E-book: How to Use a Mobile App to Develop Your Business?

Mobile Market – General Trends

Current statistics on consumer trends and behaviors clearly indicate that media consumption is moving towards the mobile channel. 51.82% of global Internet traffic comes from mobile devices, whereas in Europe it amounts to 37.18% and in the United States to 39.62% (data from Feb 2017 – Feb 2018 Statcounter, excluding tablets).

Looking at the general trends, we can see that mobile devices are an inseparable part of the life of a growing part of society. People check information, plan, communicate and make purchases using smartphones. It is worth mentioning that we can’t look at the purchase process only in regard to the number of transactions carried out using a smartphone or tablet. The mobile channel is used to acquire information before choosing an offer and for the distribution of information after choosing it. Therefore, it is worth considering the use of the mobile channel in your business, analyzing not only the market, but also the opportunities it creates. That’s why we decided to write an e-book that will help you with this and answer the following questions:

Mobile Market – General Trends
What Can a Mobile App Give You?
Good Usability Practices for Mobile
How to Use a Mobile App in Your Business?
When Does an Application Make Sense?

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Below we present one of the five chapters and a fragment of the third one so that you can assess the usefulness of this material for building a strategy in your company.

What Can a Mobile App Give You?

The main benefit of using the mobile app in the company’s communication is related to the way mobile devices are used. More and more people use their smartphone throughout their day by checking content that is important to them. The convenience, ease, immediacy and availability are the main advantages of using the mobile devices. Such usability is an opportunity to create a unique and close relationship between the customer and the brand.

The main advantages of using mobile applications in the context of relationships are:

Direct contact with the user – thanks to the usage of push messages, it is possible to provide the user with quick information on a selected topic. This may include content regarding news, offers, discounts, promotions or changes. First of all, notifications should concern information that is important from the point of view of the client. An example of the use of such a mechanism is the Hot Shot used in x-kom’s application. This is a time- and quantity-limited preferential price offer for a given product, about which application users are notified, allowing them to react quickly. A good idea is also the ability to manage notifications – users decide whether they want to receive a message on a given subject, e.g. change in the shipment status or a price discount. Stock exchange applications allow the users to observe individual companies’ quotations and receive push or text notifications if they exceed a pre-set threshold. All this can be a reason for users to come back to a given application, use its unique features and recommend it to others.

Contact personalization – by downloading applications, the user consents to the processing of their personal data. Thanks to careful behavioral analysis (behavior of the application), geolocation analysis (where the user is at the moment), demographic analysis (age, sex, place of residence), hardware analysis (devices owned and amount of time per device) and transaction analysis (number and value of transactions), it is possible to match the appropriate marketing message to the user. By analyzing the browsing history or transactional data, you can send the user, for example, a discount coupon for a given product on their birthday, or present a complementary offer (cross- and up-selling methods). Thanks to behavioral analysis, you can analyze the user’s interest in a given category and display related advertising. Adequate targeting of messages increases the probability of the desired action being carried out on the part of the user, which translates into business results.

Building loyalty – the effect of ensuring a close contact with the user is greater customer attachment to a given brand. According to the data collected by Invesp, the acquisition of a new user costs up to five times more than keeping the current one, and the probability of sales in is higher by 60–70%. Loyalty, therefore, has a close relationship with business efficiency. In addition, customer attachment to a given brand and its more frequent use also affects the stability of the business and limiting its dependence on what the competition does, which protects the company against price battles (less sensitivity to price changes).

Increasing the brand exposure – 90% of the time spent on the phone is spent in applications (US, Flurry 2016). Therefore, assuming that your application will be one of those included in these 90%, you gain daily exposure to your brand. Depending on the marketing activities carried out by the company, you can calculate the appropriate advertising equivalent.

How to use a mobile app in your business?

In this chapter, we describe the different tactics which build the value for the user and the capabilities associated with the features specific to the mobile devices. Below we present one of the sections where you can find the native functions:

Native functions – the smartphone has a number of native functions that can be used to build additional value for the client. For example:

Gyroscope – is used for precise detection of the device’s orientation. It can be used, for example, to make a 360-degree presentation of an apartment in the case of sale or rental.
Camera – not only for taking pictures but also for scanning. It can be used, for example, to search for products using barcodes, to scan documents into PDF files or to log in using fingerprint or face recognition systems.
NFC – is used to transfer information from close range (up to 20 cm), for example when paying using the phone.
Bluetooth – wireless technology that allows two devices to connect up to approx. 10 meters. It is used, among other things, in IoT solutions for connecting and controlling devices.
GPS – makes device navigation possible, e.g. allowing you to track the route of the vehicle, inform about the distances between objects. It is often used in transport-related applications.
Accelerometer – recognizes how fast and in which direction the device moves. An example of using it may be to play faster music in applications dedicated to running activities.
Push notifications – a message that is initiated by the server without executing a query on the user’s side. They should be used in the case of user-relevant information, e.g. sending the shipment status.
Microphone – transmits information carried by sound waves. It is increasingly used in applications thanks to the popularization of devices managed by voice (VUI). It is becoming possible to respond to user commands, e.g. voice control of devices, ordering relevant products, or searching for them.
Touch – the use of specific touch combinations shortens the path that the user has to go through to perform the given command. An example of this is the action of placing a selected product in the basket by swiping left in the given auction, or a double tapping to display the details of the transaction.