Surviving A Recession: Developing a Custom Mobile App Can Help Businesses Stay Competitive and Increase Revenue

March 29, 2023 app, apps, ecommerce, economy, Fed, interest rates, marketing, mcommerce, mobile, mobile app, mobile apps, mobile commerce, mobile content, mobile site, recession, small business, strategy

Surviving A Recession: Developing a Custom Mobile App Can Help Businesses Stay Competitive and Increase Revenue

March 8, 2023

In today’s fast-paced world, mobile commerce is becoming increasingly popular. Businesses need to adapt to this trend to stay competitive. With the fear of recession looming, it’s understandable that businesses are becoming cautious with their investments.

Despite the fear of a possible recession, macroeconomic indicators such as Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), consumer spending, and the labor market are very strong at the moment. The PCE index, which is a measure of inflation and consumer spending, increased by 0.7% in December 2022. That is the largest increase since June 2021. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy. It rose by 1.1% in December 2022, indicating a strong demand for goods and services. The labor market is also robust, with the unemployment rate falling to 3.9% in January 2023.

The interest rate increases the Fed has undertaken to keep inflation under check have not found the desired results. It’s expected that Fed may resort to further rate increases, which may harm the economy. That could trigger a recession. The kind of strong macroeconomic numbers that the market throws up month on month and quarter on quarter gives a sense that the market may be in for a soft landing. Many experts believe that the market may be in for a longer high-interest rate regime during 2023 and the market will only adversely react when the numbers turn negative. However, it’s crucial to recognize that there’s always an opportunity in uncertain times and every crisis.

According to a recent study, mobile commerce sales in the US are expected to reach $432 billion by 2022. That’s up from $207 billion in 2018. This presents a significant opportunity for businesses to tap into this growing market and increase their revenue. Market fears should not deter businesses from investing in custom mobile e-commerce app development. It could be argued that now is the perfect time to invest in custom mobile e-commerce app development, as it can help businesses stay competitive in a market where consumers are increasingly shopping online.

While websites and mobile web are still important, developing a custom mobile app can provide businesses with several advantages. First and foremost, mobile apps provide a more personalized shopping experience. By using data analytics, businesses can offer targeted promotions and recommendations to customers. This is great for increasing customer loyalty and driving sales. Additionally, mobile apps allow businesses to send push notifications. You can use those to remind customers about sales, new products, and other promotions, increasing the likelihood of a purchase.

Mobile apps can offer a faster and more streamlined checkout process. This reduces cart abandonment rates and increases conversion rates. According to a study by the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate for mobile web is 70.91%, compared to 57.43% for desktop and 41.18% for mobile apps. This suggests that businesses can potentially increase their revenue by up to 29% by developing a custom mobile e-commerce app.

Developing a custom mobile e-commerce app may involve some upfront costs, but the potential return on investment can be significant. Businesses that invest in mobile app development can see a significant increase in revenue. According to a Clutch report, businesses that have mobile apps can expect to see an average revenue increase of 28%. Additionally, a report by Salesforce suggests that businesses that use mobile apps to engage with customers can see an average revenue increase of 33%.

Moreover, the lack of a mobile app can result in lost sales. Customers may prefer to shop on mobile apps rather than websites or mobile web. A study by Google found that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40% would visit a competitor’s site instead.

In conclusion, the fear of recession is understandable. Developing a custom mobile e-commerce app can help businesses stay competitive and increase their revenue. With strong macroeconomic indicators and the increasing demand for online shopping, developing a custom mobile e-commerce app can help businesses stay competitive and thrive in an uncertain market. Businesses can potentially increase their revenue by up to 29%. They can do this by providing a more personalized shopping experience, streamlining the checkout process, and reducing cart abandonment rates. Moreover, the lack of a mobile app can result in lost sales. This makes it even more important for businesses to invest in custom mobile e-commerce app development.

Unbound Commerce has the expertise and experience to develop a custom mobile e-commerce app that meets your specific business needs and requirements. Unbound Commerce is a certified-level partner of BigCommerce and has delivered over 600 mobile solutions for online retailers.

Who is building mobile apps?

January 28, 2014 apps, coding, development, IT, marketing, technology

With all of the materials facing ecommerce merchants about the effectiveness of mobile commerce apps, it has become apparent that these apps are quickly becoming an indispensable addition to a marketers tool kit.

However, it may not be as readily apparent exactly who is creating these apps for merchants. Surely, all of these ecommerce sites cannot have a dedicated iOS and Android developer on staff programming these apps? Also, it should be obvious that the $10,000+ development fee that private shops charge for custom app development is out of reach for all but the largest ecommerce merchants.

In fact, both of these thoughts are correct. It turns out that the majority of mobile apps are not owned by the IT department in most organizations, but rather by marketing departments or scattered throughout multiple departments. Even at higher levels, it is rare that an app is owned or managed by developers or IT professionals.

For ecommerce merchants, that means that the playing field is far more level than might have been previously thought. You are competing not with professional developers and coders, but rather with other marketing professionals and small business owners. Apptive was built specifically to appeal to precisely this demographic: forward-thinking ecommerce merchants who do not necessarily have advanced coding capabilities or technical knowledge.

Our focus on simplification allows ecommerce merchants to quickly build an attractive app for their business without overcomplicating the process.

Increase Content Exposure with a Mobile App

August 13, 2013 app, content, content marketing, marketing, messaging, mobile marketing

Excellent content is a prerequisite for effective business engagement nowadays. However, anyone who has dipped their toe in the pool of content marketing knows that the content itself is only one part of the battle. Content exposure is equally, if not more important to great content. After all, the most eloquent and helpful guide in the world is useless to you if no one ever reads it!

In the past, email and social marketing were the primary ways to spread content. Let me state up front, these methods are the standard for a reason. They can be incredibly effective assuming you have a large audience. However, in terms of raw efficiency they can not match a mobile app.

You can reach users who have downloaded a mobile app through push notifications, which completely change the game where engagement is concerned. Consider the fact that a 20-25% open rate for emails is generally considered very good. Now, compare that to push notification views. Because push notifications appear directly on a customers smartphone, views of 40% or higher are not at all uncommon. An app allows you to cut through the clutter and reach your customers directly.

Mobile Content Marketing

July 2, 2013 app, content marketing, marketing, mobile content

The days of the sale circular, inbox flooding and even purely SEO-focused marketing are over. Content marketing reigns supreme. And, honestly, aren’t we all collectively breathing a sigh of relief? How many times did we stumble on a page that was just blatantly loaded with keywords? How many thousands of pointless messages have we had to delete from our inboxes, throw away when they were delivered to our door, or exasperatedly decline when the telemarketer refused to remove you from the call list?

Ant it isn’t just good for us as a collective customer base. Businesses also gain so much from the transition. The soul-crushing tedium of mindless keyword stuffing, of email after email and call after call getting rejected was loathed by many. Of course, this hasn’t ended completely, but for the first time in recent memory there is a shining alternative that actually works so much better. We can be rewarded for having interesting ideas and a fascinating company culture.

It is important to embrace this new trend, and to embrace it intelligently. Crafting excellent content is significantly more challenging (and more interesting/more rewarding) than phoning it in. However, it is just as important to present your content where people are most likely to engage with it. For many businesses, that means taking it mobile.

The fact is, people are engaging more with mobile devices than ever before, and in fact the chosen engagement medium is expected to shift from PCs to tablets in the next four years. They spend more time on mobile apps than they do the desktop and mobile web. You can read many more facts in this excellent post.

The world is moving much faster, and people’s lives are becoming far more dynamic. They crave genuine interaction, and they demand it immediately. Take your content marketing mobile and you will capture imagination, interest and ultimately, sales.

Mobile App as Testing Ground

June 25, 2013 app, Design, marketing, mobile app, testing

Mobile apps give you a direct line to your customers, meaning they can serve as an excellent ground for testing innovative new ideas when you want an immediate response. We’ve put together a list of several ideas for tests you can perform with your mobile app to get immediate feedback for new products, business strategies, and beyond!

1. Branding – Because you can always edit the design of your mobile app it is possible to introduce new branding elements to a mobile audience first to gauge reaction and easily tweak before making them wide-scale.

2. Product Interest – Send a direct message to your fans with some basic info on a new product and link them to the pre-order or info page. You can get immediate feedback on the interest level your product generates.

3. Audience – As we’ve mentioned, a mobile audience is incredibly diverse. So, if you want to determine the type of services or products that appeal to your audience, or even if you want to get an idea of what percentage of your audience has an interest in a new direction your business is taking, a mobile app gives numerous direct opportunities for discovering that info.

4. Limited Release – Setting up a deal for a “limited time offer” of a new product and service on a recurring basis can let you know what customers are excited about. based on redemption, you can then turn a limited release into a full-fledged offering with the knowledge that there is significant demand for it!

5. Messaging – Some of the previous suggestions here involve sending a message to an audience, but what about testing alterations to the messaging itself? Trying out new communication styles, talking points, and focus can lead to fascinating new discoveries about your mobile customers.

We hope you find these suggestions useful. Try them out, and let us know what they reveal about your customers. Also, be sure to let us know any creative ways you’ve tested things through your mobile presence!

Three Creative Uses for a Mobile App

June 4, 2013 app, business card, creative app, creative marketing, event, marketing, mobile

Mobile apps are a versatile platform to interact with your customers. Indeed, one of the most common uses for a mobile app is that of a “mobile hub,” which collects and redistributes all of a company’s information and features through a mobile platform. This general usage is very effective (it’s common for a reason), but it is not the only way to use your mobile app. The following are three suggestions for alternative ways to use your app.

1. Mobile App as Business Card

Even as we abandon paper products in almost every area of our business lives, the business card remains a common way to organize and remember contacts. As a result of their ubiquitous nature, people continue to try more and more intriguing ways to make them stand out. Enter the mobile app. Apps can be used either in lieu of a business card (if you are in a particularly high-tech field) or to supplement one. By structuring the app to include significant amounts of information about your company, your team, and your product, colleagues will be able to get much more information from you than on a card. A simple QR code printed on a standard card will allow you to share your app easily.

2. Mobile App as Event Organizer

Large events such as conferences or trade shows can be confusing for attendees. With so much to see and do, they may miss out on important panels that may be of interest to them, or might have trouble knowing what’s going on in the first place. A mobile app structured around a specific event can alleviate many of these issues entirely. Attendees can view up to date schedules (particularly handy if you have flakey or sick speakers at the last minute). In addition, push notifications are a great way to update a large crowd of upcoming activities.

3. Mobile App as Hype Generator

First, what the heck do I mean by “hype generator”? If you want to drum up excitement about an upcoming product, event, or service, you’ll need to generate content that gets people pumped. A “hype generator” is the platform that users check to, you guessed it, generate hype. Most people like to give bite size tidbits, alluring one-off photos, or brief messages about their upcoming big thing. Mobile apps are perfectly geared to showcase exactly this kind of short-form content, and allows a mass audience to all be kept on the same page so when your release date arrives you’ll have a legion of fans ready.

We’d love to hear what you think of these uses for an app, as well as your own! What are some creative ways you would use an app?

Small Messages, Big Ideas

May 28, 2013 app, content, customer loyalty, marketing, push notification

In one of our recent video blog posts Apptive co-founder Jason Jaynes discussed some push notification strategies. One of his main points was keeping the message concise so customers could receive a great amount of value from a small amount of data. It occurred to me that some people might struggle with the idea of creating incredibly dense messages. Any career writer will tell you that writing short, value-laden material is often much more challenging than writing lengthy or even technical documents. Therefore, I propose that often the most effective use of direct messages is as a supplement within a larger context of understanding, rather than as a standalone piece of material.

Context is, of course, everything when it comes to using a push notification as a “seed” message. However, the good news is that most all businesses already have excellent context in place. Remember, a mobile app is often best used to reach loyal customers who likely already have some idea of what you’re about. Therefore, they likely have a good idea of your other products, services or outreach channels that you can leverage to maximize the value of short messages.

For example, if you are a venue that commonly features bands from a specific genre, you can use a message to alert members of a specific upcoming group that caters to that genre’s specific fanbase. Since they already have a good idea of the genre and your location, you don’t have to explain the band’s background, the type of music they play, or even the specifics of your location. Just a short message triggers all of the knowledge that your customers have about your venue and the music they are interested in hearing.

That example is pretty direct, but there are lots of ways to send messages that don’t require extensive word-smithing to generate interest and thus profits and an excited mobile community for you.

Deals Module Best Practices

May 24, 2013 deal module, deals, marketing, mobile marketing, strategy

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

The Smartphone Impulse

May 21, 2013 impulse, marketing, product, retail, smartphone

Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat: impulse buying has sort of become a dirty term. It needn’t be. That is because impulse buying, a neutral term, is often associated with feelings of regret when an unplanned purchase tends to not live up to the value that was immediately associated with it upon purchase. We also tend to think of negative impulse purchases with far more clarity than positive ones. That time you bought an awesome bracelet on the fly and wore it for a full summer? Positive buy. The time you bought an animal shaped hat at a theme-park and relegated it to the back of your closet a week later? Not so much.

Interestingly, it seems that impulse purchases in physical retail stores are actually down in recent years. While it would be nice to think that we are just getting more careful as consumers overall, some have posited that in reality the reason for this decrease is due to a phenomena known as “mobile blinders.” This refers to those situations where consumers pay attention to their smartphones rather than the tasty treats and knick-knacks that surround them when they aren’t in an active buy mode.

However, while smartphones are decreasing the number of physical impulse purchases, they may actually be increasing impulse purchases overall. According to a study conducted by PayPal, smartphones lead to something that I’ll describe as an intelligent impulse purchase. Essentially, rather than simply buying an object on the fly, a smartphone enables a user to go through the desire > research > purchase cycle in minutes rather than hours or days. That way, a user is both more likely to buy a product that find interesting while simultaneously increasing the likelihood that they will be satisfied with the purchase overall.

So what does this mean for small business or ecommerce owners with a mobile app? With creative messaging and communication channels, you have the ability to directly target products to customers with a high likelihood that they will buy on the spot. It also means that cultivating both an engaged and happy customer base (they will likely try and see what others have said about your stuff, after all) will provide exponential returns.

If you own an app already, what is your strategy for triggering the impulse buy? If you don’t how would you use it to make that happen?

Fostering a Mobile Community

April 16, 2013 community, deals, marketing, messaging, mobile

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!