“A brand is no longer what we tell the customer it is – it is what the customers tell each other it is, “ said Scott Cook, cofounder of financial software giant Intuit.
This unassailable fact is complemented by contemporary trends in the use of digital technology. With the advent of the smartphone in 2007, more people are spending their moments for knowledge-gathering on their smartphone than on any combination of radio, TV and print media.
As many a savvy smartphone user would confirm, when users are seeking information, they are more inclined to open mobile apps than different websites. The reason is mobile apps are meant specifically for use on mobile phones, whereas websites essentially target larger screens as in desktops or laptops. As a result, smartphone users get hooked on mobile apps.
Recent research by Google and Ipsos show how people discover and interact with mobile apps, and what brands can do to exploit the opportunity to address needs of customers. Nielson, global information, data, and measurement company headquartered in New York has analyzed that people spend an average of 30 hours a month on apps, and concludes that apps have become “an integral part of our daily micro-moments.” From a brand’s perspective, it is a powerful strategy to bond in deep, more meaningful ways with their customers.
The process of a customer finding any particular app is not just through visiting an app store, although 40% of smartphone users do browse for apps in app stores. For the rest of the time, it could be serendipity. People stumble onto different apps when they are already on another app, when searching for a specific app, watching a YouTube video or even white surfing the web on his mobile. Research finds that one in four app users found that particular app through search. Most often, customers seeking tech, travel or local information are likely to search for the apps they need. Statistics in 2016 Retrospective shows significant growth of global use of mobile apps. For instance, in 2016, over 90 billion apps were downloaded from the iOS App Store and from Google Play, while the customers invested a total of 900 billion hours using those apps. In 2016, users downloaded over 90 billion apps on the iOS App Store and Google Play, and spent nearly one trillion hours browsing those apps.
Different research shows that smartphone users in general are in the habit of using about 10 apps every day. The amount of time spent on apps differs from country to country, but has increased over the years. In the US, mobile users spend over one month of time out of one year in apps. South Korea, Brazil, Mexico and Japan averaged around three hours a day.
When customers use their mobile phones for such significant periods of time for the day, successful businesses see the compelling opportunity of engaging consumer interest through mobile apps. When brands invest in mobile apps, they are able to effectively connect with loyal customers, and drive up their ecommerce sales. Ipsos research finds that 52% of customers who engage with a brand app regularly, are more likely to buy products of that brand. Moreover, at least 90 of the top 100 global companies that are successful in branding, have at least one mobile app. Therefore brands reaching out to productively engage customers to drive up sales, need to seriously focus on investing mobile apps.
Today, more and more small and middle-size businesses are focusing on mobile apps, having understood that an effective mobile strategy goes beyond having a mobile-friendly website. In the state of Queensland in Australia, the Brisbane Bus and Train App, for instance, has received bouquets from commuters. One commends the App for “… allowing commuters to quickly check the status of the bus, train or route they need.” With customers in Brisbane appreciating the apps services provide, businesses are taking the cue to focus on creating mobile apps for their brands.
Gartner research finds that although demand for mobile apps remains strong in Australia as a whole, signs of fatigue are visible due to over-exposure, with 1.5 million apps in Google Play store and 1.4 million apps in Apple App Store. The original saying on apps was “There’s an app for that!” Now, the saying could easily be “There’s a thousand apps for that one thing!” Thus, customers are hard put to find useful apps, or even ones that engage their interest. There appears to be a trend of people downloading apps, and using them once, and abandoning them thereafter.
In this backdrop in the mobile app world, with a super-abundance of apps, user experience (UX) has become invaluable for an app’s success. The functional utility of an app alone is now inadequate to drive the success of any particular app. A poor UX leads to consumers abandoning an app to return to what they knew before. Cook’s words about the brand being what consumers tell each other, rings out loud and true.
Amidst this quiet slowdown in a bustling mobile app market, there are new opportunities of informing consumers that businesses are exploiting, which does not require the inconvenience of taking out a smartphone to look up information. Wearable devices such as smartwatches, smart jewelry and other wearable devices like smart glasses are now able to discreetly provide the user, the information he seeks.
Despite these developments, in Australia, smartphones are the winner for time spent online, and mobile apps win hands down in the mobile universe.
As leading social marketing strategist Ted Rubin says, “A brand is what a business does, reputation is what people remember.”
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