Reason #7 Let’s Get Engaged
Last weekend, we were hanging pictures while moving my daughter into her college dorm when the question of the day was asked again – “is that straight”? Of course, six pairs of eyes were needed to survey the top of the poster, compare it to the horizontal line in the ceiling, and then all announce different conclusions – higher to the right, no lower on the left – until a voice of reason emerged. “Let me get out my level app”. Lo and behold, the iPhone came out, the level app appeared, and there was no longer any question if the picture was straight. Wow, another dorm crisis solved.
I was just amazed at the usefulness of that app, the speed at which it solved our crisis, and how thankful we were to have found it at that moment. No wonder, the app has surfaced as such a revolution, in the evolution of this device that we had previously used solely as a mobile phone.
Of course, my revelation is not a new one – particularly to the legions of developers and marketers who have been rapidly designing, programming and releasing apps over the last year. By now, virtually every brand has its own app or has one on the drawing boards.
If we as marketers are looking for consumer engagement (which I define as a deeper level of interactive involvement with the brand), certainly the app has become a golden path towards that engagement,
What a surprise it must have been, then, to see the Pinch Media study last February that stated that the vast majority of apps downloaded from the App Store are in use by less than 5% of consumers one month after downloading. In fact, according to the same study, just 20% of consumers even return to run a free application again the day after it’s downloaded. As time goes on, that decline continues, eventually nearing zero after three months.
That has to be pretty sobering news for any brand after spending five and often six figures on a new app and all the attendant promotion.
So how can marketers effectively engage their consumers on an ongoing basis with apps that have staying power? David Ogilvy famously said that “I know that 50% of my advertising works, but I just don’t know which 50%.” The same can be said for apps; we know that 5% have staying power, how can we predict if our app will be among the 5%?
There is one sure way to know.
Just look at the free apps in your space with already demonstrated staying power, and sponsor those apps. The last time I checked, Home Depot (or any other home improvement store) had not sponsored that level app – and we have used it at least three more times in the past two weeks!
I think back to how that level app solved my need, at our family’s moment of need. I think back to how grateful we would have been to Home Depot, had they sponsored that app. Imagine how much more engaged I would have been with the Home Depot brand because each time I used the level app, I would be reminded that my problem was solved thanks to Home Depot. And, guess which home improvement store would be first on my list the next time I had a home improvement need?
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. Find free apps in your space that already work and repeatedly engage. Use the power of those apps to engage for you.
Do you want long lasting engagement for your brand? There’s an app for that – and someone else has already done the development!
As I am embarking on the very same process of developing an app, I too asked myself, what would bring users to download the app, and of greater importance, what do we need to do to keep them coming back week after week.
The answers we came up with were: value, design and user interface, and inventory. All startups will initially face an inventory growth obstacle – so logically our beta launch with a limited inventory while focusing on the best value and design we could develop.
Your article talks about having enough value that would drive big brand names and big box stores to sponsor and advertise on your site or app and I couldn’t agree with you more. The ads on your mobile site or application should realistically drive more traffic and usage with a customer’s comfort of seeing recognizable brands. Hopefully with the penetration of smart phone devices like the iPhone, G1 Android, and Blackberry devices becoming more of an accepted standard, we will see mobile advertising evolve into a strategy that will one day be comparable or even surpass the statistics we all read about in the online space. The mobile device is such a personal extension of ourselves and targeted/relevant advertising, such as Home Depot sponsoring the level app in your example will clearly drive the success of the mobile advertising space to levels that we all expect it to achieve.
Good article Mark.
mark,
I can’t agree with you more, and i definitely see that clients are starting to get it. Zippo has their ‘lighter’ application, which has become very popular at music concerts, for easy display during those ‘rock/love ballads’ that we used to all whip out our lighter for, and has now used corporate sponsorship so you can get a custom zippo lighter with brands on them (I think Harley Davidson is one of them) and more to your current post, Stanley Tools recently launched a ‘level’ app. This is definitely keeping key brands top of mind for a new generation of mobile consumer, adding just one more ‘touch point’ to those company’s brand elevation efforts. I’m glad to see them thinking long term.