Tag Archives: mobile app opportunities

Let Customers Be Able to Find You via Mobile Devices

In the last few years we are seeing people utilizing computing power in a vastly different way with smart phones and tablets often becoming the device of choice over laptops and desktop computers. Many small business have discovered that by being easy to find on these devices they have been able to increase sales and growth.

No longer can businesses just put up a web site and expect that to be enough. A business needs to be able to be found in a wide variety of places to insure that customers can find them where ever they are looking. Whether its via mobile web site, traditional web sites, mobile applications (including iPhone and Android apps) or social media, your business needs to have an established presence.

Here are some key items to think about regarding improving your presence in these mediums:

Mobile Web Sites: The number of searches completed on mobile devices has climbed 20% in the last year. Business owners without mobile web sites are missing out on a significant amount of searching. According to Nielsen, those who use mobile devices to search for you are statistically more likely to follow up on the search. 55% of mobile searches result in a purchase. A survey by comScore has revealed that searches done on mobile devices are much more likely to result in a sale than searches done on computers.

Mobile Applications: Mobile apps provide consumers a regular way to keep contact with your business. Applications are fantastic at deepening markets and businesses need to provide content that keeps loyal customers coming back. Is your app a one shot deal or something that consumers want to keep readily available to visit? Do you provide something of value to those that have downloaded your app? Apps that users return to over and over help generate repeat business at a tremendous rate.

Social Media: About 40% of those surveyed use social media to interact with businesses. This is a huge number of people that your business could reach. Social media outlets are well formulated to the mobile environment and a great way for consumers to find you via their mobile devices.

It is essential for your business that you and your products are readily findable on mobile devices. Once consumers get to your mobile site or app, make it easy for them to find most relevant information about your business: your address, phone number, and hours. This is important with social media as well. Make it easy to find your physical location on your digital presence.

Savvy businesses are embracing these trends and leveraging the power of mobile to propel growth.

Mobile More Important to Retail Than the Internet

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Mobile is having a massive effect on the retail industry and is expected to have a bigger impact on the industry than the Internet ever did according to a new analysis from Deloitte.

Deloitte’s new Consumer Review is showing a sound 14 percent rise in smartphone use in the UK to 72 percent. Based on the rise in the number of shoppers with mobile devices in hand, we see retailers are quickly installing WiFi into stores, developing mobile apps, and optimizing marketing campaigns and mobile web sites for tablets and smartphones. In fact in a survey of 1,000 UK consumers, it was found that one third had already used some form of online wallet.

“There is no doubt that mobile is rapidly redefining the way consumers and brands interact even more than the Internet did,” said Ben Perkins, head of consumer business research at Deloitte. “Consumers are expecting convenience, simplicity and security in exchange for their loyalty. It is only by embracing mobile’s full potential with the right strategy that a consumer facing business can compete in a mobile-centric world.”

Savvy businesses that fulfill customer expectations are reaping the rewards while others that do not are at risk of being left behind. “Right now we see smart companies embracing the new business paradigm”, according to Kimber Johnson, managing director of Pacific App Design.”Those that are giving consumers the mobile experience they are looking for are seeing great results but I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of a business that isn’t keeping up right now.”

This brings to light the importance of usability. Consumers are no longer content to just see a business has a mobile presence, but rather as the industry has grown and matured they are expecting that presence to be easy to use or they will abandon it.

Mobile Commerce to Double by 2017

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According to new figures from Juniper Research in ‘Mobile Commerce Markets: Sector-by-Sector Trend Analysis and Forecasts 2013-2017’, they predict the value of mobile transactions to more than double from this year’s $1.5 trillion to a very impressive $3.2 trillion by 2017. This comes as no surprise to anyone who has watched the meteoric growth of mobile application development.

Right now this creates a huge opportunity for retailers as not all businesses have stepped up and added a mobile presence. “Mobile presents a great opportunity for savvy business operators at this moment,” observes Pacific App Design’s managing director Kimber Johnson, “if businesses do not embrace a user-friendly mobile experience, they will find themselves falling behind the competition who are embrace mobile channels.”

In a recent report from TransFirst and ControlScan, it shows that just 37 percent of retailers are either in the process of optimization (15 percent) or have plans to optimize with mobile web sites in the next year (22 percent). Which is surprising given how thoroughly the market has embraced the technology. Google research from May, 2012 showed that the average smartphone owner installed 28 apps on their device. According to a study by Flurry in December of 2012, U.S. consumers spent an average of 127 minutes using mobile apps per day. This is an ideal place to connect with a consumer base.

“From our experience, we have seen that a multi-pronged approach works best,” continues Kimber Johnson, “mobile applications work well to deepen relationships with customers and to improve relationships with a consumer base, while mobile web sites typically work well widening a consumer base as they help improve the experience with consumers on a first contact.”

The value of mobile app marketing and a strong mobile web presence cannot be overstated. Users are attached to their mobile devices and depend on them to deliver content on in an enormous spectrum and if you are not delivering content within that spectrum you are at risk of being ignored and forgotten.

Pacific App Design celebrates Small Business Week with special promotion for small businesses

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SANTA MONICA — To celebrate Small Business Week, Pacific App Design is offering small business customers 20% off of new mobile application development projects and new mobile web site development projects in order to help them adapt to the changing marketplace. With the rapid growth of the mobile marketplace, new opportunities have arisen for savvy business people and Pacific App Design is committed to helping them seize those opportunities.

This program is part of Pacific App Design’s ongoing commitment to small businesses. While this year marks the 50th anniversary of National Small Business Week, Pacific App Design believes that every week is small business week.

“As an industry leader, we are in a position to help other small businesses grow and advance their interests in the mobile marketplace,” said Kimber Johnson, Managing Director of Pacific App Design “Businesses that are employing smart strategies with mobile applications and mobile web sites are seeing great returns right now and those that are not are at risk of being left behind their competition.”

Small businesses interested in taking advantage of Pacific App Design’s Small Business Week promotion can simply call or email Pacific App Design between May 16th to May 20th, 2013 and ask to take advantage of the Small Business Week Promotion. New mobile application design projects and new mobile web development projects will be given a 20% discount this week only. This does not apply with other offers and cannot be used for projects already in process.

About Pacific App Design

Pacific App Design was originally founded in 1990 as a software development company and grew from those roots into a web development company in 1996. Since then, they have grown into a leading mobile application firm. With their years of experience, they can deliver top quality apps at rates lower than many other firms. Pacific App Design designs and develops iPhone, iPad and Android mobile apps, as well as HTML5 mobile web sites and even Windows Mobile and Blackberry mobile apps, but they are not just a run-of-the-mill mobile app development company. Pacific App Design is relentlessly focused on high quality UI/UX design to optimize user experiences. Their expert staff of experienced designers, marketers and mobile app developers, strive with each and every project to build custom mobile applications that people will download and use over and over again.

Location Based Mobile Marketing Takes Center Stage

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Do you know what the hottest marketing trend in practice today is?

If you answered location based mobile marketing you would be right on target.

Consumers have their mobile device filled with mobile applications and access to mobile web sites at almost every moment of the day and most importantly, they have their mobile device with them when they are shopping and making purchasing decisions. Clearly, taking advantage of this coupled with the consumer’s location is a marketers’ dream.

In a new BI Intelligence report, location-based mobile marketing looks to be a bit of a holy grail for marketers as it offers everything a marketer could possibly want: high conversion rates, tight targeting, and rich consumer information possibilities. In fact companies across the globe are rushing to location-based mobile marketing since an overwhelming amount of data is proving just how effective location based mobile marketing has been across several studies. According to BI Reports, “That’s where location-based mobile technology comes in. It gives marketers new ways to identify and track mobile audiences, and with the aid of algorithms, it can also group them into behavioral and demographic segments for targeting.”

We see that companies are embracing location based marketing by looking at its rapid rate of adoption. In a study of brand executives it was found that 91 percent plan to increase their spend on location based mobile marketing campaigns in 2013 (Balihoo). And in a different study by Berg Insight, it was found that location based ad spending was about 8 percent of the total mobile ad spend for 2012, but that this is expected to grow to 33 percent by 2017.

Clearly a strategy that takes advantage of a consumers location and a device that is in their hand is bound to put you in a great position to increase your brand’s sales.