Benefits of a Mobile Loyalty App

Today’s Consumer spends an inordinate amount of time on their smart phones. From playing games, connecting on Social Media, and even doing their banking. Smart Businesses have seen this trend, and understand that they need to position themselves on a channel that consumes so much of their clients attention.

The absolute best and most effective way to do this is to adopt a Mobile First Strategy for your Business, one that includes a Responsive Website (which means that the site is view able on mobile) and a Custom Mobile App.

Apps Reduce Marketing Costs

Built in E mail and SMS programs, along with unlimited Push Notifications give your business the ability to connect with your customers and know your message is being seen, all at virtually no cost.

Apps are a Constant Reminder of Your Business

Mobile Apps REINFORCE YOUR BRAND by increasing visibility. Your Businesses Logo in an icon on a screen your customers look at hundreds of times a day is priceless!

An App Will Generate Repeat Business and à INCREASE SALES!

With our integrated tiered Loyalty Program, you can now reward your customers for shopping instead of discounting. Studies have proven, that Businesses with a Loyalty Program in place do 20+% better than those without one. Our Proprietary Actionable Loyalty Initiatives, (ALI) will allow you to reward your customers for actions in the app, like sharing an image, notification or liking any of your existing social media pages.

Apps Give You Measurable Marketing Tools

Push Notifications have open rates of 98%, SMS/Text Messages have open rates of 99.9%, compare that to emails that have open rates of 20-30%, and you will start to see a real return on your investment. You no longer have to rely on “Hope Marketing”, with the built-in marketing tools in the Mass Mobile Apps platform you can new send a marketing message and know it’s being seen!

M-Commerce – Monetize With Mobile

Integrate your existing e-commerce site into your app, or add an e-commerce module that will allow you to sell products directly through the app. Today its important that your business is available to your customers in a Mobile Channel.

April 12, 2018April 21, 2018

The Cost of Mobile Apps for Small Businesses

Small businesses owners looking for a mobile app platform may be scared off implementing one by the perceived large capital costs involved.

I have some valuable insight on the topic from two perspectives, 1) I was a small business owner looking for a mobile app solution for my retail stores a few years ago, 2) Not finding a solution, I created my own platform that caters to small business owners.

My background is retail, I have owned and operated retail boutiques for the better part of 25 years, so I understand clearly the predicament small business owners face when looking to adopt a mobile app solution.

Let me start off by saying that for business owners today no mater how big or how small, it is imperative that they implement a mobile strategy. Aside from the many intrinsic benefits that mobile apps provide, like push notifications, food ordering systems, integration of all digital assets, and loyalty programs, they also provide ancillary benefits, like helping rank your business higher on google searches.

The goal of every business owners marketing efforts is to get their message, (whether it is a sales promotion, new arrivals, special event, or general updates) seen by their own customers, and to know that their messages are being seen. Look at the available marketing mediums that are available to businesses today:

Radio
TV
Print
Flyers
Paid Web
Email
Organic/Word of Mouth

The mobile app will over time become the best and most effective way to communicate with your customers, boost engagement and drive sales! Technology today enables a business owner to design build and publish a mobile app, for less then it would cost them to build a website. The Mobile App will be for businesses today and moving forward, what the website was for businesses in the past.

The other unique perspective I have is that of the founder of a tech start up catering to the small business market. We have built a platform from the perspective of a user and that perspective gives us the ability to understand the needs of our clients and how they will use our platform daily.

With the introduction of the IPhone, and the dominance of smart phones today as the primary method of accessing the internet for a majority of the population – it is imperative for businesses to adopt a mobile first marketing strategy moving forward. Cost should no longer be an obstacle for small businesses in finding a mobile app platform.

May 10, 2016

Tips on Customer Retention

You’re existing clients are 14 times more inclined to purchase from you than another client. Drawing in new clients costs about seven times the sum it does to hold a current one.

So how would you get and keep more clients at lower costs? The trap is to concentrate less on promoting and more on client maintenance, utilizing your current clients to get new ones.

Reviews demonstrate that 73% of fulfilled clients will prescribe your administration to others, and constructive testimonials from existing clients are significantly more prone to impact individuals than a brand’s own particular promoting informing. As it were, you’re existing clients are a goldmine. They require less venture, they purchase more, and they carry new clients with them.

Here are a couple tips on client maintenance.

Utilize a Mobile App Retention Tool

Applications help you keep a heartbeat on your clients through cutting edge investigation. Track in-application action to see the sort of substance that is drawing clients most. View demographic information that helps you refine your deals and advertising endeavors. What’s more, a large portion of all, utilization highlights like geofenced push notices, versatile bulletins, and devotion projects to keep your client base flourishing.

Adjust or Die

Try not to sit on your information—adjust and develop as per the patterns you reveal. Do you know why Richard Branson, the very rich person proprietor of Virgin Atlantic Inc., lost to the financial speculators in the Silicon Valley when he attempted to clash with Uber? One basic reason: Uber was upheld by a calculation, by information. Investigation turned Google from great to extraordinary and Uber from a daring dare to the companion driven monster in transportation. The organizations presented their administration, accumulated the information, then utilized it to refine in view of clients’ needs.

Concentrate on Customer Service

97% clients see client administration as the most imperative element while picking a brand. What’s more, in the wake of joining, client administration weighs most vigorously on consumer loyalty and net promoter score—or the probability that they’ll prescribe your image to another person. By and large, a client contacts client administration around 65 times each year, and 62% would leave their supplier due to poor client administration. Organizations can maintain a strategic distance from that destiny by making their client administration encounter excessively basic. Applications with brisk contact catches and locales with edible help focuses decrease client exertion, thinking about decidedly your image all in all.

Likewise READ: 50 Ways to Advertise Your Mobile App

Does Retaining Customers Make a difference in the App Industry?

As an application supplier, you may think about how valuable client maintenance truly is to your primary concern. All things considered, erasing an application is simpler than introducing one—it obliges practically no push to go separate ways. Be that as it may, things being what they are, application clients are significantly more inclined to rely on upon the applications they as of now use than to move to new ones. In some ways, it’s a champ takes-all business sector, and the most ideal approach to achieve new clients is through old ones. Informal advertising helps you slice through the commotion of an excessively soaked application store and achieve new clients straightforwardly. The more you up your maintenance, the more extensive your potential client base develops.

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 25, 2015

App Install Addiction Shows No Signs of Stopping

By: Simon Khalaf

It has been just over four years since Apple was awarded a trademark for “There’s an App for That.” Since then, mobile apps have multiplied at an accelerated pace and have even surpassed the weband TV in total time spent. Lately, however, many industry analysts cautioned that in mature markets such as the US and South Korea the rate of app downloads is decelerating and the app market is reaching a saturation point. For example, in August of this year, CNN Money ran a segment on app overload and the slowdown of app downloads. This fall, Paul Adams of Intercom, wrote a thoughtful and provocative post on the future of apps, predicting that apps will become more of a service layer, replaced by enhanced notifications as the consumer interface. At Flurry, we were curious to see whether our Analytics data validated these theories, so we took a look. We found that consumers are still downloading apps at very nearly the same rate since 2011.

Deceleration? What Deceleration?

For our research, we focused on the US, one of the most mature app markets. We found that in the US, consumers are downloading apps at the same rate over the past four years. The chart below shows the number of apps an average US consumer downloads per month from 2011 till now. On average, US consumers are downloading 8.8 apps per month in 2014, compared to 8.8 apps in 2013, 8.6 apps in 2012 and 8.9 apps in 2011. This is both iOS apps downloaded from the Apple AppStore and Android Apps downloaded from Google Play or any other Android App store operating in the US. That is a lot of apps downloaded by a single consumer.

This means that there is actually very little change in the rate of downloads since 2011. It doesn’t mean that consumers are continuously using all the apps they’ve downloaded over the years. In fact, they are not. You can look at previous research we’ve published where we shared the half life of apps and their rate of decay.

In our research, we also looked at the percentage of apps downloaded as a result of app marketing (or app install ads) by dividing the estimated yearly app install ads market in the US by the average Cost Per Install (CPI) in the same year. Despite the fascinating growth of app install ads, the vast majority of app downloads are still organic. In fact in 2014, 93% of all app downloads in the US were organic, compared to 95% in 2011. The only thing on a slight decline here is organic downloads. This is a very small change and a further validation of the growth opportunities in app marketing in general and app install ads in particular.

“Install Addicts” Are Keeping up the Pace

We dug a little deeper into our data to gain better insight into the US consumers responsible for these steady download numbers. The distribution is shown in the chart below. The majority of consumers (54%) are actually downloading less than eight apps per month. What is keeping the average up is a new segment of mobile consumers that we are calling “Install Addicts.” These are US consumers that download more than 17 apps a month. This includes apps downloaded on all smart devices such consumer owns. This segment represents 20% of the US mobile consumer base or an estimated 32 million people.

The Profile of “Install Addicts”

We were intrigued by the large number of Install Addicts, so we dug a little deeper in our data to better understand the audience behind these 32 million US consumers.

First we looked at gender. Install Addicts are 53% female and 47% male, compared to 48% female and 52% male for the average mobile consumer. That means that females over-index by 10% compared to the average mobile consumer.

We then looked at age groups. Install Addicts over-indexed in the 13-17 (Teens), 18-24 (College Students) and 35-54 (Middle Aged) age groups and under indexed in the 25-34 (Adults) and 55+ (Seniors) age groups.

The analysis gets a lot more interesting when we looked at the differences in Flurry Personas. On the female side, the following Personas over-indexed as Install Addicts: Gamers, Mothers and Social Enthusiasts. For males, the following Personas over-indexed as Install Addicts: Gamers, Social Enthusiasts and Parenting and Education.

The “over-index” is shown in the chart below. It refers to the division of the percentage reach of that Persona in the Install Addict segment compared to the percentage reach of that Persona for the average mobile consumer. For example, in the female Install Addicts segment, Mothers are 32% of the total, compared to 4% of the average female mobile consumers. In other words, female Install Addicts are much more likely to be Mothers than non-Addicts.

Looking at the three charts above and comparing this Install Addicts audience to the mobile addict audience we highlighted earlier this year, it is becoming clearer to us that what we call family devices (or shared devices, or hand-me-down devices) make up a good chunk of the Install Addicts audience. Such devices are for the mother or the father, but the children (teens) have access (and most likely passwords) to them and routinely visit the App Stores and download their new favorite app.

It is also hard for us to ignore the over-indexing of the Social Enthusiast persona. This is the Flurry Persona of consumers that heavily use social apps, including messaging apps and photo and video sharing apps. It could be a mere coincidence that Install Addicts are also messaging and social networking addicts, but it could also indicate that consumers are discovering apps through social and messaging applications. In the United States, both Facebook and Twitter have solid app install businesses. In Japan and China, LINE and Tencent, respectively, have bet big on game and app distribution, organic and paid, as lines of business. While it is still hard to measure the true impact of social discovery on app downloads, the chart above seems to indicate a big one.

We are a week away from the height of the holiday season, one that traditionally accelerates app downloads and brings app developers in general and game developers in particular more consumers to their apps. But as the data above suggests and as the past four years have demonstrated, app developers don’t need to wait for Saint Nick. They simply need to keep hoping for app install addiction to keep going strong.

November 26, 2014

How to Build a Successful Loyalty Program

Regardless of the size of your business, customer loyalty programs ensure more repeat business than any other form of advertising. However you need to make sure that your customers are participating, and are able to advantages of your program.

The easiest way to promote your loyalty program is to do it at the point of sale, face to face with your customer. It is imperative that your employees are well trained and enthusiastic when promoting your program. The customer is already committed to buying something from you, why would they not want to receive some type of a reward for giving you their business? If your business has the ability at the time a transaction is being made, it would be an easy way to help your customer sign up, or download your program, alternatively if you are a high volume enterprise, then having professionally printed material explaining how the customer would be able to join your program at a later time would be important. In both scenarios there should be clearly marked signs outlining how to join, and what the benefits of your program are.

Featuring your loyalty app, with the links of the respective app stores, in all your marketing material, is also an excellent way to quickly gain users. Places that would be helpful are, your website, your company facebook page, your company twitter account, and other company social media accounts…

For any loyalty program to work, it essential that you are able to get your customers to adopt it. Offering an instant reward upon signing up is a tool that is also very effective; for example, upon signing up for your program, offer the customer an instant savings or a gift. This will dramatically increase early adoption, and get your program off to a good start.

At Mass Mobile Apps, we have account experts that can help you structure a program, and ensure your success. Contact us to get started! [contact-form subject=’Contact from Blog’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]

October 18, 2014

Hackers gonna Hack

This was written by Laura Betterly…i thought it was a good read and good advice!

Websites have always been under attack by nefarious individuals who try and gain control of personal data or the site itself. This is nothing new, it’s been part of having an online presence since the birth of the Internet. Hackers make a sport out of looking to find new ways in, and hacker protections always run one step behind, plugging up the holes.

While this may make the steps you can take to protect yourself seem futile, since hackers are gonna hack (it’s what they do), it’s actually worth taking a few minutes to read and implement the suggestions that follow.
If you’re using WordPress, or any open source or flexible framework website software, your risk of being hacked increases. Here are a few tips to help you preserve your security.

WordPress Security Tips

Select unique user names. The most common user name for a WordPress site is “admin”. Why? Because it’s the default suggested when you do a new WordPress install, and most people are too eager to get their site up they assume they will come back and change the user name. Few do. Avoid using admin or your name as your WordPress login, it’s far too hackable.
Use a secure password. The easier a password is for you to remember, the easier it is for a hacker to guess or deduce. It’s always a good idea to use a long password that contain a combination of upper and lower case characters, numbers and special characters.
Don’t procrastinate on the updates. It seems like WordPress comes out with an update every couple of weeks. Be sure to update your WordPress install every time you see that there’s one available. Most of the wordless updates include security fixes to plug up the back doors and vulnerabilities.
Don’t stop with the WordPress install- update your plugins too. Update your plugins every time you see a new version come out, and delete old plugins and themes that you aren’t using any longer. Sometimes plugins from the WordPress repository are designed for older WordPress versions and contain back door security issues. If you’ve recently updated your WordPress and there hasn’t been a corresponding update to your plugin shortly after, check to see that the plugin is still active and supported.
Beware unscrupulous developers. Some app developers will sell you a plugin that is really cheap and seems too good to be true. Many times it is because they either won’t support it going forward or it contains vulnerabilities. Seems like everyone I know has at one time or another installed a plugin that contained some malware and found out by seeing Google’s big red malware-infected warning when they tried to visit their domain. Google will take the site offline until you get it fixed. It’s time consuming, and definitely will hurt your business when visitors can’t access your information.

Why My Hackers didn’t hack me…

I started this article telling you about how I was hacked. LauraBetterly.com had 247 attempts of someone trying to log in. But I have a plugin called Wordfence that saved my bacon, (there is a paid and free version).

https://WordPress.org/plugins/wordfence/ (the WordPress repository link)

https://www.wordfence.com/ (their website- not an affiliate link)

With Wordfence someone tries to login after a number of failed attempts (I set it up for three) the plugin blocks their IP address. In my case the guy persevered for about an hour, changing IPs and trying again until they decided my site was too secure and moved on to an easier target.

The paid version of WordFence scans your website and compares the code with the WordPress repository code, and lets you know by email if someone injects code into your site. That’s how I learned of my hack attempts.

Hopefully my experiences have helped to increase your awareness about some potential vulnerabilities. It only take a few minutes to implement secure site practices, and it can save you a few hours, days, or even months of misery at the hacking hands of a bored teenager in his parent’s basement.

I have the survey results for you, I’m working on compiling them and I’ll share them with you soon. Be on the lookout for this as well as a special invitation for you to join me on vacation next year, coming up next week.

XO,

Laura

P.S. I forgot to mention an added benefit to ensuring that your site is secure against hacking. When you implement a trust seal from a virus or security company, your sales conversions will increase!

I leave you with this awesome sensationalist news article I found. If it were written today it might say something like “Hackers can spread ebola through your home computer”! 🙂

June 20, 2014

The Mobile Web is Dead, It’s all about Apps!

It is becoming more apparent that the one thing people today don’t leave home without is not their American Express card, but their smartphone. They aren’t spending the day making calls, so what are they doing?

Data shows that the average user checks their phone about 110 times a day, and throughout the day they are spending 86% of their time in mobile apps.

The accompanying chart from mobile analytics company Flurry shows just how dominant the native app is compared to the mobile web. The chart shows a 6% growth in mobile app usage compared to a 6% decline in mobile web usage. More significantly, the read rate of promotional emails is between 5% – 20%, whereas a push notification is read at an astounding rate in excess of 97%. It’s still too early to predict the course apps will take in 2014, but it’s clear to see that mobile web activity is dwindling and the apps are taking over. Now every company in the world is adjusting to that reality

Amazon doesn’t have to build native apps — Amazon essentially has no competition. So why do they do it? Any why does eBay, and Facebook, and Twitter, and all the others who pour masses of development dollars into apps that no one needs?

Your customers are checking their phones 110 times a day — do you have a mobile app?

source: http://blog.flurry.com/bid/109749/Apps-Solidify-Leadership-Six-Years-into-the-Mobile-Revolution

June 13, 2014

Keep in Touch

Small businesses are investing more of their time, money and resources by effectively strengthening relationships by implementing a loyalty program. If you are a small business owner that has not leveraged the use of a loyalty program, you should…and this is why:

The January 2014 report “Achieving Big Customer Loyalty” focussed on surveying 1,000 small business owners practices and released its findings; that it is imperative that brands create personalized experiences for their loyal customers. The results are astoundingly in favor of a business implementing a loyalty program. “Manta” reported that of 1,000 small businesses (members of Manta) surveyed, 50% of business owners reported 61% of their annual revenue came from repeat customers. Loyal customers were spending 67% more than a new customer. As a result, businesses were only allotting 14% of their marketing budget towards the acquisition of new customers. So it can be said, that future marketing dollars are better spent not by chasing a new customer, but by maximizing the value in customers they already have! Unfortunately, only 34% of small business owners have adopted a loyalty program for their business, and those that have are using the tired old punch card.

For any loyalty program to be successful, it requires mass adoption. And offering a another plastic card to a customer just doesn’t cut it in today’s high paced tech savvy world! I for one automatically balk at the request of a store clerk that is offering me another piece of plastic for my wallet. It is time to enter the world of mobile marketing…why not offer your loyalty program in the form of a mobile app? In doing so, it allows a business owner to not only offer their customer the benefits associated with a loyalty program, but it gives the business a way to reach their customer on a platform that is the most engaging, and on a device that they have with them 24 hours a day. The custom mobile app offered by Mass Mobile is a product that does just that! The businesses that adopt this type of high tech engagement, get the instant credibility of being found on the “App Store” , which in the past was reserved for large scale operations, along with the ability to market in way that is sure to have the message being sent, seen by the target audience. Push notifications have the ability to been on a users smartphone just like a text message…and these messages are opened at a rate of 99.8%. This is staggering when compared to emails sent by businesses getting open rates of between 15-30%. The question is no longer, will a business adopt a mobile app, it is when will they adopt it?

Small business owners need to engage with its customers to increase its sphere of influence and to create meaningful relationships by creating personalized experiences. “Every retail brand now understands that acquisition is just the first step, and that retention is a top priority for achieving profitability.” Since 89% of consumers already participate in some type of loyalty/rewards program, the time is now to implement your own marketing loyalty strategy. Ted Williams, BIA/KELSEY’S Professor of Strategic consulting, confirms that customer loyalty programs are starting to gain traction in the small business community and went even further to say that these findings align BIA/KELSEY’S analysis that over half of small businesses will launch customer loyalty programs by the end of 2014 to help their businesses be more competitive.

Don’t be left behind, grow your sales and be on the forefront of the new way to do business!