Capitalize on the Love of Mobile Apps

A recent study conducted by Oracle found that over 85% of young people “Millennials” (ages 18-34) own a smart phone. Marketers are rapidly moving in the direction of native mobile applications – or Mobile Apps. In the process marketers, and business owners in general understand that it is not adds that engage young people, its apps!

This consumer segment cannot be discounted when looking to take advantage of growth opportunities. That is where Mobile Apps come in, if you are a small business owner, you can now obtain a completely custom mobile solution, that in the past has been dominated by big budget corporations. There still exists today a misconception that apps are difficult to maintain, and expensive to produce, that is simply no longer true. The study shows that this group of people are using their smart phones for a wide range of uses; everything from paying a bill, interacting on social media shopping, and watching video. Another study conducted by Flurry Mobile Analytics, showed that 88% of time that people in general spend on their smart phones are spent in native mobile apps.

Top items millennials prefer to do or have in-app (by percentage):

74% – Purchase a product or service through a company’s app

65% – Flag issues or raise complaint/concerns that are submitted directly to the company

62% – Receive notice of upcoming deals/offers

60% – Advice on how to best use products/services received from the company

Always maintain your brands identity and continuity throughout all marketing channels. Try to incorporate functionality that would be beneficial to your users, for example: a Realtor may want to include a mortgage calculator, a Salon a calendar to schedule appointments, a boutique a gallery, and everyone should include some form of loyalty – its cliché but if you build it they will come. Just give them a reason to keep coming back.

July 21, 2015

WHY IN-APP MESSAGING IS THE SOLUTION TO YOUR ADVERTISING WOES

Finding the right monetization strategy for your app can make or break your mobile ROI, and often the search, model criteria and selection process comes down to specifics about how users will interact specifically with your app. One model that works for many apps is monetizing using in-app advertising.

In this business model, you offer your app for free with the goal to accumulate a sizeable user base and gather information on the people interacting with your app. Then, this data gets sorted and sold to app publishers who pay you to place targeted ads in your app.

Mobile ads are booming, and it can be an extremely successful monetization model when the ads are actually relevant, which depends on your ability to collect the user data to help companies target their ads to the right set of potential users.

Even when you’re serving smart, relevant ads, they are still often seen as spam by users, who at this point have grown somewhat jaded and fatigued by the constant pop-ups. Data-driven ads are still ads – they’re still asking users for something before they may be ready, even when the ad is relevant to who they are.

How do you monetize your app without compromising the user experience?

Because of this, ads can’t be the only thing you serve up in the user experience. Mobile ads can comprise your app experience by claiming a portion of the screen in the middle of a user interaction, potentially frustrating users and degrading their experience, which can lead to app churn.

The solution? In-app messaging.

In this post, we highlight three ways using in-app messaging augments in-app advertising to temper the feeling of spam and prevent churn.

1. Create relevancy for higher CTRs

If you’re serving up ads that are based on user data you’ve collected, then you’re already ahead of the game. This means your CTRs should be higher, because the ad content is personalized, right?

That’s not always the case. Because of the nature of ads, CTRs are typically low. While you can provide ads that your users might be interested in, you’re still asking for something instead of providing something.

In-app messaging, on the other hand, should act as a part of their current user experience to feel natural and fluid. In-app messages are often triggered based on an event completed or action taken in-app – this means you can control the content that your users receive via in-app messages and time them at precisely the right moment.

You can use in-app messaging not just to interest the user in relevant offers, but also to inform her of new and critical features, additional content she might find relevant based on her interests, or help connect her with the social portions of the app. It could be a number of interactions, most of which are valuable based on that user’s profile.

When this kind of messaging is targeted based on real-time mobile user behavior, you’re going to see higher CTRs:

Not only can you trigger real-time in-app messages based on user behavior, but with the right analytics foundation, you also have the benefit of historical behavior analytics and user attribute data (such as location, language, device, etc). This combination of analytics and real-time marketing gives you the opportunity to add real value to your app experience.

2. Offset mistrust with meaningful interactions

Here’s the worst-case scenario for mobile ads, and something you might have encountered: that these ads are seen as intrusive; pushing new products, services and brands on your users that they don’t care to learn about.

When this happens, you risk creating a foundation of mistrust with your users, concentrating more on your bottom line than on improving their experience with your app. Of course, this is never the goal an app owner starts out with – but it is the situation many end up with. This is where employing in-app messaging can help re-establish trust and regain user interest.

As a marketing tactic, in-app messaging serves to provide additional content, information or offers to users while they are using the app. As an engagement tactic, in-app messaging can and should provide highly-personalized, relevant content that is valuable to that particular user, and engages her further with the app based on her interests.

This provides meaningful user interactions, further establishing why users should be using your app. Say you have a group of users in your sports app whose favorite team is the Giants. You can send these users an in-app message alerting them to price changes on tickets, or new articles that mention the team. In sending this, you are providing information interesting to those users, and further engaging them with the app in alternative ways. You aren’t expecting or asking for a purchase, but rather adding something to their experience with your app.

3. Grow retention with valuable user experiences

Engaging app experiences are the key to creating short- and long-term retention – if you want users coming back again and again, they need to be given a reason to. Too many bad, or even just too many, experiences with mobile ads can lead to poor retention. With in-app messaging, you’re restoring balance to the experience.

Retention is going to have a significant impact on your mobile ROI. Without re-engaging users and giving them an experience they would to have again, you’re losing all future monetization opportunities with those users. Essentially: in order to have app users who actually convert on your mobile ads, you first need to ensure that those users are engaged enough with your core app features and functionality to return to the app multiple times. Pushing a first-time app user an ad is not only going to hurt your monetization plans, it’s also going to turn that user off, and perhaps turn into an uninstall.

We’ve seen that apps that use in-app messaging have much higher retention rates than those who don’t, because they’re able to provide additional value and tailor a better app experience using this tactic.

How in-app messaging can work for you

In-app messaging is appliable to everyone; whether it’s new feature announcements, NPS surveys, targeted offers, or just more information, you can find a style that suits your app. As long as you’re using real data to inform better messaging, you’ll be able to create a strategy that works, improving your app user experience and complementing your monetization model.

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.

March 23, 2015

Canadian Small business, improve customer relationships by developing smartphone applications

Great Article in the Toronto Star as to how important Mobile Apps are for Business Owners.

Apps – those things you install on your smartphone or tablet to perform specific tasks – have traditionally been seen as a luxury offering available only to large or tech-savvy organizations.

By: Jeff Quipp Special to The Star, Published on Wed Mar 27 2013

Apps – those things you install on your smartphone or tablet to perform specific tasks – have traditionally been seen as a luxury offering available only to large or tech-savvy organizations.

A small business can’t easily afford to invest $10K – $40K to develop a customer-friendly app. But new products available now let small businesses purchase their app services on a monthly basis, just like internet and phone. These cover areas such as payments, scheduling, and appointments, messaging and marketing with coupons, deals and social sharing. This means that, for the first time, apps are now affordable for small businesses — and they may be one of your best secret weapons to staying competitive. With more than one million applications available across the Google Play and the Apple App store, and users spending nearly half a day each month using the programs, the message is clear: users like apps. With this in mind, here are five reasons why a small business should consider investing in its own mobile application:

Customer service – providing information at the fingertips of your customers is a significant value add. From the convenience of wherever/whenever they are, they can find information that is essential to their purchasing decision.

Retention through brand recognition – Staying top of mind is easy when an app puts your company’s logo in front of your customers.

News and information updates – Whatever you need to share, an app gives you the ability to ensure a customer’s smartphone has up-to-date information. From holiday closures to extended hours to trending news and reviews or something as simple as construction they might want to avoid while making their way to your business, an app can be a valuable information resource.

Company image – Having your own app projects a professional, tech-savvy image. It shows you’re invested in the latest customer trends and can make your business appear larger or more well established than it may in fact be.

Push out messages for promotions/launches – Apps are a new direct line of communication with customers. You can push out notifications for promotions and new product and service launches, literally putting the news in the palm of your audience’s hands. Plus, these notifications tend to stand out from the stream of emails most people receive about the other guy’s promos.

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

February 2, 2015

Costs of Custom App Development

Figuring the costs of custom mobile business app development

How much are custom mobile business apps going to cost you? Here are some estimates, analyses and offers we’ve found that should help set some reasonable expectations.

General app development costs

This post is primarily about apps for for mobilizing business processes, but if you are interested in the more general topic of app development costs here are some pointers:

Business app development costs

Surveys

Update: A November 2014 Kinvey report based on a survey of CIOs and Mobile Leaders found that mobile application development is “costly, slow and frustrating.” According to this survey:

56 percent of mobile leaders surveyed say it takes from 7 months to more than one year to build one app. 18 percent say they spend from $500,000 to over $1,000,000 per app, with an average of $270,000 per app.

Source: Kinvey Survey

A survey of IT professionals conducted in 2013 by AnyPresence, a backend-as-a-service company, asked about the initial cost of developing a typical mobile application. Over half reported spending more than three months and over $50,000 developing a typical app. Very nearly a quarter reported spending over $100,000.

Analyses

App development company Propelics specializes in iPad apps and posted a very informative blog post in December 2011 with a breakdown of iPad app development costs. This is recommended reading on the difference between consumer and enterprise apps. In a nutshell, Propelics describes three levels of complexity in enterprise apps corresponding to three price ranges:

Simple Enterprise iPad App Development Cost: $50,000 (+/- 20%)
Medium Enterprise iPad App Development Cost: $100,000 (+/- 20%)
Complex Enterprise iPad App Development Cost: $150,000 (and up)

Features that bump an app into the $100,000 range include a branded and highly tuned user experience, and integration that leverages your existing enterprise capabilities. For real-time integration, mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM) infrastructure, you enter the $150,000+ category.

In a late 2012 webinar Propelics reiterated these figures in the context of mobile budget planning for 2013.

An October 2012 post provided some very detailed estimates by the CTO of 5App and his conclusion:

It’s safe to assume that using traditional development techniques to create a cross-platform enterprise app won’t come in under £100K.

He lays out a grid splitting out costs for design, development and testing on one, two or three platforms for four app categories. Here are some example estimates (converted from GBP to USD for comparison to other estimates here):

An app that extracts data from a database and displays it in a simple list can be expected to take 4-8 weeks to create at a cost of $26,000 on a single platform.
An app with more complex server-side integration and offline data caching will probably take 8-12 weeks and cost $71,000 to develop for two platforms.
A full-scale enterprise automation app with integration to business processes will take anything from 3-6 months and may cost over $150,000 to develop on three platforms.
Assorted Quotes
An October 2012 analysis of why enterprise apps fail begins with this rather revealing anecdote:
The head of digital for a major UK interactive agency shut the door and slid the iPad across the table with a pained smile. Her team had developed an app for a major financial services firm. $140,000 and six months later they were about to start again. The client was, unsurprisingly, unhappy.
Kevin Benedict:
Companies are under tremendous pressure to develop and deploy mobile apps for their business systems, yet the traditional approach to mobile app development typically costs $250K+ and takes 6+ months for a single app.
StarMobile:
Based upon complexity, the initial costs to develop a native enterprise application for one mobile device platform can range from $50,000 to $250,000. Those costs grow exponentially if you need that app to support multiple mobile device platforms.

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]

November 21, 2014

A Mobile App – A gift that keeps on Giving!

No longer hold the belief that building loyalty is through discounting, but rather by building a strong bond between brand and customer. The connections that customers attach to a brand must also be considered as being added value. Businesses that have already made their brand mobile and sociable have risen to the top by prioritizing loyalty and by developing emotional connections with their customer.

The customer is the heart of a business, and a good way to increase customer satisfaction is to keep the customers needs central to all business operations, from the top down. Furthermore, by incorporating current technology to ensure a business provides the customer service that consumers expect, business owners can expect to turn that loyalty into increased revenue and a healthier bottom line.

The most anticipated holiday season of the year is only 30 days away businesses must be prepared to leverage this technology to increase customer retention which will translate into a successful Christmas season!

Here are a few steps you can take to ensure that your Holiday Season is the best one yet!

1. Content Marketing – Keep it fun and reflective of the season, special promos and themes

2. Discounted Shipping – Offer special rates for delivery

3. Social Media – Make regular updates, especially during the holidays when usage is at its peak!

4. Customer Service – OVER DELIVER!

5. Support a Local Charity – Tis the season for giving…setup a promotion with a local charity

6. Appify – Get a gift that keeps on giving – to your customers! Mobile apps can update customers on current events and offers that your business has, and with features like push notifications, you will have access to your customers 24/7!