, are a means to an end, leading your potential customers from “reading and knowing and trusting” mode to a more active “take action now” mode.

That is why a combination of landing pages with offers highly relevant to the topic of a blog post makes tremendous sense. It is no accident that companies like HubSpot, QuickSprout and Unbounce use it all the time. For example, HubSpot includes a free resource with a CTA at the end of every blog post:

Wrapping it Up

We always believe that no one method or channel is a permanent bet. The best kind of digital marketing is usually a mix of strategies, tactics, and marketing channels. It is also about tweaking, experimenting, testing, and picking what works.

It is not just PPC, SEO, social media, or email marketing. The best marketing strategy is a combination of all of these. This is why we call it the “Marketing Mix.”

Are you using blog posts to drive traffic to your landing pages? Are you making offers your readers cannot refuse? Please share your content marketing tactics with us, and let us know what is working for you and what is not.

July 20, 2015

Survey Shows Millennials Willing To Pay For Loyalty Programs

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Free shipping and special discounts were top reasons for joining.

A recent survey by LoyaltyOne has found that 62 percent of respondents overall – and 75 percent of Millennials between 18-24 and 77 percent aged 25-34 — would join a fee-based rewards program if their favorite retailer offered one. Almost half (47%) of all respondents said paid programs have better rewards, and 61% of those 18 to 24 and 54% of those 25 to 34 said so.

The survey also found that free shipping (69 percent) and special discounts (67 percent) made the loyalty programs valuable to respondents.

Consumers reported that they gave high marks to paid loyalty programs like Amazon Prime or even membership-based warehouse retailers like Costco. The explanation is obvious: when loyalty programs require an upfront fee, it means that customers have already invested in the retailer and therefore is more likely to make purchases from them to recoup their investment.

A recent study from Millward Brown Digital found that Amazon Prime members convert 74 percent of the time on Amazon.com, according to, compared to 13 percent for non-prime members.

The LoyaltyOne study also found:

Nearly half (47%) said that fee-based programs offer better rewards than free programs, with a significantly larger number of millennials – 61% of 18-24 year-olds and 54% of 25-34 year-olds – reporting that fee-based rewards are better.
Slight more women (67 percent) than men (64 percent) reported that rewards are worth paying for.
Ranked by category, respondents ranked Grocery and Mass merchandise highest (35 percent), followed by Credit Card rewards (26 percent), Specialty Retail (13 percent), Travel (18 percent) and Restaurants (9 percent).
Meanwhile, roughly one-third of 18-24 year-olds (32 percent) and of 25-34 year-olds (34 percent) reported that they have never been offered membership in a fee-based program, compared to one-quarter for the general population. This would suggest a ripe opportunity for brands and retailers to target their loyalty programs.

“These results should attract the attention of brands considering a shift to fee-based loyalty programs as marketers look for ways to create competitive differences and lock in customer spend against a backdrop of waning program effectiveness and engagement challenges,” LoyaltyOne Consulting associate partner Lance Du Chateau said. “The traditional spend-earn-redeem reward program doesn’t make sense for all companies and customers, and fee-based value propositions increasingly are a topic of conversation. More marketers should explore this approach.”

July 18, 2015

Millennials Prefer Native Apps For Mobile Shopping

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Millennials Prefer Native Apps For Mobile Shopping

Native apps provided better experiences than companies’ mobile sites

A recent survey from Forbes and Stanford that polled more than 1,600 millennial consumers has found that native apps are the preferred tool for mobile shopping.

According to the results, almost half (47 percent) have downloaded at least one mobile shopping app to their smartphone, with Amazon, Etsy, Forever21, and Wanelo ranking as the most popular native app downloads. Millennials also favored apps from Forever 21, Starbucks, JackThreads, and Modcloth.

When asked why they downloaded native apps, 54 percent of the millennials said it was because they offer a better experience than the company’s mobile site, followed by discounts or lower prices (27 percent). Just 2 percent said it was to shop while not on their computer, and 4 percent said using a native app was mandatory to purchase a particular product. This seems counter to prevailing wisdom that states that native apps provide a more personalized shopping experience.

According to Retail Dive, native shopping apps are the latest tools to help retailers cash in as sales executed on mobile devices are expected to nearly double to $280 billion worldwide in 2015. This is particularly true in relation to attracting the millennial customers.

And as Integrated Solutions for Retailers reported, sales via mobile devices are driving revenue. For example,Amazon has announced that sellers on Amazon sold more than 2 billion items worldwide in 2014, setting a new record for sales. In 2014, Amazon also introduced the Amazon Seller App to facilitate the management of sellers’ business on Amazon via their mobile devices. And sellers from more than 100 different countries were able to fulfill orders on Amazon to customers in 185 countries by using Fulfillment by Amazon services.

Coming Soon: Innovative Retail Technologies

We’re rebranding! In time for the Sept/Oct issue, Integrated Solutions For Retailers will become Innovative Retail Technologies. Renew your subscription or subscribe today.

July 1, 2015

5 Subtle But Effective Digital Marketing Strategies

Image credit: Entrepreneur Media Inc.

JUNE 29, 2015

The buzz phrase in digital marketing has been “content is king” over the past few years. As entrepreneurs, we all know the only constant in our world is change. And with that, content marketing is evolving. Most content is creating noise and assaulting our senses as consumers. It is time to maximize our efforts, simplify and build content that engages, acquires and converts.

Welcome to the age of the “sales trailer,” the creative pieces of content that get you to go to the movie that took millions of dollars, teams of talented people and years to create. The same is happening to our businesses: We have the drive and ambition to build incredible products or services and we want to tell everyone everything about it. We need to realize that it’s not about us but about entertaining them — the customers that buy the tickets to our movies.

But it’s no longer how much. Below are the trends I see influencing less-is-more in digital marketing.

1. Precedent set: Apple’s minimalism movement wins

The standard has been set in terms of design, product and messaging. The marriage of boldness and simplicity has changed the digital marketing game forever. The most successful and iconic brands of the day — Apple, Uber, Nike, Google — all market using bold strategies that say very little. Their success is due to creating massive channels of advocates. As well as their ability to brand an instantly recognizable image or slogan that instills particular values and warrants a calculable response.

2. No one really reads, they digitally skim

You are probably skimming this article. I was once told, paper is for the heart, the screen is for the head. The way people consume information has evolved – folks want information quick and easy; infographics, videos, pictures, you name it. Multimodality and omni-channel is the name of the game; people simply don’t have the time (or the desire) to consume information that requires a hefty time investment. Quick bursts that effectively summarize a topic get a message across far more effectively than a lengthy document.

3. Get to the info fast — like right now!

We want our information fast: a picture is worth a thousand words, a video could very well be worth a thousand sales. When I look at new client’s sites or marketing, 90 percent of what I see is endless noise. We fall into a habit of throwing so many words at the audience, very little of which make a genuine impact. Poorly marketed information nets minimal attention. Marketers must get to the point as soon as humanly possible through highly relevant and deliberate diction. Spread through the right channels, the right content is the difference maker and can create an astounding impact, even with just a few words.

4. Get advocates to spread your message.

In the current world of shares, follows and likes, build content I want to send to my friends, post to my followers and connect with emotionally.

Say it quickly and say it well. Content has to be exciting and it has to stand on its own legs so it can essentially market itself. Remarkable content speaks for itself and creates peer-to-peer endorsements.

Make your message something meaningful so people feel the urge to spread it. From there, sit back and watch as the digital marketing ecosystem works itself.

5. Sales trailers, no more books

So many tell their story around a product feature, advantage or benefit. The core of your digital brand is in your story. Craft a message that resonates, engages and impacts your audience emotionally. Take that story and whiteboard a piece of creative with your team only about that message and belief. Let everything else follow from there. Your team will start sharing it and then others will follow. Eventually, you will sell tickets to your movie and consumers will get the whole story, but start with the trailer.

May 25, 2015

How to Use a Mobile App to Increase Repeat Business

Studies show that it is more cost effective to market to existing customers, than it is to acquire new ones. With that being said, a Custom Mobile App is the PERFECT tool to help you do just that! Mostly people these days spend a good number of their time on their mobile phones. From playing games, surfing, shopping, paying bills to contacting their friends and family members, everything is now so simple, time efficient and straightforward.

Today almost all businesses have websites, and the mobile app is also becoming a staple in most business’ marketing repertoire. For a business to not only survive but thrive, it is imperative that all avenues to connect and engage with perspective clients be embraced.

Some Recent Mobile Apps Success Stories

Denim Industries, Back to Cali, Organico Vitamins and Natural Touch Rehab, are all Small Business Success Stories. Each of the apps developed by these savvy businesses helps in different ways. Some of them aid in driving traffic to their bricks & mortar locations, some keep clients informed of appointments and policies while all give the business owner the ability to enhance their companies perception with their clients. Many of the apps also have full scale loyalty programs built in, as well as a plethora of marketing tools, add that to the not too subtle ability to have your logo on a device that is used by your customer constantly.

Benefits

Companies need to build an app that boost up its repeat business using mobile coupons, loyalty programs, real-time deals and much more. A company can drive customer engagement when and where it counts with push notifications and location-based messaging. These apps help a lot in promoting brands plus the spread awareness among your customers about your business. You can provide social sharing tools and options so that not only the purchases will be made but customers will be able to share their experiences too, thus giving your content the ability to go viral.

These apps help company in sending news alerts, information about new products, coupons and deals to their customers. No longer does a business have to rely on marketing efforts that are not able to reach a customer effectively. Today a business that has their customers download their apps, have the ability to reach them 24/7, and not only reach them, but know that they are receiving their messages. Traditional paper advertisements or other media channels, are pretty expensive and are less likely to be noticed by most of the customers. Mobile apps help you boosting your repeat business by targeting people that want to receive your content.

March 16, 2015

What our Customers Have to Say!

We have recently received a great testimonial video from one of our customers. Danny, the owner of Denim Industries has been with us for approximately 1 year, and has received a great response to his “Denim” app from his customers. According to Danny ” it took a while to grow my user base, but now we have customers coming in for our ‘App Only’ promotions, and all of our regulars have really enjoyed the fact that they now earn rewards. I even had one customer bring her friends from out of town to the store, and encouraged her to purchase a thousand dollar jacket and she took the points.”

Danny From Denim Industries

Sunshine Greer from Cuppa Sunshine Coffee & Tea had this to say:

“OMG!!! Love the new feature that asks # of punches so we don’t have to punch it in so many times for multiple drinks!! awesome!! If you want to market this to coffee houses on the west coast (Seattle area), I can write you a coffee house specific review. You guys (maybe you are just a one man team?) are the best!! Thanks,

Sunshine=) ”

Ahmad from Organico Vitamins :

“That is even more AWESOME. I am running out of adjectives. Now I have to start thinking about putting together rewards format. What great news to start our day. Everyone is excited and cannot wait. Actually you may get some referrals from other merchants also. They had asked me who did my APP. This is my top priority so everything is secondary. We need to have this off the launching pad as quickly as possible!”

Sam from Back to Cali:

“Having our very own app on the app stores gives us that extra credibility, that has not only helped with customers, but with our suppliers. Before this, my emailed newsletters, were getting absolutely NO attention from my customers, any promotion taking place in store would have to be repeated because they weren’t opening my emails. NOW, however, I have customers visiting weekly with phone in hand asking me to point out the newest items (in store) showing on their app!

-Sam

Ben from Audio Basics:

My only regret when purchasing my custom app is NOT DOING IT SOONER! It’s given my business to a whole new level of sophistication. So visually & aesthetically pleasing, has my clients thinking we are an industry giant with multiple locations!!! -Ben

Oral from Natural Touch Rehab:

At first look, I felt the idea of the app didn’t really fit for our clinic, but it’s actually much more than i envisioned!! The “notification’ feature has really helped us stay connected to our patients. Our patient response times have never been quicker! Every time a new update is available, me and my staff can’t wait to see what feature have been added! Good Job guys!

-Oral

March 12, 2015

5 Ways to Maximize your Mobile Strategy

For the first time, mobile devices outnumber people. This benchmark underscores a crucial fact for entrepreneurs: as the number of mobile devices rises, so do their importance.

Eighty-five percent of consumers believe their mobile devices are essential to daily life. Clearly, the mobile interface is crucial for consumers, and the savvy businesses that hope to connect with them increasingly choose to do so via smartphones and tablets. A mobile strategy can help companies of all sizes reach more customers and help maintain a strong market presence.

But creating a mobile strategy involves more than building an app. A great strategy ensures that your in-person, mobile and traditional online experiences communicate a cohesive message that motivates customers to interact with your business. Here are five ways to maximize your mobile efforts:

Design great experiences.

Make sure you deliver a customer experience that enables users to interact with your brand in new and exciting ways. Most users have experienced the frustrations of trying to navigate a mobile website, with distorted layouts and impossible navigation. This is why they prefer a native app experience. So when you are planning your app with your developer, make sure you address ease of use, and functionality.

Make your strategy scalable.

Mobile App downloads are projected to double during the next 3 year period, and the smartphone market is forecasted to grow by more than 10 percent every year for the next four or five years. Your mobile strategy must be flexible, so allow and plan for rapid growth.

Look to Unify User Experience.

When possible look to align user experience across multiple channels, make the visual of your app align with that of your website, online shop, and your bricks and mortar location. Having the ability to link to your facebook, twitter, website and ecommerce sites is a definite plus.

Find a strong team.

A bare-bones app can cost upwards of $10,000 to develop, and developing a more in depth experience can run in into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Having a solid team of developers is critical to building successful apps. Look at the experience of your prospective developers, and if at all possible contact some of their existing clientele for feedback on support, and overall satisfaction.

Extend your OWN Brand.

There are 2 different models that enable business owners today to launch a mobile strategy. The first is to join a community of merchants inside of the app of the developer. Your company will appear geographically alongside other participating merchants. While you may expose your brand to potential customers that may have never heard about you, the probability is that you will not. Why because users of these types of Apps, do not look for other merchants when using the loyalty aspect of the app at their businesses of choice. Additionally you will be required to promote this app to your customers, and if you do gain some from your inclusion you may also lose some for the same reason. The second and most effective is to develop your OWN custom app, where you do not share your customers with your competition, and you extend your own brand, with your logo and the credibility that comes along with having your own custom app.

Denim Industries is a great example of a merchant that tested several of the multi merchant platform, and eventually ended up going with their own mobile app, developed by Mass Mobile Apps.

A mobile strategy that’s tailored to your goals and connected to your customers’ needs will help you connect with your target audience on a deeper level, additionally a strong mobile strategy will also accelerate your company’s growth in a market place where mobile technology is quickly becoming an expected avenue to maintain and nurture customer relationships.

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