The Three E’s of Mobile Retention

July 2, 2014 , , , , ,

mobile commerce retention

Mobile apps are the most valuable way to communicate and engage with your loyal customers. However, underlying that value is the idea of retention, which can make all the difference when determining the long-term value of your app. Obviously, onboarding new users is an important factor of increasing the reach of your mobile presence, but retention is where you will see the greatest benefit in terms of recurring income. So how can you ensure that you maximize mobile retention and continue to engage your customers that have already downloaded your app?

Excite

Excitement will keep your customers checking your app regularly, always eager to see what you have in store. Fortunately, it is not too difficult to consistently provide this experience. Customers who download your app are often looking for nothing more than an optimized version of your mobile site. They want to have one-click access to your store and a convenient browsing and buying experience. If you can deliver above and beyond this threshold they will be suitably intrigued. Try adding mobile-specific content to your app or sending messages that appeal to your audience in particular to regularly keep things interesting!

Enlist

Customers are more likely to return to an app that they have a vested stake in. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, by enlisting customers to promote or share your app for you they feel that they are in some small way a part of the team or community, and will be much more likely to engage with your app in the future. Of course, this also provides the benefit of adding more app users to the fold! Consider incentivizing this promotion with deals or freebies that provide substantial value to these users who help build your tribe.

Entice

At the end of the day, the best way to engage with customers through your mobile commerce app is through some good old fashioned deals and promotions. And by “good old fashioned” I do of course mean “innovative and enticing”. Offering a small percentage off of your products won’t cut it. To really make your app interesting, consider offering significant discounts on products that appeal to a mobile audience, offering free samples, providing BOGO deals, etc. The better they are, the more likely that your customers will look forward to hearing from you and checking your app regularly!

These three tips will help you retain your customers and grow your app to provide tremendous value over time. Now it’s your turn to give us some info! What sort of retention strategies do you use to engage with your mobile customers?

Keep Your Deals Fresh This Holiday Season

December 3, 2013 , , , ,

holidaydeals

If you’ve been awake for the past few weeks, you know two things: Holiday music is on full force wherever you turn, and people are blasting out seemingly outrageous deals at every single turn.

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, many will back off assuming that the frenzy will soon die down. This opens up the perfect opportunity for creative marketing and increased profits through strategic deals. Here are some ways to effectively use deals to reach your customers this year!

Compete on value, not price

Every retailer seems to be offering incredibly cut-rate deals around this time of year. For everyone but highly specialized shops, this kind of intense competition can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, if you look a little closer you can see that the majority of these deals are on products that, frankly, were never that valuable to begin with. You can actually discount a more reputable, higher quality product less than their lower quality counterparts, yet still receive more interest overall. There is a reason that Apple products sell fast when given even marginal discounts. Apply the same strategy to your store and you can quickly outpace the competition.

Offer combined deals

Along the same line as the last tip, you can also outcompete bottom-barrel prices by offering more creative deals. Often, this might be through the inclusion of complimentary items that have a high-perceived value but little in the way of manufacturing or acquisition costs. If, for example, you are a store that sells camping hammocks, including your highly effective hammock straps with the purchase of a deluxe hammock is a way to deliver an amazing combination that offers a lot to customers for only slightly less than you would have made without an active deal.

Use push notifications for precise targeting

Push notifications let you send instant deals to anyone who has your mobile app downloaded. Use this to your advantage by sending out specialized push notifications that benefit from immediate redemption. Have a major cold-front coming through? send out a one day deal for sweaters or hot cocoa mix with free overnight shipping. The versatility of instant deals means that every business can find a place for them in their holiday toolbox.

These are just a few ways to keep your customers interested this holiday season. Have you had success with these types of strategies or would you like to share some of your own? We’d love to hear about it!

The Makings of a Killer Mobile Offer

October 15, 2013 , ,

boatclub

Mobile advertising is definitely on the rise. For eCommerce store owners, the most direct form of mobile advertising they can utilize is the mobile offer. Paired with a mobile app and push notifications, you can immediately get deals in front of people no matter where they are, allowing them to redeem and purchase right from your phone. But what makes a good mobile deal? Here are three tips that will get those redemption rates up and the profits flowing!

1. Immediacy

Of utmost importance to creating an enticing mobile deal is immediacy. By that I mean, there must be some sort of urgency or immediate benefit that a customer can receive by engaging with the offer. Keeping those deals time-bound will encourage a customer to buy as soon as they see the deal, rather than putting it off until later. Remember, sending a mobile deal through push notification gets it in front of your audience much faster than through traditional email or social channels. That means you can be a bit more aggressive!

2. The “In” Club

People who download your app do so because they want to remain closely connected with your business. Reward these die-hard fans with VIP status by giving them exclusive deals that can’t be found through your other channels (and make the deals really good, by the way). If you reward customers with regular deals that are a lot better than the norm, they will feel that they are part of an exclusive and appreciated community.

3. New Hotness

Deals and offers are often reserved for clearance items or old stock that a store is trying to get rid of. It’s ok to occasionally include this type of mobile deal, but consider that mobile users tend to be early adopters, trendsetters, and otherwise interested in what I call the new hotness – characterized by new products or services, innovative uses of those items, or simply a cool new way of thinking about a traditional item. If your mobile users feel like they are getting early access to awesome stuff they will love you for life.

These strategies for mobile offers are enough to get you going. However, this is just the start of the discussion. What ways have you (or do you plan to) use mobile to capture the hearts and minds of your customers?

Deals Module Best Practices

May 24, 2013 , , , ,

 

Stephen Panico discusses some strategies to maximize the value of the Apptive deals module both for you and your customers.

Fostering a Mobile Community

April 16, 2013 , , , ,

community

Mobile strategies are highly valuable because of their ability to directly reach customers. It is tempting, then to make the majority of your messages direct-sales focused. Unfortunately, there is almost no better way to have your mobile message undermined and eventually ignored.

A far better strategy for most businesses is to create a mobile community. Imagine the value for you brand if customers actually look forward to receiving direct messages from you on their mobile devices? Fortunately, this goal is not out of reach, and a few simple steps can help you create a thriving mobile fan base.

1. Focus on Human Contact

Do you like being talked to by a robot? Loooove getting an automated message instead of a real human on the phone? Neither do your customers, and the feeling translates even more so to the direct messaging capabilities of a mobile offering. Messages without human elements come across as annoying and eventually downright obtrusive. On the other hand, messages and offers that read like they’re coming from a human being with a personality will foster real connections with your customers. Don’t be afraid to toss in some humor, opinions or excitement in your mobile messaging. Your customers will thank you for it.

2. Reduce Frequency, Increase Value

Unlike a presence on a social network, mobile communities do not thrive on constant interaction. Rather, they appreciate the knowledge that whenever they receive a message it will include some particularly exciting or valuable piece of information. How much is too much? That depends on how much real value your business has to offer. For “promotion” type deals that generally amounts to just a few messages per week. However, if you regularly feature events, contests, or other interactive types of engagement then you should definitely update your mobile audience as often as needed!

3. Capitalize on Real Time

It is tricky to layout a blueprint for a real-time engagement strategy, primarily because the very nature of real-time is ever-changing! Still, it is important to remember this: you have a direct line to your customers that will let you reach them in real time. Use that to your advantage whenever possible. Obviously, great times to do this are when you have a festival or other major event that lends itself to time-based promotion. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg. The more creative your real-time engagement, the more excited your customers will be, and the more value you can derive from your direct messaging and promos.

These steps will help you to begin down the journey of creating a community that will exponentially increase the value of your mobile strategy. These tips are fairly general, so we would love to hear your comments about some of your specific strategies that you’ve used to connect with your customers!