Mobile Apps Can Direct Targeted Traffic to Your Business
These days, it seems as if everyone has a smartphone, iPad, or some other “smart” mobile device. The reason it seems that way is that it’s rapidly becoming true. The number of smartphones owned by U.S. consumers, for example, passed 100 million earlier this year. As the number of devices grows, so does the number of apps for those devices. There are hundreds of thousands of apps out there, varying in degrees of usefulness, but one thing is certain: if it’s a human activity, somebody, somewhere, has invented an app for it.
One of the most common human activities on the planet is shopping, so it was only a matter of time before someone invented apps for it. There are problems though. Many such apps change fundamental aspects of shopping that we enjoy. While the consumer shopping experience may change fundamentally and radically in the very near future, there are some elements of the shopping experience that probably should remain as they are. A brick-and-mortar retailer may, in fact, survive and thrive precisely because it offers a part of the shopping experience that is unavailable online. Imagine, for example, a candy store, and what makes a trip to a candy store fun. Then ask yourself to what extent that experience can be duplicated online.
Live Shopping Apps—What’s Needed and What Isn’t
The logic of an app is that it makes something easier, more convenient, more possible, or less tedious. It follows, then, that the only useful apps are those that modify activities that are difficult, inconvenient, not (very) possible, or tedious. An app that changes the shopping experience for the worse, even if it adds convenience, is counterproductive. The brick-and-mortar retailer, then, has to ask herself what it is that makes customers come to her shop in the first place. If it’s a women’s clothing store, why aren’t they at Target or Sears? If it’s a bookstore, why aren’t they at Barnes & Noble or shopping online at Amazon? The answers to these questions can help the storeowner to evaluate what to streamline with an app and what to leave alone.
Fancy or Quick Fix?
Let’s say that a retailer does decide to incorporate a suite of apps to get traffic to their site and/or to their store. For example, a smartphone app could prompt the shopper/user to enter a product code and then be given information about the product (more detailed than that which is available via signage, tags, labels, etc.). Then the decision is whether to use a preprogrammed app that will interact with customers’ mobile devices or one that is custom-written for the business. Now, two things that no small business owner has enough of are money and time. To hire a developer to create a custom app costs money; to write the app yourself (assuming you have enough knowledge to do so in the first place) takes time. It is probably better, then, to use premade apps and, if necessary, adapt the business to their use.
Middleman
Possibly the most common type of app used by small-to-medium-sized businesses is the marketing app, which is meant to attract and gather website traffic rather than to deal with them directly once they arrive at the store. This is sometimes referred to as a “push” app in that the customer is presumably impelled to investigate the business as a result of doing or investigating something related to the business’s products or services. These are often the subject of reciprocal agreements. Push/pull apps are popular because they are an inexpensive form of targeted marketing, which has traditionally been both the most effective and the most expensive form of marketing.
Supplying Information
A business that supplies information may benefit from a mobile app that provides some of that information free of charge. A realtor, for example, may find it useful to provide the customer with an app that does searches based on location, price, or other criteria. This not only eventually draws the customer to the retailer but also saves the time of each, as the customer will already be informed when he arrives at the business’s location. For many other types of products, supplying information can be very helpful in drawing the customer in, such as uses for the product that the customer may not have considered. This encourages the customer, in turn, to visit the physical store location, armed with the information he needs.
Increasing Brand Loyalty and Customer Motivation
The second part of a two-pronged customer base strategy is converting visitors to customers and making them loyal. The key here is to use apps to give them “special” offers that are only available to loyal customers. It is important to emphasize this exclusivity, as you want your customers to feel invested in your business. We tend to be creatures of habit, so we will revisit the same retailers if our experiences are positive, but you shouldn’t rely on that tendency. A loyal customer is a very valuable asset, and you should take special pains to not only retain but cultivate that asset. Many retailers are surprised and pleased when a customer who has only bought small-ticket items up to this point makes a major purchase. This is a positive effect of brand loyalty. Service businesses, such as car repair shops or beauty salons, in particular benefit from brand loyalty. Another aspect of business where brand loyalty is supremely important is when the products are not strongly differentiated from one retailer to the next; airlines and casinos come to mind. An app that fosters brand loyalty encourages the customer not to defect and choose similar products from another retailer.
The brick-and-mortar retailer, then, wants not to turn herself into an online retailer, but rather, to use online apps as a way to direct targeted traffic and enhance the fun aspects of in-person shopping while minimizing its not-so-fun aspects.