Very few businesses are booming right out the gate. It is well known that time and labor equity has to be figured into the equation when you are starting or even expanding a business. You have to “put in the leg work” they sometimes say to see the “fruits of your labor”. Thats a lot of quotes but all of them are true. Building a business, much like building a brand to go along with it, takes time and patience. You must be invested for the long haul to expect gains to happen. Do not be a quitter!

One factor we can’t ignore is the ongoing promotion of our business. They can’t “find you” if you are not out there tooting your own horn. In many of our other blogs, we talk about the methods to “toot that horn” and spread the word. Marketing is perpetual and should never stop, never get complacent about your current business status. Keep focused on growth and great marketing strategies to help you stay relevant to your current customer base as well as the new customers you are targeting.

Here at TradiesAPPS, we have created a marketing program called “Tradies-Synergy”. Our focus is directly on local business growth that leverages the “givers gain” mentality made famous by Business Networking International (BNI). There is a specific strategy for growing a business and implementing TradiesAPPS into that model can help spearhead that growth. Below is a brief example of that program model.

Let’s say you are an Electrical Contractor. In your local market, you desire to grow your customer base while also engaging in your current base to “mine” for additional sales leads. In the “Tradies-Synergy” program, we establish ~10-15 trade-specific partner categories that do not conflict with your own business category. For example, we would have a featured plumbing contractor, HVAC mechanical contractor, painter, roofer, handyman, audio-visual provider, and so forth. In the TradiesAPP system we match up those potential partner prospects, that you can define, and incorporate into the TradiesAPPS eco-system. Now, then your customer gets your TradiesAPPS they also have access to your recommended partner prospect. It is all about giving at this point. So, what about the gain part?

Remember, we said “partners”. The next part is on YOU. When you identify those partner prospects you should reach out and initiate a conversation, maybe ask them to have a cup of coffee at a local coffee house and explain to them how you will be sending them potential business. Show them your TradiesAPPS, and explain how they will be listed in your trusted referral tab while explaining that it possibly can keep potential customers from going “window shopping” and keep them within the mobile app. Since you already have shared your TradiesAPPS with your customer there is that level of trust already established and now your potential partner can reap those benefits. However, the gain comes when you explain how they can get a TradiesAPPS as well, have their own trusted references, and then link back to you in their own TradiesAPPS. In this effort you BOTH win.

Let’s say your potential partner declined the offer to be your partner. That is fine because you still win by having those trusted resources on your own TradiesAPPS which saves your customer the need to go shopping for contractors they can trust. You have already done that for them. Now, let’s say you do get a partner and they sign up for TradiesAPPS, regardless of the tier they choose, when you get 5 partners in your network from those other, non-competing categories, then your service is 100% free for as long as those 5 partners stay in the program.

When you become part of the TradiesAPPS family we will help you target your local markets. We will provide ongoing support to help you become successful. All of our TradiesAPPS tiers have unique features that can be changed as needed to reflect the changes in your business growth. If you already have a website, that’s perfect, as we can “piggyback” on that to help your business grow even more. if yu do not have a website then no problem as our “Diamond Tier” includes a detailed webpage for your business and includes annual hosting as well. Either way, we are 100% positive that your small, but crucial investment in TradiesAPPS will help your business thrive.

For more information on TradiesAPPS – CLICK HERE for details.

Being a small business owner of several clothing boutiques for two decades, I was looking to do all of the above. I did a lot of research into how to accomplish those goals. Increasing sales and building a loyal client base were the most important in my search for a solution. It was then that I discovered that businesses with a loyalty program generally do more than 20% more in sales than businesses without one. That was it — loyalty!

I was going to implement a loyalty program in my retail business — that was my “aha” moment. After looking for a solution with little success, I decided to build it myself. Since then, the mobile app space has grown in leaps and bounds, and there are several companies a small business owner could turn to develop a mobile-based loyalty program — BuildFire, Mobile Roadie, and Siberian Pro and the company I founded Mass Mobile Apps are all among them. When looking for a company to produce your mobile app, look for people you can work with and who understand what your needs as a business owner are.

A mobile app can be a lot of different things. It can be a way to access information, play games, do your banking, monitor your home, communicate, and now interact with your local businesses. Business owners with the insight to adopt this marketing channel early display their ability to understand where their customers are and how to effectively engage with them. The move to mobile is not new, but the ability for small- and medium-sized businesses to adopt a marketing channel like this is.

So how can a mobile app help your business? Let’s examine the points outlined:

How Can It Increase Sales? 

The mobile app can include a variety of different types of loyalty programs. Each program is engineered to make your clients come back more often and spend more when they do. Rewards can be used in several other ways, including tiered levels, which give your clients the incentive to progress up your different levels, giving the ones at the top additional perks. There’s also gamification where prizes can be awarded to winning clients, and the ability to reward your clients for pre-defined actions – like sharing an image or a notification — helps push your bottom line. One popular game is the scratch-and-win feature, which works for both end users and merchants.

How Does A Mobile App Improve Efficiency? 

Features like integrated shopping carts, integrated food ordering, and employee scheduling give an employer the ability to house these key functions of their digital footprint inside the app. A restaurant with a food ordering system built into its app will see a dramatic increase in online and in-app purchasing. A retail business with an integrated e-commerce system will increase efficiency and also boost sales figures. All businesses may be able to improve employee engagement with built-in scheduling software that allows employees to be notified of their schedules in real-time, and to also always have access to it on their smartphones. No longer can they say, “I forgot I was scheduled today,” or “no one told me I was working.”

How Does A Mobile App Build A Loyal Customer Base?

This is one of the most important things that a business owner must focus on.  Customers are the lifeblood of every business. Successful businesses know this and make it a priority to build loyalty and make brand ambassadors. Mobile apps are among the best ways to communicate and engage with customers. The app gives your customers the ability to interact with your business on their schedule. Push notifications have open rates that can max out in excess of 90%. Compare that to emails with open rates of 25-30%, and you can see how the mobile app will become the best way for you to connect with your customers. With a referral program, you can incentivize your customers to refer you to new businesses and help to take you viral.

Mobile apps today are much like websites were 15 years ago, and like 15 years ago when websites were cost-prohibitive to small- and medium-sized businesses, mobile apps seem to have that stigma today. That is no longer the case. TradiesAPPS mobile app platforms now level the playing field, and smaller enterprises can now have all of the features of a Fortune 500 company’s mobile strategy at a fraction of the price. For more information on a FREE consultation and display of TradiesAPPS on your own smartphone visit www.tradiesapps.com for more details.

But just because you’re a local SMB (small or medium-sized business) doesn’t mean that these customers will patronize your business. To have a successful local company, you need strong, consistent brand marketing. Sure, you may not always be able to match the big national brand’s marketing budget. But you can beat them with a powerful, effective local branding campaign.

You are different from the big, impersonal national brands, and to today’s consumers, that’s a good thing. All you have to do is construct a strong, consistent local brand that reflects your place in the unique community you serve.

What is Local Branding and Why Does It Matter?

So what exactly is local branding? And why should you bother with it?

Local branding is similar to regular old branding in that it starts with the same elements–a logo, a strong message, company values, etc.

But what makes it different is the emphasis on being part of the local community. Local brand marketing is leveraging that unique place in the community as a benefit, rather than a detriment.

What Does Branding Have To Do With Local SEO?

Local branding isn’t just about showing consumers that you’re different from the big brands. It’s about dominating Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The physical location of your business matters to SEO because when people search for shops, restaurants, and services, they look for one that’s nearby. Google wants to give people the best results of their search, including what companies are physically close and have a good reputation. Local branding achieves these goals, meaning you will rank higher on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Part of branding is building an online reputation for your business. Things like reviews, backlinks, and social media all influence SERPs. These kinds of things are SEO best practices for all companies, not just local ones. But for community businesses, there should be an added focus on your geographic location.

These are the sort of things should you be doing in order to boost your local SEO:

• On-page optimizing for local keywords
• Citation building in local publications and community directories
• Link building on local websites
• Optimize your Google My Business Profile for local searches

Know Thy Enemy

Small businesses usually feel like they’re the “little guy” up against the giant national companies. But don’t forget about your local competition, either. To really outflank your local competition, you need to know thy enemy. Do your research and monitor what your local business adversary is doing (and what they are doing that works.)

And once you know them, you can take them down by following these 7 tips.

7 Ways To Build Your Local Brand

Local Brand Research

Before you begin any branding campaign, you need to do your research.

To create a successful brand, you have to learn about your customers, their needs, their pain points, and how you can uniquely help them. For local research, you also need to define how large of an area you serve, how competitive your local market is, and what your competitors bring to the table.

Reviews and Links

As we all know, building an online reputation is equally as important as building a “real world” reputation these days.

Your local business’s online reputation is comprised of reviews on sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, and Google, along with backlinks from authoritative sites, established social media accounts, and your website SEO. If you optimize all of these factors, Google will have you at the top of their SERP in no time.

Reviews are one of the most effective ways to build a great local reputation. 97% of consumers read online reviews before choosing a business and 93% say that reviews impacted their buying decision. With stats like that, it’s pretty clear that you need to focus on encouraging your happy customers to leave online reviews.

Be Creative

Exceptional, effective branding is never boring or passé. It is exciting, new, and creative.

People are drawn to creativity because it’s intriguing, for better or for worse. Make it better, in your case, by being inventive and original in your branding. Stand out with funny ads, a catchy jingle, or a unique commercial premise. You can even get people’s attention with a celebrity endorsement! Use a well-known, local personality or, if you can swing it, a big-name national celeb with ties to your area or business.

Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to brand outside the box.

Community Involvement

Local consumers are savvy. They can tell which businesses actually care about their community, and which ones just care about looking like they care about their community. If you want to build a strong local brand, you need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk by giving back to your community.

Giving back helps make your town better. But it also shows your commitment to the local area and familiarizes more people with your brand. It’s also great PR for your company, and you might even get some backlinks from other groups involved, which will boost your SERP position

Here are some community involvement ideas:

• Donate a portion of your profits from one month to a local charity
• Sponsor a sports team
• Create a scholarship for a local high school senior
• Sponsor (or co-sponsor) a local community or charity event
• Get involved in local government or the Chamber of Commerce

Show Your Know-How

One of the reasons consumers choose local businesses is because they expect a level of expertise they might not be able to find at the big national brands. But how do you demonstrate this expertise online? With useful, valuable content.

According to marketing guru Neil Patel, content marketing is “a long-term strategy that focuses on building a strong relationship with your target audience by giving them high-quality content that is very relevant to them on a consistent basis.” That means providing great content through blogs, social media, infographics, ebooks, or videos.

Your content should simultaneously show your expertise and provide useful, helpful information to your audience. Not only does awesome content direct clicks and views to your site, it also establishes you as a local expert that clients are sure to turn to when they need your services.

Don’t Forget About Traditional Media

Local Branding

Sure, digital media advertising is all the rage right now. And there’s no doubt that new media can be an effective tool for local branding. But according to Marketing Week, too many companies are undervaluing traditional media like TV, radio, and billboards. Though most companies don’t know it, TV, radio, and newspaper are the three most effective means of marketing.

That means that if you’re forgoing all traditional media to advertise your local brand, you’re making a huge mistake. Optimizing your traditional media strategy is a key way to direct local leads to your company.

And while it’s important not to forget about traditional media in favor of an entirely digital marketing strategy, it’s also important to use all of the opportunities available to you to share your brand. It’s not about only using traditional media, or only using digital media. It’s about finding the perfect balance of the two for your company. Finding the right media mix for you means reaching the widest audience of qualified leads while making the most of your marketing budget.

Consistency Is Key

All of the above tips and tricks are very important aspects of local brand marketing. But perhaps the most important thing to remember with local branding is consistency.

Branding is a long-term marketing strategy. When you commit to your brand, you build awareness of your company and values. That way, when people need your services or product, your company is the first one they think of. Your brand should be infused in everything your business touches–your website, your logo, your office, your packaging, etc.

The biggest mistake SMBs make is branding inconsistency. If they don’t feel a branding campaign is immediately successful, they will discard it and move on to another idea. But this is actually harmful to your company’s long-term brand identity. You need to construct one cohesive branding message and style guide that you implement throughout every aspect of your company.

Need proof? Just think about national companies that have stuck with the same brand marketing for years. For instance, take Progressive Insurance’s Flo or the Geico Gecko. These companies have stuck with the same branding campaign and it has yielded big results. These campaigns have entered the social lexicon and are part of our culture. That means Geico and Progressive have huge brand recognition–all thanks to consistency.

If you constantly switch up your marketing message, you’re missing out on that recognition.

Plus, brand consistency helps boost your SEO. The more consistent your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are throughout your online profiles, the higher you will rank. And according to marketing powerhouse Moz, inconsistent NAP can negatively affect your ranking.

Need Help Building Your Local Brand?

We can help with TradiesAPPS, the most revolutionary concept in local business marketing utilizing trade-specifically target business apps to increase customer loyalty and drive more interaction between you and your target audience. Check out our other BLOGS in our marketing category for more tips and as always visit www.TradiesAPPS.com for more information on what we can do for your business.

Here are 10 local marketing strategies that can help you attract customers from within your local area:

1. Manage Your Listing in Search Engines

People today search online (or on their phones) first, often using Google or Bing, then visit the business.

You can manage much of the information that appears in Google business listings, including address, hours, phone number, pictures, and more, through a free Google My Business account. If you haven’t claimed your listing, do it now. Bing has a similar listing place.

2. Target Nearby Social Media Users

Social media can be targeted to your local area — if you know how to use it that way.

Facebook, for instance, has an option specifically to allow you to market (“promote”) your business to other local Facebook users. I always suggest that small businesses start with a modest $100 budget and run a test campaign. However, with TradiesAPPS you have many ways to grow your social media presence because our mobile apps, tailored to the trades, will focus on local social media.

But you don’t need to advertise. Try to get existing local customers to follow you on your social channels. Provide interesting content and in turn, your updates may get exposure to local friends and family who are followers of your followers.

3. Participate With Online Professional Groups

Social media sites like LinkedIn give you access to groups where you can share expertise and network. This is especially good for local B2B businesses.

For example, a Southern California-based business that provides advertising materials like t-shirts and other printed goods could potentially benefit from joining groups with other local SoCal businesses.

4. Sponsor Local Events

Sponsoring charitable events in your local community provides a golden opportunity to raise brand awareness.

Make sure the event or cause is not only something you believe in, but also something that might appeal to your target customers. For example, a toy store might not do so well sponsoring an event at a local nightclub. Sponsoring a kids’ sports team would be more relevant.

5. Follow Up With Customers

Send a thank-you email following a sale to encourage testimonials. Never offer anything in exchange for a positive review. But a thank-you email stating that you welcome feedback and would appreciate a testimonial for your website if they care to give one is being done more and more these days. With TradiesAPPS you can target specific messages to specific customers with in-app messages and PWA push notifications. The entire concept of TradiesAPPS is to keep you connected with your customers.

6. Register With Local Business Directories

Oftentimes, local customers look to directories to find businesses or professionals from a particular niche in their area. Make sure your business is listed in any relevant directories, and correct any inaccurate information.

Don’t forget your local chamber of commerce, the Better Business Bureau, yellow pages, and niche directories. For example, home professionals can list their services on sites like HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List.

7. Cross-Promote With Other Local Businesses

If you offer a special or promotion to your customers, then you’re only going to reach the people who already know about your business. But if you AND another business offer a promotion together, then customers from both businesses are likely to hear about it. This is where our “TradiesSynergy” program shines. With a TradiesAPPS mobile app you can recommend specific vendors and they can do the same for you. all within the TradiesAPPS eco-system. This is the secret to successful peer marketing.

A local restaurant, for instance, could partner with a nearby movie theater for a “dinner and a movie” special.

8. Start a Referral Program

A referral program could be as simple as giving a satisfied customer a few extra business cards and asking them to refer their friends. Here at TradiesAPPS, we have a program called “TradiesSynergy” that creates a peer business-to-business referral program much like the long-established Business Networking International (BNI) model. It is built on the “Givers Gain” mentality in the local market.

Or you could offer a bounty (discount or award) to the referrer and even to the customer being referred. Say you’re an interior designer. You could offer a $200 credit to past clients who refer their friends and an equal discount to the referred client.

9. Introduce Yourself to Local Media

Offer editors and journalists your expertise in topics related to your business. For example, an HVAC company might be able to provide some quotes for a local newspaper about how to lower heating costs in the winter.

You can also send out press releases to suggest article ideas, especially if tied to a current news event. Be persistent, but don’t annoy editors by being too pushy.

10. Host an “Experience” Event

Don’t just hold a sale – turn it into an “experience.” Host a Friday night sale where you offer beverages and live music. This makes it an enjoyable experience for shoppers. Invite your social media followers and reach out to local media to share information about the event.

1. Keep it simple: Your app shouldn’t be a Swiss Army knife. Focus on identifying and solving a significant pain point. Sometimes the user may be unaware of an issue. For instance, if nurses take patient notes on Post-Its, they’ll be easy to lose or mix up between patients. An app would give them a whole new way of doing things, as it’s literally at their fingertips and creates an accessible and secure digital record. The app could enable other features but would undoubtedly be meant for accessing patient logs and tasks — and for taking notes. Apple follows this very principle when it designs iOS apps. For instance, its Clock app is centered around time but also provides alarms, a stopwatch, and timers.

2. Fuel the app with the highest-octane data: Obviously, an app would be virtually useless without customer, product, or transactional data. But if possible, you should avoid making the screens data-heavy so as not to overload the user with information and to keep the app light and fast. There are always exceptions. Banks, for instance, may not be able to get away with really simple, data-light apps. But even banking apps can cater to the mobile user’s main needs and keep complex and data-heavy features for transactional web portals. 

3. Design for elegance: The app needs to be perceived as exceptional, not just a tool to get the job done. So, design the app for the device, leveraging all its features — especially for identity and security — and “micro-delight” the user with the tiniest visual elements and animations. Most importantly, ensure users can achieve their goals through the fewest possible taps, types, swipes, and scrolls.

4. Supercharge the app through analytics: Integrate analytics to make recommendations, provide positive reinforcement, save users time and ultimately change their behavior. For example, you may want to encourage saving more for retirement, making healthy choices, or exercising a minute longer. This can build loyalty and positively impact company performance.

5. Use chat to answer every user’s query: Not all the information that customers seek can be available via a simple and uncluttered app. Yet customers want answers, and chat is a good avenue to provide them. Work with your operations counterparts to leverage call centers and integrate a scalable chatbot platform. 

6. Build-in tracking: Have your team pour over analytics to understand app usage (e.g., taps on buttons, time on screen, mid-process exits, etc.) and run A/B tests to optimize for action. But for this, you will likely need to integrate third-party platforms for tagging, usage analytics, touch-based heat mapping and A/B testing. 

7. Create a strategy to drive downloads: Get the basics right: That includes leveraging social media promotions, optimizing app store content, and eliciting user reviews. But also drive large-scale awareness and downloads by introducing the new app in relevant marketing ads, encouraging downloads via SMS and email offers, adding the app download QR code to your website homepage, and creating an app landing page to espouse its virtues.

Apps are now so common that companies no longer have to find a trade-off between creating them or investing in more mobile-responsive websites. When it comes to successful marketing and e-commerce strategy, I believe both are necessary. So go forth and unleash an exceptional app with confidence. Your customers will come, and your business will benefit.

Not every small and medium-sized business needs a mobile app, but it could add value in the right situation. Mobile apps can help SMBs build brand loyalty and monitor business relationships, especially if they maintain close contact with customers or business partners. They can also boost promotional efforts, improve customer analytics and facilitate online shopping. Business leaders should explore the benefits of mobile apps to determine if an app could help their business grow.

1. Customer loyalty

Businesses that operate in highly competitive market verticals must put in extra work to cultivate customer loyalty. Mobile apps can offer them an advantage, as they can increase their repeat business opportunities and improve referral rates. They can also boost new product and service adoption rates.

Mobile apps offer convenient one- and two-way communication between SMBs and their customers. Convenient communication leads to continued engagement, which helps businesses monitor customer behaviors over time and adjust their strategies based on those behaviors. In this sense, mobile apps can improve customer satisfaction at a low cost.

When a business has a loyal customer base, it can more easily forecast short- and long-term growth. Enhanced forecasting lets businesses fine-tune their offerings and create products and services that their bases want. Businesses can boost customer loyalty with loyalty card programs, which customers can acquire and track on the app. Loyalty programs can help SMBs capture repeat customer business.

2. Marketing programs

Marketing efforts help businesses tell new and existing customers about new products and services. Mobile apps enhance marketing and promotional activities because they require prospective customers to actively seek out and install the app. In other words, apps draw valuable leads into a business’s marketing reach. Marketing teams can then monitor app usage and employ promotional strategies to target specific users based on their actions in the app.

Mobile apps also help SMBs launch marketing campaigns and quickly pivot between multiple campaigns. Advertising on an app requires less capital than traditional methods, such as paid radio, TV, and print advertising, which can benefit SMBs with small budgets. Marketers can also use app promotions to target specific groups, which creates rapid demand and market momentum.

3. Convenient online shopping

In the digital world, customers demand flexibility when they select and order products and services. Organizations can design mobile apps to inform and conduct in-app purchases.

Businesses began to let customers place orders on mobile apps in the early 2010s. Prior to this time, customers hesitated to place product orders — especially expensive ones — on apps. However, as users grew comfortable making purchases on their smartphones, many of them began to prefer this channel. In fact, product orders through mobile devices increased over 20% between the third quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2021, according to a Statista report.

4. Enables an omnichannel approach

Businesses can use an omnichannel sales approach to give customers a seamless shopping experience across devices. Omnichannel access lets customers make purchases from any location. SMBs can improve their omnichannel experiences with a mobile app because it lets customers shop and make purchases from their smartphones.

5. Customer relationship monitoring

Many businesses struggle to understand their customers’ mindsets. Businesses have long relied on customer surveys to monitor customer relationships, but with the proliferation of mobile devices, they can also glean information from apps. For instance, SMBs can monitor how often customers use the app, determine what promotions they might have an interest in, and review solicited and unsolicited feedback. This information can help build and maintain positive customer relationships.

6. Brand awareness

Mobile apps that use push notifications can help keep customers and clients engaged over time. SMBs can reach all or subsets of users with notifications about product news and promotions through the apps. They can also perform granular targeting with information like location and past engagement history.

With the proper settings and configurations, app notifications can help businesses keep their brand or products in front of customers’ minds. Strong brand awareness can help businesses drive digital traffic, outperform their competitors, and increase revenue.

7. Data mining

Mobile apps offer fantastic data mining opportunities. SMBs can analyze collected data to identify customer patterns and responses to marketing tactics. Also, businesses can combine data from the mobile app with data from other sources, such as social media platforms and direct customer interactions. Businesses can merge and analyze this information to better understand customer interests and buying trends.

Businesses and brands have devised several ways of communicating this content to consumers. From social media, word of mouth, to blogs and websites. Key among them, however, are mobile apps.

Statista predicts that by the end of 2018, the number of mobile users will reach 4.93 billion. Another study indicates that of the total time spent by adults on mobile phones, 90% is spent on mobile apps.

For a business or marketer, such numbers reveal how prime a channel mobile apps are for marketing purposes. They are capable of allowing a brand to reach millions of people who spend an average of five hours per day on their phone.

How can a brand do this though? How can a business leverage mobile apps for a successful marketing strategy that will convert to revenue?

1. Develop a mobile app that adds value to your consumer

There are two ways of marketing your product using mobile apps; using an already established app that belongs to someone else or creating your own app with the use of TradiesAPPS.

When using someone’s app, then you buy an advert space, and every time a consumer uses the app, they can see your advert somewhere on the app. While this is perfectly fine, most users find numerous advertisements on an app annoying and they end up ignoring them. Also, advertising your product on someone’s app is very limiting because there are useful strategies such as push notifications that are lost to you because you are not the official publisher of the app.

The idea, therefore, is to develop your own app. Note, however, that you have to be extremely careful when developing the app. Consumers can see through a hastily crafted mobile app meant only for advertising. As mentioned above, content is everything. Consumers want an app that adds value to their lives.

Example of an app that adds value to users

Charmin SitorSquat is an app that allows users to find nearby restrooms whenever they are traveling. Users are able to rate a restroom as sit if it was good, or squat if they did not like it. Users can also add restrooms to the database while tagging restrooms with special amenities such as a baby changing table.

When it comes to advertising, there is a very tastefully done reference to the Charmin toilet paper. With an estimated 7.2 million searches across online and mobile platforms since its launch, you can bet most of the users doing the searches are using the Charmin toilet paper.

Lesson?

Develop an app that is not only an advertising channel but one that adds immense value to your users’ daily lives. Users will not only trust your brand more; they will feel indebted and in turn, ensure your brand is their first choice.

2. Use push notifications

The first thing to note is that you can only use push notifications if you are the official publisher of a mobile app.

A push notification allows a publisher to send a message that will pop up on the mobile device prompting a user to take a certain action. For example, an online store app to record phone calls can send a push notification informing users of an ongoing flash sale and prompt the user to click to find out more info.

Push notifications have three key benefits.

• The user doesn’t have to be using the app to see the notification. They appear more as an SMS or mobile alerts and the publisher can send them anytime.
• Push notifications are difficult to ignore. Unlike emails which can go unopened or end up as spam, push notifications cannot. Statistics actually state that push notifications have a twice as high click-through rate compared to emails.
• Push notifications improve the overall user experience, something a user always appreciates and even if they are not customers yet, they can be easily converted.

3. Use the mobile app to leverage loyalty programs

Reputable reports and statistics tell us it costs five to twenty-five times more to acquire a new customer and that 67% of existing customers spend more than new customers.

With that in mind, it is clear that holding on to existing customers is vital for any brand. Loyalty schemes are meant to reward customers who are willing to work with a particular brand again and again. By doing so, the customer feels appreciated and he/she becomes more inclined to stick with the brand longer.

There are various ways to initiate a loyalty program. A point system, for instance, where frequent clients earn points that they can redeem for certain products.

Using a mobile app is a great way to personalize loyalty programs and make them more valuable to a user. A brand can send personal notifications whenever a customer’s points qualify them for the redemption of a particularly valuable product or service.

Such loyalty programs not only prove to the customer that the brand cares, they also demonstrate a brand’s willingness to ensure the relationship with the consumer continues.

4. Use the mobile to improve user experience

There are more than two million mobile apps in various stores. That means your app must be valuable enough that the customer is not tempted to uninstall it. The only way to do this is to ensure you improve the user’s experience.

Make it easier for a user to order a service or product via the mobile app. Based on the user’s previous purchase, make it a point to inform them whenever a new product they might be interested in becomes available.

Whenever you do this, you are slowly cultivating a customer who will stick with your brand for life.

Ultimately, please remember

Mobile app marketing is not a strategy that can work on its own. It requires that you integrate the app with your other marketing strategies.

For instance, your app will need a marketing campaign, preferably through social media, to bring it to people’s attention. Your app also needs to be connected to a content-full website or blog that allows potential customers to learn more about your product.

When you consider SEO, no matter how amazing your app is, if the customer cannot find you on Google when doing further research, they will be inclined to trust you less.

So, use mobile apps for your marketing, but do so in conjunction with other marketing strategies for best results.