6 ways to engage customers with your app
DESCRIPTION
Poq Studio shares some tips on how you can increase consumer engagement with your mobile app, as well as insights on some of the industry-best practices.TRANSCRIPT
Six Ways to Engage Customers with Your App
Apps are now officially ‘mainstream’, as demonstrated by the generating revenue of yearonyear growth of Apple’s app store and Google Play. ComScore has revealed that internet traffic from apps (47%) overtook desktop usage (45%) in the US for the first time an increase of more than 700%. Gartner has predicted that mobile apps will be downloaded more than 268 billion times, $77 billion, by 2017, and that worldwide revenues from inapp purchases will grow from $4.6 billion in 2013 to $36.9 billion by 2017. Never has there been a chance like the present to ride this trending wave and capture a sizeable chunk of this growing consumer base. Here we list the top seven ways to engage customers with your app.
Mobile Exclusives One great way to encourage users to engage with your brand on mobile, is through mobileonly promotions. For example, 30% off any tshirt purchase made or free UK delivery on all app purchases. Customers like to feel they are getting a good deal. As loyal consumers, they like to feel appreciated by getting that extra value from your brand. However, it does n’t always have to be a discount or offer. Offering exclusive previews to new collections, promoting the top looks of the season, tips on how to care for their clothes and news on brand events, etc., also gives consumers that extra value. Following this approach gives your customers more reasons to engage with your brand on mobile — making it the first step to building a strong digital relationship with your customers, increasing the likelihood of conversion and repeat app purchases.
1
(American Eagle Outfitters 20% discount offer made at launch applicable with app download, shown above) Through their implementation of this strategy, American Eagle Outfitters were named the leader among
fashion retailers in a new report from Plastic Mobile. This was based on how their app incentivises users
with mobileexclusive promotions, features and push notifications. The British retailer Blue Inc (view on the
App Store) also did this with a £10 off offer on first app orders over £30. You could expand this kind of
marketing to include loyalty programmes. For example, allowing users to gain points each time they make a
mobile purchase.They could then cash in on accumulated points.
Loyalty Programmes Loyalty programmes are a fantastic way to drive sales and increase app engagement. For example, allowing
users to gain points each time they make a mobile purchase. They could then cashin on accumulated
points to buy another product.
2
Starbucks (who sold more than $1 billion through their apps last year), used this concept to implement a
scheme similar to airline miles. App users are able to collect digital stars and use these to earn themselves
free drinks later on.
McDonalds' recently released a new app, which they named ‘McD’. This exclusively offers an app that
sends customers digital coupons, which they can then redeem at participating stores.
H&M is similarly incorporating an inapp rewards scheme through allowing users to earn points by unlocking
achievements. This can be done by simply opening the app, or through a more interactive task such as
watching a promotional video.
Barcode Scanning
Enhance your customers’ instore experience, whilst at the same time increasing your mobile app revenue.
The barcode scanner allows customers to scan any product instore and check the available sizes and
colours using the mobile app, through which they can then make the purchase.
Promoting this feature within your store is a fantastic way to leverage the full omnichannel experience and
get consumers to actively engage with your brand both in the physical and digital worlds. The integration of
this new technology has garnered impressive results for apps powered on our platform, including BOXPARK
Shoreditch.
Teen fashion retailer Aeropostale, integrated this feature within their latest mobile app and has been
experiencing a healthy growth since.
Walmart has also exploited this feature within their app to encourage consumers to use their ‘ScanandGo’
selfcheckout service instore. Whilst shopping instore, app users can scan the products they want to buy
and add them to a virtual shopping basket, which they can then use to easily pay for the goods at the
selfcheckout. This seamless integration of mobile app and instore facilities reiterates the importance of
providing users with an omnichannel experience.
3
Push Notifications Make sure that you optimise your usage of the app’s push notifications feature. This is a good way to grab
the attention of customers even when they are not actively using the app.
A recent study done by push technology startup, Urban Airship (Poq Studio’s Retail App Technology
Partner), shows how push notifications can lead to:
● 540% increase in daily app opens
● 3x faster response time than email
● 30% increase in social sharing on Facebook and Twitter
Below are a few helpful tips to optimise your usage of push notifications:
● Send reminders to users who haven’t been actively using the app much.
● Use them to inform app users of any upcoming sales or promotions.
● Send personalised and substantial content.
With their use of push notifications, flash sales site Rue La La saw a 25% increase in user sessions.
GeoFencing Push Notifications One of the most powerful aspects of this feature is the geofence push. This enables you to notify users of a
sale, for instance, when they walk past your store. Again, the integration of digital and physical brand
4
interaction allows you to provide a full omnichannel experience, and most importantly drive a huge amount
of traffic to stores is very important. This is a feature available on the platform for free and with our customers
Blue Inc, Moda in Pelle and Ash Footwear are already taking advantage of this functionality.
Finally, you can use it to bring back users who have abandoned their shopping carts. To do this, you would
need to track at which point in the purchasing process they dropped off and use this information to make
them personalised offers that might convince them to proceed with the transaction. For more information
about how to best do this, check out this great article.
Also have a look at Poq Studio’s very own guide to 'Writing the Perfect Push Notification' here
(Above you can see the monthonmonth trend for push subscribers with Ash Footwear, increasing to nearly
50% more than January this year)
Engaging Home Screen Content When a user first launches your app on their phone, you need to use that opportunity to instantly grab their
attention and more importantly, maintain it. Research showed that the average attention span of a human
5
being was eight seconds in 2013. Therefore, it is critical that users do not quickly become disengaged with
your app.
The landing page interface of your app is integral in the digital world, and so it is imperative that this space
is utilised effectively.
It can be used to highlight your app’s top features or to emphasise the value of optingin to push
notifications. You should also use it to feature any promotions or sales that are happening at the time.
6
(Albam Clothing’s Homescreen, Newsletter and ‘Look Book’ of shoppable products, which can be added to
the ‘Wish' list above)
A good example of an app homepage is the screenshots of Albam Clothing’s shown above. Considering the
bigger picture of this vast browsingbased landscape new mobile users need to understand the value of your
app — why is it a musthave? Make a great first impression with an informative splash page (an extra
screen that pops up the first time a user opens your app). Use this prime real estate to guide the customer
through your app’s top features, and to demonstrate the value of opting into push notifications.
7
Cultivate user engagement and retention by sending marketing messages with relevant, valuable content.
Personalized recommendations, based on ‘last brand viewed’ or ‘most recent purchase’, provide value to
your users and warm them to your mobile app experience. The key is to target specific segments of users
and to incorporate personalisation as much as possible.
Encourage your customers to share on social — this is a great way to transform your customers into brand
advocates, and to generate network effect organic user growth.
As you continue to engage with your mobile customers, prevent overmessaging by tailoring your push
strategy to accommodate each user’s unique time of day preference and message frequency tolerance.
www.poqstudio.com
Follow us on Twitter at:
@poqstudio, or you can subscribe to our blog posts here
8