Mobile phone applications (‘app’) are a rapidly developing market, which has increased as a compliment to the growth in the use of smartphones. A complimentary product is one that is dependent on another such as a DVD’s to a DVD player. A complimentary product is useless without the core product. The mobile phones in this instance is the core product, and the fact consumer’s lives are often centered on them in recent years (Claussen, Essling and Kretschmer, 2014). Mobile phone applications have become a basic necessity for businesses. Almost every business is expected to have one whether it is for an online retailer or an application for news updates and information. However creating an application is only the beginning, as businesses will need to keep it constantly updated with the rapid technological advances and use of social media connections (Iansiti, 1995). Most importantly businesses need to look at App Store Optimization (ASO) and other channels in which to market their app effectively. Different types of business application will need to market their app in different ways if at all. For example, an app which is directly connected to the business that could result in more sales and/or overall revenue would definitely warrant the financial outlay to market it. On the other hand, an application which is information based and has no direct benefit to the business as it may only be mentioned on the website as an alternative.

Once an application is created it is imperative to effectively handle the continuous development and marketing of the application. Ganguly (2016) explains the five biggest mistakes businesses make when it comes to mobile application marketing. The five mistakes highlighted by Ganguly (2016) are:

1. Businesses treat the mobile experience like it’s a desktop
2. Building an application without a plan to market it
3. Building a website application and trying to pass it off as an application
4. Assuming people will come back to use the application for no reason and finally,
5. Ignoring the applications customer base.

Of these 5 mistakes I believe one of the most crucial mistakes is creating the mobile application without a plan. Consumers must be aware that you have an application, which can be used as an alternative and or compliment for the website. Although visitors to your website do not need to be bombarded by links to your application it does need to be noticeable. The website below shows an example of a badly advertised application, which was badly signposted and I personally would not have known there was an application available, had I not been looking.

ASO is the process of optimizing mobile applications (‘apps’) in order for them to rank higher against other apps within the App Store and the aim of ASO is to direct more traffic to the applications page. Businesses must have a plan when it comes to market their app. ASO is a new concept but one that is very effective when it comes to application marketing and sustainability. The application market is predicted to have over 268 billion downloads and which could result in revenue generation of approx. $77 billion (Businessdegrees, 2016). Making use of application and their marketing is crucial. ASO has been described as a crucial piece of the mobile app marketing puzzle (Ganguly, 2016) and is therefore a necessity to gain a foothold in this rapidly developing sector. The theory that ASO is a vital marketing tool for applications is indirectly supported through the 2015 report on the ‘Discovery of Ranking Fraud for Mobile Apps’ (Zhu et al., 2015.) The 2015 report highlighted the importance of gaining high rankings for applications have lead some application owners to attempt to ‘cheat’ the rankings. A higher ranking within the app store will then in turn lead to more downloads.

References

Claussen, J., Essling, C. and Kretschmer, T. (2014). When less can be more – Setting technology levels in complementary goods markets. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014(1), pp.11919-11919.

Businessdegrees.uab.edu. (2016). The future of mobile application | UAB Business Degrees Online. [online] Available at: http://businessdegrees.uab.edu/resources/infographics/the-future-of-mobile-application/ [Accessed 6 Apr. 2016].

Ganguly, R. (2016). App Store Optimization – A Crucial Piece of the Mobile App Marketing Puzzle. [online] Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/app-store-optimization/ [Accessed 6 Apr. 2016]

Ganguly, R. (2016). The 5 Biggest Mistakes in Mobile App Marketing. [online] Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/mistakes-in-app-marketing/ [Accessed 6 Apr. 2016].

Iansiti, M. (1995). Technology integration: Managing technological evolution in a complex environment. Research Policy, 24(4), pp.521-542.

Zhu, H., Xiong, H., Ge, Y. and Chen, E. (2015). Discovery of Ranking Fraud for Mobile Apps. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., 27(1), pp.74-87.

Social media is now a major force in today’s society with people of all ages, backgrounds and social groups. Fuchs (2014) explains that now more than ever we need to understand social media and the impact it is having on our lives and how it is such a useful marketing tool if used effectively. Fuchs 2014 book explains that people need crucial knowledge to help us navigate throughout the complex digital media landscape that is now present. This applies also to businesses, especially small businesses, as reputation is a crucial part of business enterprise risk management (Arnold, 2006). A business’ success is based on its reputation by many consumers and is measured by how much it is trusted by consumers, stakeholders and employees. When consumers hear good things about a business they are develop brand trust even before actually experiencing the businesses service. With the introduction of social media such as ‘Twitter’ consumers are able to voice their opinions on companies and brands more openly. Negative reviews on social media towards large businesses/brands are often ignored and disregarded compared to comments regarding smaller business/brands that is not so prominent in the public arena.   The effect of a bad reviews/complaints broadcast on social media regarding small business can have highly detrimental effects.

Personal recommendations is an extremely important marketing tool that has the potential to significantly increase the revenue of companies but also has the ability to negatively effect a company’s revenue. However, with the rapid increase in use of the Internet and social media, negative publicity is spread very differently from ‘word-of-mouth’. Consumers are now more than likely maybe even expected to voice their opinions online with big companies notably Tesco and ASOS having twitter accounts to enable unhappy customers to scan for a deal. (See Examples 1 and 2. Below)

Big business such a Tesco and ASOS already have solid reputations and do not necessarily need to go out of their way to fix every single costumer problems but have nevertheless employed teams to do so which shows the importance they place on this.

Small businesses that do not have already set reputations need to manage social media post about their company and effectively respond. Stanford (2007) explains that a 7% increase in word-of-mouth unlocked an additional 1% in additional company growth and 2% reduction in negative word-of-mouth boosts sales growth by 1%. For small businesses growth and reputation is crucial when establishing themselves within the market.

Examples 1 and 2 (ASOS and Tesco tweets)

Brynley-Jones’s 2009 article on reputation management using social media goes through the 5 steps needed to be able to fully manage.

Step 1: Decided what of the company’s information you need track and specify key words

Step 2: Set up accounts, which are used to measure social media keywords. The monitoring of social media using specific programs and tools will make it easier for complained or indeed praise to be brought to your attention. This is quick and easy for small business and will not require a lot of time or manpower, which would result in extra costs.

Step 3: The monitoring tools will allow the small companies to then set up alerts telling them when their keywords are mentioned and on what platform.

Step 4: Small businesses will need to set up accounts of where they believe there business will be spoken about and be poised to reposed as soon as possible to clear up any chances of bad publicity.

Step 5: The small business needed to then react to what has been said online whether it is positive or negative it is important

References

Arnold, M. (2006) CEOs respect importance of reputation, Haymarket Media, Inc, New York.

Brynley-Jones, L. (2009). A 5-Step Guide to Reputation Management Using Social Media | Our Social Times – Social Media Agency, Social Media Training. [online] Oursocialtimes.com. Available at: http://oursocialtimes.com/a-5-step-guide-to-reputation-management-using-social-media/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2016].

Fuchs, C. (2014). Social media. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Stanford, N. (2007). Guide to organisation design. London: Economist.