The Power of Mobile Coupons

Mobile coupons have become a powerful way for businesses to reach potential customers.

Just how effective is mobile couponing? While email campaigns traditionally have redemption rates of 2-4% on average, mobile campaigns tend to see redemption rates of 8-10% on average. With some campaigns even seeing redemption rates as high as 16% [Code Breaker]. According to eMarketer, 8 out of ten adult mobile coupon users in the U.S. will redeem a mobile coupon via their mobile device in 2015. They expect that number to rise to 9 out of ten by 2017.

You should considered adding mobile coupons to your iPhone app or Android app development project. Today, many retailers are seeing the benefits of implementing a mobile coupon strategy. Remember that while your customers may forget to grab your mailer, they won’t forget their smartphone.

With mobile geo-targeting you can target an offer to your customers when they are within a three-mile or other radius of your store.A successful mobile couponing strategy depends on several factors. What is the value of your offer? Have you created a sense of urgency to use this offer? etc. The quality of how you run your program can go a long ways determining the success, as strategies such as creating a sense of urgency can improve redemption rates significantly.

Remember you shouldn’t just blast out mobile coupons to everyone. To be successful, you need to make sure your coupons are targeted to the users interests. Leveraging your customers data and combining it with location data from users’ phones can create highly effective campaigns. Deliver a relevant offer when they’re near a store and redemption rates go up significantly. With mobile geo-targeting you can target an offer to your customers when they are within a three-mile or other radius of your store. This method has proven quite effective in bringing in customers.

Over the past few years we have several advances in the way mobile marketing campaigns are carried out.  Look for the next wave to bring even increased precision to mobile couponing as beacons can deliver coupons to customer phones based on their location within your store. Is a customer by the fragrance counter in a department store? Imagine how effective a well created Lancôme coupon could be at this moment. Meanwhile another customer that is in housewares is getting a Cuisinart coupon at that same moment. Being able to improve the targeting of your program to the exact location of your store that a client is in drives redemption rates to even higher levels that mobile is already experiencing.

Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns (Flikr) http://bit.ly/1X3ir2V

Improve Your App By Looking at What Makes Apps Fail

We can all think of businesses who have succeed with their mobile apps and, unfortunately, we can all think of businesses who struggled with their mobile app.

Looking at mobile apps there are certain things that seem common to poor performing mobile apps, before you start your next mobile app development project make sure that you are not making these same mistakes. One of the most common mistakes with lower performing applications is a poor user experience. Think about how your users will feel when engaged with your application. Will it create delight? Frustration? In fact, a poor user experience can extend beyond a user simply not using an app, with 54% stating that a poor user experience would make them less likely to use other products from that business (Oracle).

Key to creating a great user experience is an effort to align your app with customer needsKey to creating a great user experience is an effort to align your app with customer needs. It definitely needs to be easy to use and intuitive, but does your app do what customers expect it to do when the download it? Think about what you need in your app to retain your users. What will keep them coming back? Successful apps are tuned into their users’ needs.

It is important that you analyze the mobile journey taken by of your customers, from there you can determine which actions are most frequently performed. Then you can determine how to streamline the user experience to best meet the needs of your customers.

Another issue with apps that fail are they focus too much on selling the customer. Does your app off little or no value to the customer? Do you see it just as a tool to sell customers? Apps like this are bound to fail as customers will have little reason to use them. Once again, this goes back to focusing on the needs of your customer.

When budgeting for your project make sure that you plan a proper amount for user research and user experience design.  These items will make or break  your mobile app.

Additionally, you will want to make sure you plan on reviewing and updating your app. Improve the execution of processes within your app to improve the user experience. Carefully review the capabilities  your app  offers and and look for ways to elevate the the performance of those activities.

Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns (Flikr) http://bit.ly/1PcNxQ4

Leverage Location-Based Mobile Marketing to Gain Sales

A vastly underused tool by businesses today is location-based mobile marketing. If you don’t know what this means specifically, it means ads or messages are delivered to your app users based on that person’s location (determined by the GPS in their smartphone).

These days people depend on their mobile devices for information regarding their purchase decisions. So clearly having the ability to display your message in the context of the app user’s location can be a very effective marketing tool. Before you start your next mobile app development project make sure you consider how you can include these powerful tools.

Geo-fencing

When you set up what is known as a geo-fence based on a specific proximity of your retail store,  every time one of your app user’s enters that geo-fence, they can receive a push notification from you with a promotion to a product or service at your store. This is particularly effective if they can see your store (72% of consumers say they will respond to calls-to-action in messages they receive when in sight of the retailer – MDG Advertising).

iBeacons

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A rapidly emerging new way to leverage location-based information is through Apple’s iBeacon. The iBeacon relies on Bluetooth low-energy technology to transmit when someone’s iPhone that is has your app installed comes within range. With a retails store, a perfect application of this would be to send a specific promotion directly to the customer’s smart phone with information about the product he or she is by.

So how does it work?

Mobile apps require that the device’s location services be turned on for them to function.  Since privacy is always a concern, you should offer your users the option to opt-out of location-based services. To avoid having your users opt-out, you should make the benefits clear to your app users.  Additionally, by presenting interesting and relevant promotions you will keep their interest. This can be a win-win strategy for you and your customer if executed properly. Blasting your users with unrelated offers will turn them off quickly.

Location-based marketing is not where near the end of exploring its full potential. Location-based marketing creates a massive opportunity to gain sales and market share over competitors that are not taking advantage of it. Many mobile users happy to opt-in to a mutually beneficial relationship, one where businesses respect their interests and time and deliver relevant content at the right time and place.

Pic: Juin Hoo (Flikr) http://bit.ly/1Rvk88G

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