Month: July 2020

Categories
B2B Apps Mobile Apps

Navigating B2B Business When You Can’t Meet F2F

Without question, Covid-19 has impacted all aspects of our lives and B2B marketing is no exception. Historically, B2B relationships centered around in-person meetings and product demonstrations. But how do you sell products when you can’t sit in a conference room, present a PowerPoint, and shake hands on a deal? Today, companies are investing in technology – including mobile apps, webinars, videoconferencing, and eCommerce –  in order to maintain business flow. 

A recent article in The Drum – “B2B Marketing During Covid-19: 8 Transformations to Stay Ahead,” outlines the steps B2B companies are taking in order to navigate these rapidly changing times. The article provides helpful information to all B2B marketers, but also shares a study from eMarketer, which finds that while marketing budgets are being reduced, investment in all forms of technology have risen in importance.  In other words, providing customers with the tools to continue to purchase in a way that’s congruent with today’s situation.

This includes nearly two-thirds (62%) investing in eCommerce/online sales capabilities, while a similar percentage (61%) acknowledging they are making fewer face-to-face calls with customers.  The result is more than half (54%) are investing in more in delivering “last mile” infrastructure – or as we like to think of it, “last 12 inches”, i.e. mobile applications, that connect ordering and client service systems directly to customers.

Mobile apps have the ability to do a number of things that can bring your business closer to its business customers. That includes features like:

  • Catalogs – mobile catalogs can put your most up-to-date product information right into your customers’ hands.
  • Order forms – with your clients spending less time in a traditional office, making it easy for them to order your products at the moment they need them is crucial
  • Delivery logistics – Keep your customers up-to-date on where their order is in processing. This cuts down on service calls and anxious clients.
  • Notifications – Let them know about changes to hours, product offerings, pricing specials, etc. with notifications pushed right to their mobile device
  • Tap to call directories – Cut down on customer wait times and call center workload by directing calls to the precise extension the client needs with a simple tap inside your mobile application.

Times have changed and all businesses need to quickly develop different ways of structuring their relationships with customers.  Those that make the investment will be in much better position to maintain business flow.

Call us to discuss how mobile technology can make your business more efficient and profitable.

Categories
Mobile Apps Uncategorized

Browsing In The Aisles Has Been Replaced By Browsing Mobile Apps

For retailers, Covid-19 has accelerated the changes in shopping habits they were already experiencing. The benefits of the shopping experience – browsing the aisles, checking the inventory, engaging salespeople, and in-store events – no longer apply.  The trend in the past decade or two has been toward shopping while customers are at home – or at work or waiting in line for take-out. And increasingly, this activity is happening on mobile apps.

eMarketer just released a study from App Annie that finds in June, six in ten (59%) Americans preferred to shop using their mobile phones. And as the chart below indicates, this surge is happening among most age groups, led by an astonishing nine in ten (90%) of 25-34 year-old millennials.

Since this trend began long before the pandemic, experts in retailing expect this shift in shopping behavior to be a permanent re-alignment in the way Americans are going to make purchases in the future.  Yoram Wurmser, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence notes “We expect that the effects of the pandemic will accelerate long-term trends in mobile usage.” Although some gains with mcommerce and other mobile activities will not last beyond quarantines, the baselines for mobile activities will be higher than they would have been otherwise.”

The retailing world has been upended by Covid-19.  But those retailers that have a mobile strategy in place are much more likely to evolve their businesses and survive. Key to that survival are elements like:

  • An up-to-the-minute “catalog” or “showroom” of products and/or services.
  • User registration to better serve the consumer and maintain a closer relationship via email, push messages and other communication channels.
  • Easy access to customer support
  • Simple, ecommerce transactions that are secure, easy and remember things like product preferences and payment methods.
  • The ability to expand your trading area – more customers outside of your radius will have access to your “store” than ever before.

Most businesses can be improved by establishing a relationship with the consumer on the device they spend almost 4 hours a day on. Whatever you’re selling,  redefining, streamlining, and expanding the way you connect with customers is now just a tap away.

Categories
Mobile Apps Mobile Web

Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Web: No Contest

As mobile app developers, we are frequently asked by clients why they need to invest in a native mobile app since they can build a mobile web page for a much lower cost. We always respond with the same rationale: the power of having an icon on the smartphone’s screen, a device that never leaves their side, the ability to leverage the native functionality of the smartphone (location, phone, push messaging), and being confident in a user experience tailored to the device make this an easy decision.

Now, we develop mobile apps, so we realize some are suspect about our agenda when we make the case for them. So, the decisive factor comes to us from a recent study from eMarketer, who provides the ultimate reason why businesses must invest in a mobile app if they truly want to have a successful mobile strategy:

Americans spend 88% of the time on their phones with mobile apps

Not only do apps crush the mobile web with time spent, that number is actually growing. This trend has been happening for the past 5 years, and each year apps win an increasingly lopsided victory. The mobile web is still important – but primarily for what we refer to as “The Two S’s:” searching and sampling. When the user is ready to commit, to buy, to enter into that relationship, they want your app!

A mobile app ensures your best customers have instant access to your brand, your content and the easiest way possible to engage with you. It also gives you a way to have a one-to-one relationship with those users, a way to know them, and serve them as the crucial customers they are.

Consumer expectations for brand interactions have never been higher, and the native mobile app makes it easy for your company to meet (and exceed) those expectations and deliver on the promise of your product. As the most-used device in almost all of our lives, the mobile platform enables you to develop a deep and lasting relationship with your customers in a way that a simple website simply cannot. When realized in an app, your product or service becomes a “tool” just like the camera or text in the user’s device. It’s a sure way to lock yourself in (and your competitors out).

Budget considerations are important, but so is ensuring your mobile investment is effective, especially during challenging economic times, when retaining each customer is imperative, the mobile app can create that bond. Our advice: if you’re going to invest in a mobile strategy, make sure your brand is front and center and has the best possible chance of succeeding.

It’s a safe bet.