An app that sells. Ten tried ideas for mobile marketing

An app that sells. Ten tried ideas for mobile marketing

Last year, a total of 117 billion apps were downloaded. It is a lot, and the competition among AppStore and Google Play players is so high that if you want a mobile app, this actually needs to be an app, not a mobile version of a website. Below, you will find 10 app uses that boost marketing.

We spend 90% of our time having our phone up to a meter away, and that includes sleeping time. An average mobile phone user spends 3 hours a day in-app. And there is an 80% chance that you are reading this article on a smartphone.

The market for mobile apps provides excellent tools at the fingertips of the users or in their pockets. Therefore, many companies decide to release mobile apps for marketing and promotion of products and brands. The last three years saw an abundance of retail apps, whose market share and profits raise 40% each year. Lidl, Biedronka, Zara, Rossman, Hebe, Auchan, Empik, Ikea — each of these chains has their dedicated app. However… has it always been a good marketing decision?

Let us look at the Carrefour app. By installing it, the user may get a 10% discount on their first purchase. With low profit margins and income of tens of million zlotys daily, this was an action below profitability levels. Why did then Carrefour decide on such a move, also supporting it with a strong promotional campaign?

At the same time, there are deep marketing budgets spent on creating and promoting apps that serve no particular business purpose of a company. Sometimes, this is the effect of a “mobile fad” rather than the needs of the users.

Based on my experience as well as that of my customers, I am presenting to you ten tested ideas on promoting a product or a brand with the use of a mobile app.

Better user experience

There are business segments that have not heard about user experience and that will not hear about it anytime soon. These are corporate ERP systems, HR systems, financial applications, a number of CRM’s, etc.

But what if the end user is a person who is well aware of aesthetics and usability? The solution is a good mobile app.

University apps are a good example. Let us compare the visuals of USOS, Polish universities’ most popular systems, used by half of students in Poland, and an overlay coded for one of the universities. Those that see no difference are kindly asked not to read further.

Using phone sensors

Phones come equipped with GPS receivers, a gyro, two to six cameras, a light sensor, microphone, accelerometer, biometric sensors and a gajillion more features. All in all, a mid-range phone is equipped with several sensors. A GPS allows for the development of navigation apps, ordering a taxi ride or finding a perfect date. A microphone enables voice recognition (or recognition of a song which is currently playing on the radio) and cameras assist us in recognizing objects, including QR codes or barcodes. In my opinion, the use of the potential the in-built sensors offer led to the dynamic development of the mobile market.

Still, the vast majority of apps merely display what the website or a database would, only in a form which is suitable to the display of a phone. If you do not need to tap into the native functions of a phone, consider whether it would be worth setting up a PWA — Progressive Web App — which will positively impact the loading times, improve SEO, and at the same time will cost much less than a dedicated mobile app. Onet, one of Poland’s leading web portals, followed this exact line of thinking.

Mobile game

Mobile games are a different kettle of app-fish. They are on the top of usage statistics, overtaken only by messengers and social media apps. Games make use of accelerometers and mobile-optimized engines, most often Unity. If you want to create a game that will promote a brand or a product, my bet is that it will be a mobile game.

Just remember: the game needs to be simple and interesting, and the market message — clearly stated. If you go for a more ambitious game, you will spend a lot of money without the intended marketing effect. A good example which comes to mind is the mobile game Super Mariusz uratuj Bytom (Super Mariusz, Save Bytom) promoting Mariusz Wołosz as a candidate for the mayor of Bytom. Mariusz actually has become the mayor of the city. I do not know whether the achievement came by the virtue of the game but he has reached his goal.

Phone-only product

There are some products that have been designed, from the very beginning, to run on mobile as the first and exclusive communication channel. These are most commonly messengers but also dating apps or those that are close to social media sites. Examples are Instagram, Tinder, WhatsApp, Snapchat or TikTok (with short video clips). They could have been designed as desktop apps but instead they were coded for mobile. They are mostly used for publishing photos and video clips, which are often taken with a mobile phone.

An app encouraging more frequent purchases

In 2018, the highest popularity bump was observed in purchasing apps — 40%. In Poland, the biggest hit appeared to be the Rossmann app, with around 10 million total downloads and 4 million active users each month.

It is the consequence of a consistent discount campaign which is correlated with the discount offers. Other retail networks, from Żabka to Zara, see the growing importance of customer-attracting apps. In case of quite similar products in the FMCG segment, it is rather easy to make a customer loyal to one retail network. And even though loyalty coupons were introduced as early as the 19th century by Coca-Cola, mobile makes loyalty so much easier and offers an added benefit of sending PUSH and SMS marketing reminders.

Currently, a small percentage of large brand budgets go towards such activities, although, naturally, the structure of promotions makes it impossible for all the customers to get their prizes, which effectively lowers the budget amount spent on loyalty programme coverage to about 1%.

Movement-sensing apps

The first examples that come to mind are workout apps — Endomondo, Nike Run, Fitsy, etc. Sitting and staring at a phone for 3 hours a day serves neither the eyes nor the figure. Therefore, we observe the growing popularity of workout apps, with the support of sports gadgets, e.g. smartwatches.

Movement and the in-built movement sensors can be used also for other purposes. A major movement-driven campaign was introduced by the Mini brand in Stockholm, eight years ago. Participants could take over the control of a virtual Mini; the last person standing drove away with the actual car!

In the times of AR, everywhere that camera images and phone movement can be found, also additional pictures and attractions can be installed, which gives hundreds of opportunities for promotion of events and brands.

An app that redirects you to an online shop

The dynamics of year-to-year m-commerce is on the level of 40%. Every business player should ponder such rapid developments. M-commerce, however, is about much more than e-commerce (Amazon, Zalando, Polish e-obuwie or Wish); similar apps were introduced by clothing brands — including H&M and Zara.

Why do they take such steps? The reason is twofold.

First, the app — if we agree to receive a newsletter or notifications — will remind us about visiting the shop, usually with some discount incentive added.

The second step is, naturally, to encourage us to shop online. The traditional Zara shopping brand makes 10% of its global turnover from m-commerce and this figure is growing. According to the brand’s CEO, in ten years this segment may account for half of all the sales. With mobile, traditional brick-and-mortar shops are preparing themselves for the time when we will make all of our purchase from home or a café.

Wallet app

Once you started paying with your phone, you will most likely stop carrying your credit card around. Or maybe the whole wallet? Credit cards are, however, not everything. You will be hard-pressed to find a more loyal customer than someone who transferred their money to an app. If you convince them that it makes sense to make a deposit, you will improve the company’s financial liquidity — a million users with 10 zlotys on their account each makes 10 million zlotys on the company account!. The customer has already made their payments, they will be definitely loyal.

A good example is Revolut — upon making a transfer, you can make transactions and exchange currencies with favourable rates. Starbucks — when making a deposit, you can count on a free coffee from time to time. If you have made a transfer, you are sure to visit the chain for a coffee, since you have already paid for it!

An app that promotes a product’s most important feature or two

Many companies offer complex and complicated products but actually only one to three features are really important. A user wants to find the closest cinema (GPS), check the films screened, and / or buy tickets. If you know what attracts customers, cater for them to also satisfy your sales need. Using the cinema as an example, offer a promotional cola and popcorn package because this is also what a cinema makes money on.

Orlen Mobile is yet another example. It is common knowledge that petrol stations also profit from the shops that are part of the place. It would therefore seem that introducing the possibility of paying for your petrol straight at the pump is a shot in the foot — and Orlen did just that half a year ago. You cannot be more mistaken! After each transaction, the app offers a random discount for water, coffee, windscreen wiper fluid — just to have us actually enter the shop and make a purchase. In the meantime, the place at the pump is freed for another customer to use.

Make apps that are actual apps

The last section is a warning against a few fundamental mistakes that can be made when investing in a mobile app.

• Nowadays, an average mobile phone owner uses several apps a month and a few each day (messengers, Facebook, e-mail). A few are used on occasion, such as maps or workout apps. If you fail to follow a user’s routine activities, you will only burn away your marketing budget.
• An app cannot repeat what is on the website — if you are considering such a move, think about a PWA web-app that provides the best SEO, improves page loading times, and will shortly become available on Google Store (Onet is one content provider that followed this advice and in reality PWA is most suited for content websites).
• Do not fall for the temptation of writing dedicated messengers. Your customers use Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, or another major tool. The chance that they will accept an in-app messenger within a marketing / sales app is barely existent.
• Do not write apps to find a shop, a post office, police station. Google Maps serve this purpose. No one will download a dedicated app for such means.
• An in-app calendar. Almost every user has their own calendar and it is wiser to offer adding events with the ICS standard. One exception to this rule are booking apps, such as Booksy or Booking.com.

Summarizing, a mobile app is a good vehicle of brand promotion, as it provides access to the customer — we are physically in their pocket! An app can neither be a simple mirroring of what the website offers nor satisfy a one-time need. If you predict the customers will behave this way, better invest in a PWA app. An app that reaches its marketing goal needs to provide value in utilizing the previously untapped potential of a phone, e.g. sensors. It may also highlight 1–3 top features of your product, like offering discounts or easier transactions. Last, but not least, consider what will make users return to your app and what it is that they will not find elsewhere.

Author: Dr Krzysztof Wojewodzic, CEO of a software house https://escolasoft.com