The rise of mobile technology has allowed for an app explosion over the past few years. According to The Statistics Portal, The Apple Store has 2,000,000 apps (as of June 2016) and Google Play is going on 2,500,000. There are a number of opportunities for businesses in every industry in the mobile app market, including advertising and marketing, office productivity, research, development, B2B, and so forth.
Here is a look at some of the strategies firms and entrepreneurs can utilize to take advantage of the app industry:
Establish better collaboration and communication – Business.com ranks HipChat and Slack among the most effective apps for internal collaboration. Such apps go beyond standard messaging and even integrate well with multiple Dropbox accounts. Different chat rooms can be created for each team or project with private file sharing and protection. With the right sharing and communication services, a lot of storage and data management problems go away.
Simplify CRM and provide assistance more quickly – A wide variety of integrated apps are available to make customer relationship management and sales support processes easier and less expensive than what traditional proprietary software offers. One example is the Mojo Helpdesk: a help desk/ticket tracking application that allows businesses to assign, track and centralize customer/user requests. It also provides features such as SSL and automated actions. When a mobile CRM is employed, sales reps can immediately check-in from anywhere and access all details regarding their sales pipeline, correspondences, client information, and orders so that they can help customers. Real time communication is also possible with mobile CRM apps.
Increase geo-marketing efforts – Today’s mobile devices have built-in GPS to accurately show where the device and its user are located. This data can sometimes be accessed when the user enables the “use location data” feature in the apps. Google AdWords allows advertisers to target customers in specific geographic locations. Ads can be set for location-specific landing pages depending on the consumer’s location. Businesses themselves can obtain location data by creating and releasing their own mobile apps.
Developing an app for brand awareness – Speaking of which, app creation is one of the best branding strategies for businesses of all sizes. Those who outsource the development work must treat the project the same as other freelance projects and choose their developer carefully. Test automation tools are available to ensure that the app runs smoothly before the launch process. The web design and marketing teams should be involved to come up with a theme and idea for the app. In order to stand out in the Apple or Google Play store, it will need an eye-catching UI design and icon, useful interactive functions, easy navigation, and a relevant description.
Better social media marketing – There are numerous apps available that make social media marketing easier and more effective. Facebook has recently revealed that it has 1.09 billion active mobile users a DAY. One simple strategy for taking advantage of social media apps is to make content shared on FB or Twitter easy to view on smaller screens. Google even considers “mobile-friendliness” as a factor in determining SERPS. There are also analytics and reporting apps that work with all of top social networks. Zuum, for example is a great app for businesses interested in finding out which influencers their targeted customers are looking up to.
Today, mobile phones and tablets have taken over the advertising world, and much of the advertising is done via apps. This trend isn’t going anywhere; if anything, businesses are going to be even more innovative in how they use apps for productivity and marketing. In addition to outsourcing mobile app development, corporate trade also offers opportunities for companies lacking the internal resources to develop their own applications.