Mobile Apps

Mobile is becoming the centre of future advertising and marketing strategies for businesses wanting to sell their stuff to customers across town, around the country, or globally.

There are an estimated 4 billion mobile phones in the world of which 1.3 billion are smartphones and the number is growing daily. In the UK for example OFCOM reports that there are a staggering 33+ million smartphones capable of receiving online content.

When smartphone users search for content or scan QR codes they are directed to mobile versions of websites or in some cases websites that have not been optimised for mobile viewing and just don't display correctly. For some types of business the mobile website offers all of the required information for the user to either learn more information about a product or service or to provide answers before making a decision to purchase.

Mobile Apps influence the way consumers buy

Mobile apps attract new customers and help to increase on-going engagement by building a community for brand loyalty – a loyal fan base of users that will be far more receptive to marketing messages that you put out because they have given you their permission to receive your marketing message.

Mobile apps help to attract new customers, increase engagement and drive conversions, by ensuring that the user keeps coming back for more.

Now the business owner of the app has control of their customers in a way that they never had before and can in effect drive customers in to buy, engage or interact in the way that has been designed to deliver the end result – sell more stuff!

First One On responds to the demand for mobile apps

Working with clients in different market sectors First One On has developed a range a mobile applications that help businesses communicate with customers to motivate them to buy more of their products and services.

Mobile apps have the ability to receive incoming text notifications called "push notifications" and as their name implies the message is pushed out to all users who have the app installed on their smartphone - and the app does not need to be open at the time to receive the notification.

Recent research has revealed that push notifications can deliver:

• 500% increase in daily app opens
• 3x faster response time than email
• 30% increase in social sharing on Facebook and Twitter
• 97% read rates compared to email at 5-10%

Push notifications should give consumers the information that they want in small doses, not a blatant advertising or hard selling approach, after all the user has installed the app to enable them to get some value out of what you have to offer.

iOS owners buy more

Watch those iOS owners! Why? Because they are the people most likely to purchase something on their device, more so than Android, Blackberry or Windows owners. This insight comes courtesy of Forrester Research and a study it did with 50,000 mobile owners. Forrester also found that iOS owners were more likely to use their phone to research products (86 percent) compared to the other platforms.