Developing a mobile application seems like a great way to get your brand out there, enjoying the maximum consumer exposure it may bring. However, in this blog I will also be discussing the drawbacks of developing a mobile app and expanding the topic of retention and acquisition associated to mobile applications.

On the other hand, I will also be going in more depth about the concept proposed by Rook, D.W. (1987) which is ‘Buying impulse’.

So, what are the drawbacks?

1. Free app vs Paid app
2. Costs of developing an application
3. Security breaches

Free vs Paid

Abecassis, A. (2012) emphasizes that app developers with slim marketing budgets struggle to promote their app in such a crowded and noisy market place with hundreds of apps being launched daily.

One dilemma is whether to offer a free app or Paid version, the question you may ask yourself is ‘How much did it cost me to develop the app?’. If the answer is ‘too much’ then I would suggest making consumers pay for the app. This gives you the opportunity to budget your marketing and editing costs of the application over the course of the year.

To generate some sort of momentum at the beginning of the campaign, it is a popular strategy to offer free apps, this raises awareness of the app in the market place and reduces customer uncertainty regarding the quality and fit of the application itself. (Arora, S. et al. 2017)

But how does this spoil retention?
It is important to get the strategy right with the app “organisations will focus on either new customers for current products, or new products for current customers, but not both.” It is important to find a balance between acquisition and retention as it is easy to neglect your existing consumers when advertising to raise awareness of your new app.

Costs of developing an application

The cost of developing an application can vary, however if it’s a professional look you desire, then it will cost more than you might think. Furthermore, it is the hidden costs which may catch you out. It is not possible to just develop an application one off and just put it on the market place, and hope for huge following.

Let’s take a look at the type of costs an app development may encounter:

Installation and maintenance costs are an ongoing and require regular maintenance. Includes bug fixes, security updates, user support links, and that’s just a few to mention.

Marketing costs as mentioned previously, the market place is overcrowded. The app requires correct marketing in order for people to seek your services over that of others.

One off costs which may arise could be, sudden app additions. These additions may come from experts or customer reviews.
Moreover, poorly developed apps will encounter problems in the future, these issues will arise, and it may be too late to save it. It could be removed, and all progress made lost with the finances too.

(Rajput, M. 2016; Blair, I. 2017)

Check out this link to view full costs of the process

Privacy and security for your mobile app

The mobile app will require customers to sign-up and provide certain personal details, like card numbers, date of birth and e-mails. This is a danger for the users and the developers and hackers may attain this information in a security breach attempt.

As discussed previously developing an app is expensive and requires a lot of attention and daily work, and part of this workload will be ensuring that the app is secured using a system. However, these systems are expensive and at times cannot guarantee 100% security. (Udo, G. 2001; Niranjanamurthy et al., 2013; Gurung, A. 2016)

Most mobile applications use a third party to process payments. In most cases PayPal is the most popular, however even the most popular of companies like PayPal encounter problems. Researchers suggested that the security protection of the companies were ‘shoddy’. (Brewster, T. 2014)

Buying Impulse

Impulse buying behavior is present after a consumer may feel the urge to buy and usually this is spontaneous and unplanned with lacking in reflection Shen, K and Khalifa, M (2012). The consumer may have the self-control to act upon this, however as the mobile app developer you should considering factors like push notifications and the content on the mobile app to make it harder for the consumer to ignore your product and eventually make a purchase.
This is where developing an app may be troublesome because the editing costs rack up.

Taylor, N (2014) suggests using push notifications as a feature on your app reaches the attention of the user immediately and can trigger impulse purchasing behavior.
This is a necessity in the modern age of apps.

The takeaway from this blog

• Mobile applications require a lot of maintenance
• Finances must be allocated in abundance in order to create a trustworthy and credible app
• Finances are also required to ensure all the different costs can be met throughout the year
• Ensure that existing customers feel they are being treated good and not just like numbers

I hope that this blog has helped you and as always thank you for reading.

Bibliography 

Abecassis, A (2012), “Can Mobile App Discovery Be Fixed?” Mashable (June 14), http://mashable.com/2012/06/14/mobile- app-discovery.

Arora, S Hofstede, F and Mahajan, V, “The Implications of Offering Free Versions for the Performance of Paid Mobile Apps” Journal of Marketing Vol. 81 (November 2017), 62–78

Benjamin B. Tregoe, John W. Zimmerman, Ronald A. Smith, Peter M. Tobia, (1990) “The driving force”, Planning Review, Vol. 18 Issue: 2, pp.4-11

Blair, I. (2017). 10 Biggest Hidden Costs of Developing an App & How to Handle Them – BuildFire. [online] BuildFire. Available at: https://buildfire.com/hidden-app-development-costs/ [Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].

Fox-Brewster, T. (2014). PayPal security protection is ‘shoddy’, say researchers. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/25/paypal-security-protection-hack-researchers [Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].

Gurung, A .M.K. Raja, (2016) “Online privacy and security concerns of consumers”, Information & Computer Security, Vol. 24 Issue: 4, pp.348-371,

Niranjanamurthy, M., Kavyashree, N., Jagannath, S. and Chahar, D., (2013). Analysis of e-commerce and m-commerce: advantages, limitations and security issues. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, 2(6).

Rajput, M. (2016). Top hidden costs of developing a mobile app – JAXenter. [online] JAXenter. Available at: https://jaxenter.com/top-hidden-costs-of-developing-a-mobile-app-125873.html [Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].

Rook, D.W. (1987), “The buying impulse”, Journal Consumer Research, Vol. 14, pp. 189-99.

Silvera, D. Lavack, A. Kropp, F (2008) “Impulse buying: the role of affect, social influence, and subjective wellbeing”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 25 Issue: 1, pp.23-33

Taylor, N. (2014). Marketing with Mobile Push Notifications in a Location Specific Context. Technical Library

Udo, G (2001) “Privacy and security concerns as major barriers for e‐commerce: a survey study”, Information Management & Computer Security, Vol. 9 Issue: 4, pp.165-174

Ýmir Rigollet, D. and Kumlin, H. (2015). Consumer Attitudes towards Push Notifications.

What elements of a mobile app can a retailer use for their strategy to acquire and retain customers?

Source: Usabilla blog

This blog will be discussing various elements of the mobile app, which can be utilized to interact with consumers.
This way of marketing is utilized to create and maintain value, building relationships with consumers by means of their products and services, all in the aim to benefit the organisation  (Boone and Kurtz, 2011).
Regarding products and services there are four elements of marketing which can be used to impact your mobile app strategy, and they are; Multimedia product viewing, informative content, product promotions and consumer-led interactions. (Magrath, V. 2013)

Source: alwaysawake.asia

Multi-media product viewing

Is an e-marketing tool which refers to ability to view the products in various presentation methods. Engaging the customer through multi-media features like; video footage, illustrations, photography and audio.
Using the features effectively will enable to the organization to be more imaginative with the way they present their products on the mobile app.
Functions like zoom, rotation and videos for the customer to view the product in any which way they prefer. (Kim et al., 2007; McCormick and Livett, 2012).
This is an opportunity for the organisation to include features which exclusively available to the mobile app, thus drawing focus to the app in the hope to attract new clients and engage existing customers.

Multimedia is excellent for marketing because it is interactive and offers a sensory experience. Providing information whilst remaining enjoyable and entertaining (Gulliver and Ghinea, 2010). Moreover, it can make the content more discoverable, inform and persuade consumers, as well as seeing higher levels of web site activity and involvement. (Simmons, 2007).

Informative content

Informative content can be put into 3 elements of which contribute to informing the consumer regarding the organization’s products and services. Product information, practical services information, trend information. (Magrath, V. 2013)

• Product information is essential for the customers as they can start to understand the product better; colour, function, price, care instructions, sizing availability, texture and fabric. (Kim and Lennon, 2010) This information is imperative to the sale of a product of service, this information creates a mutual trust and therefore increases chances of purchase and reduces risk for customer.

• Practical services information refers to any information which may be of need. For example, the transaction, returns, FAQs, contact information, delivery costs and company policies. (Magrath, V. 2013) This is regarded as a standard requirement and is essential to provide quality and satisfaction.

• Trend information can be portrayed in a way of text or imagery and is an opportunity for the organisation to create inspiration and a sense of pleasure for the consumer, persuading consumers to buy the latest fashion collections (Dawson and Kim, 2010). An ideal way of expressing this information would be with the use of blogs on the mobile app, taking them to a separate section of the app in which they can view photos, videos of these stylish products. (McCormick and Livett, 2012)

Product promotions

“Thirty percent of those surveyed in our research say they’d start using an app again if they were offered a discount toward a purchase, and nearly a quarter of app users would return if they received exclusive or bonus content”. (Tiongson, J. 2015)

So what promotions can you start to think about?

There’s actually five or more significant promotions which can help to your success…

          Voucher

• The coupon/voucher method allows you to draw focus to the app as you can make it so customers can only retrieve the voucher if they download or access it via the app.

           Incentives

• Incentivizing your consumers, for example buy on get one free or shipping discounts. “Mobile apps can utilise the promotional effects of incentives to persuade consumers to start shopping mobile, like how online vouchers initially persuaded consumers to begin online purchasing”. (Magrath, V. 2013) . Incentives are also an acquisition technique (Chaffey et al., 2009), Therefore this is a good tactic to acquiring new customers as they will be incentivised to download the app.

          Rewards

• Rewards Simply refers to rewarding your most loyal customers who purchase often or who have shared content on social media to their friends and family. This type of sales promotion acts as a consumer retention technique (Chaffey et al., 2009).

          Discounts

• Similar to vouchers, however these discounts do not require a code. The retailer may choose to put certain items into the discount section, with a percentage slash, e.g. 50 per cent off for limited time. A popular way to use this strategy for the app is to include it in the app newsletter which offers details to sale events or clearances. (Magrath, V. 2013; (Lowe, 2010)

          Competitions

• Consumers’ enter competitions to win brand prizes. As their contact details are the    entry requirement, competitions are an immediate and persuasive method of obtaining personal consumer details for later direct marketing (Chaffey et al., 2009)

Consumer-led interactions

This is an opportunity for the retailer to influence and give personalized recommendations to the consumer. Once the consumer has entered their personal details the organisaiton may tailor their interactions with each individual consumer, offering them a specific way to resolve their needs. (Vesanen, J. 2007; (Nguyen, B and Mutum, DS. 2012).

You can always use the link below to see the top retail apps, to gain a perspective on how the leading brands set up to market through mobile apps.

Click here

Thank you for reading

Guglielmo Fasano

References

Benady, D. (2014). How technology is changing marketing. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/sep/29/technology-changing-marketing-digital-media [Accessed 20 Feb. 2018].

Boone, L.E. and Kurtz, D.L. (2011), Contemporary Marketing, South-Western Cengage Learning, Stamford, CT.

Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Mayer, R. and Johnston, K. (2009), Internet Marketing, 4th ed., Pearson Education Limited, Essex.

Gulliver, S.R. and Ghinea, G. (2010), “Cognitive style and personality: impact on multimedia perception”, Online Information Review, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 39-58.

Kim, J., Fiore, A.M. and Lee, H. (2007), “Influences of online store perception, shopping enjoyment and shopping involvement on consumer patronage behaviour towards an online retailer”, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 95-107

Lowe, B. (2010), “Consumer perceptions of extra free product promotions and discounts: the moderating role of perceived performance risk”, Journal of Product and Brand Management, Vol. 19 No. 7, pp. 496-503.

Magrath, V. McCormick, H (2013) “Marketing design elements of mobile fashion retail apps”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 17 Issue: 1, pp.115-134,

McCormick, H. and Livett, C. (2012), “Analysing the influence of the presentation of fashion garments on young consumers’ online behaviour”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 21-41.

Nguyen, B. and Mutum, D.S. (2012), “A review of customer relationship management: successes, advances, pitfalls and futures”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 400-19.

Pautsch, C. (2017). 10 Tips for Creating a Successful Mobile Retail App. [online] The Balance. Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/creating-a-successful-mobile-retail-app-4119866 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018].

Phillips, A. (2017). The 12 Best Shopping Apps That Help You Find Exactly What You Want. [online] Best Products. Available at: https://www.bestproducts.com/fashion/accessories/g1485/best-online-shopping-apps/ [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018].

Simmons, G. (2007), “i-Branding’: developing the internet as a branding tool”, Market Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 544-62.

Tiongson, J. (2015). Mobile App Marketing Insights: How Consumers Really Find and Use Your Apps. [online] Think with Google. Available at: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/mobile-app-marketing-insights/ [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018].

Vesanen, J. (2007), “What is personalization? A conceptual framework”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 41 Nos 5/6, pp. 409-18.

“Dainese is dedicated to producing the most effective safety solutions in every arena where athletes continually push the human body and mind to surpass their prior achievements. From our motorcycle racing origins to alpine skiing, mountain biking, competitive sailing and outer space.”(Dainese, 2017)

“Influencer marketing is all the rage these days. Businesses that utilise influencer marketing have a 37% better retention rate than those that don’t rely on word of mouth.” (Rohampton, J. 2017)

“Social media, which blends the personal and the businesslike and provides opportunities for engagement with the client on an almost real-time, personalised basis.” (Grossberg, K. 2016)

Now lets take a look at how the influencers and sponsored riders for Dainese are doing on Social media in terms of popularity……

ADEYEMI: Entrepreneur, Founder/Owner of @Adeyemi.co https://adeyemi.co/

Twitter: 2,764 followers

Instagram: 37.4 k followers

YouTube: 21,097 subscribers

(Youtube, 2017)

Dainese has many athletes under sponsorship which all race using their leathers and safety gear, however Adeyemi is an exception as he does not race in any championship. The common interest of motorcycles brought the company and himself together.

Adeyemi is founder and owner of Adeyemi.co, which is a clothing line with east coast fashion in mind, alongside the thrill of speed. This trend for fashion and engines fits in really well and influencing a company like Dainese should be natural for him.

(Adeyemi, 2017)

Adeyemi began as an influencer, however being such an asset to Dainese he is now brand ambassador, this brings with it many more responsibilities like attending more events, more exposure and usually a long term contract.

Below is a video of Adeyemi supporting the company on youtube as brand ambassador:

VALENTINO ROSSI: Motorcycle Racer, with 9 Grand Prix World Championships to his name is also a public figure http://www.valentinorossi.com/

Twitter: 5.4 M followers

Instagram: 4.6 M followers

YouTube: 97,571 subscribers

(Wallpaperup,2017)

“Valentino Rossi is still an idol for the fans despite his recent results on track. On Twitter he now has more followers than motor racing stars such as Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Jorge Lorenzo.” (MotoGP, 2012)

Valentino has been sponsored by Dainese since the start of his professional career and this was enough to expose the brand to existing and new customers, however even though he is a giant of the sport that is not enough, and he himself has also taken part is the social media quest to reach out to new customers. Lets take a look at how Valentino contributes to this “search for supremacy” !!

#DaineseCrew

Dainese have created this hashtag which is very powerful and is used by both athletes sponsored by the company and people who wear their products and use the hashtag to represent the company and also to show others on social media they are wearing. Link below will take you directly the hashtag section on twitter. #dainesecrew.

Click here 

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