Mobile Application Development

While scanning the Brand Marketing section of the Ad-ology Marketing Forecast app on my iPhone this morning, a May 6 article stood because it didn’t seem to have anything to do with marketing.

Titled, “Top 3 Opportunities/Challenges Ahead for Apartment Buildings,” the article immediately brought to mind Apartments.com, the online and mobile rental property search business that came to us to create an iPhone version of its service.

The topmost item on the list shows that competition among rental properties will escalate in coming years as more properties become available.  That would spell good news for a service such as Apartments.com, who provides a valued connection between renter and property that will be even more essential than it is today.

The second item caused pause, as it suggests that saltwater pools are becoming a table stakes feature of attractive rental properties.  Aside being another attribute renters may wish to identify while searching, it’s hard to envision how this impacts a service like Apartments.com.

The final item actually seems the most important by far; the emergence of online apartment ratings and the effect of negative reviews on occupancy rates.  Apparently many property owners are taking proactive steps to monitor their online reputations and addressing complaints directly.  That would seem to represent a significant opportunity for Apartments.com to create another value added aspect of its business.

As we have mentioned previously in our blog, social media is on the Interactive Mediums’ radar screen in a big way.  The most recent example is Hovewall, used to engage greater than 50 percent of the addressable audience in real time Twitter commentary at Mobile University 101, a conference held recently in Chicago.

I have blogged a lot lately about the short sightedness of a “one and done” approach to mobile marketing, in particular SMS text messaging.  It simply isn’t worth the effort to drop off following an initial campaign given the significant opportunity to learn something useful about your customers to target them more effectively in the future.

The same applies to mobile or smartphone applications, such as the iPhone application we developed for Newser.com.  Today, Newser’s Ben McInturff was in our offices working with a couple of our mobile technology gurus on the next evolution of the application, which is no novelty but rather another platform for the company’s content distribution.

So much publicity is focused on the launch of limited life mobile apps that marketers forget that iteration applies just as much to an applications strategy as it does customer engagement around SMS text, email, social media or the web.

Pictured (right to left) is McInturff in the foreground, followed by Interactive Mediums’ Lead Architect Doug Barth and Director of Engineering Dave Farkas.  What’s in store for the next version of Newser for the iPhone?  Stay tuned newsfans.

At first glance, this March 31, 2010 article on AdWeek.com titled, “Forget Apps, Text Still Reigns in Mobile,” appears to outline a logical case for pursuing text message marketing over mobile apps.  For example:

“…stats…show it’s (apps) still a plaything compared to text messaging, which continues to deliver impressive year-over-year growth across all demographic groups.”

“only 18 percent of all phones in the U.S. are smartphones. Further, Juniper Research forecasts that smartphones worldwide will account for just 23 percent of all new handsets sold per annum by 2013, hardly representing the mass market for general consumer goods and services.”

“Strategy Analytics confirmed…with its October 2009 report that showed only four to six mobile apps are used on a consistent basis. Brands need to be aware that there’s intense competition for share of the mobile phone desktop. It stands to reason that consumers are not going to continue to download and use an unlimited number of mobile applications, and there are many questions over whether we have reached the saturation point already.”

Before abandoning your mobile app project, consider this statement:

“These are hardly mouth-watering statistics unless they’re your specific target market.”

This remains the sole reason to pursue an application on a particular mobile platform, iPhone or otherwise.  If the user demographics match closely your customer base, then it makes sense to consider a mobile application – only should one be pursued if the customer experience can be improved in a way that benefits the business.  This gets the heart of targeting the Mobile Customer Experience, which the article points to as THE point at which all mobile marketing efforts are converging.  Interactive Mediums thus to date has focused on helping its clients in this exact manner:

“Despite the relatively small user base, what is interesting from the known behavior of those who do download mobile apps frequently and own smartphones is that they’re massive users of text messaging and mobile Web sites. This shows that those on the leading edge of the technology curve are continuing to grow their engagement with texts, not reduce them, which is where the rest of the market will follow.”

Shortly after reading that Augmented Reality was the hot-topic at this years International CTIA Wireless conference , I caught an NY Times piece on AR’s tie in to portable real estate listings.

Upon reading, I was quickly convinced that mobile augmented reality can reshape tourism, real estate and travel and is already beginning to.  From there I began pondering how it could be applied successfully to other industries such as retail.

Clearly the opportunity is there. Industry reports say that mobile handset integration will make a significant impact on Augmented Reality and catapult the industry size to over $350MM.

Secondly, It is a technology that when done well can add incredible levels of utility to a mobile device.  So far the mobile AR concept is simple, add live data population (metadata) to what you are already looking at through your mobile devices camera, or respond to an image capture with data. Whether it is a real estate listing, a state monument, or an important location in relevance to the Beatles’ history.  Once you point your camera, the information pops up right over it on your screen.

Given the opportunity & usefulness it seems like a wise choice for companies to adopt early. However, companies looking for ROI must enter this arena with the intention to offer utility & improve the lives of their customers, not just give them a fun gimmicky display of a new technology (see Fanta, or Coke Zero).  While some say this technology is going to be quickly “overhyped and abused” many will find new and innovative ways to increase convenience in consumer’s lives, in turn for brand allegiance.

Big box store IKEA is already testing out a future augmented reality catalogue showcasing building instructions. It’d be even better if you could use the pictures of your own home from your mobile device to find out while in store what that red chesterfield would look like in your living room.

As for grocery innovation, imagine walking into the canned beans section of your local supermarket on a hunt for the lowest sodium beans. With an application dedicated to healthy eating, you could potentially point your camera at the entire beans category and it could point you directly to the can with the lowest amount of sodium. Recipes would be a simple way to innovate & add useful data. Perhaps Mixology could help you think of drink recipes before hosting a party while you are shopping at the liquor store, all you would have to do is point your camera at a bottle of vanilla infused vodka and presto!

Whatever the use, AR is quickly becoming a respected medium and one of the most advanced marketing utility tools. As for other industries that can quickly be transformed the ones that come to mind are transportation, greeting cards, restaurants, and cinema. Those who adopt and integrate into their mobile strategies early will win customers & gain big shares of the opportunity, while those who sleep on this will likely get outshined by their competitors.

I recently came across two different articles citing research that at first glance contradict one another.  Marketers tempted to tap into consumer readiness to purchase apps as part of development project business cases should be wary of statistics like these:

From Yankee Group:  “Nearly one-third of apps downloaded are purchased, up from 18% a year ago. Further, individual app prices have risen. The average paid app costs $2.85, compared with $1.99 last year.”

Contrast this with research from an apps analytics firm, which found “prices of iPhone apps worldwide have decreased by 15% during the period from Dec. 1st, 2009 through the end of February, with Australia having the largest relative price decrease of 27% overall…The most popular applications are the most expensive in Europe, the report suggests, with an average of $3.86 per app, and the least expensive apps are in North America, with an average of $2.43 and Asia, with an average of $2.69.”

No matter if prices are increasing or falling, the market for mobile apps is growing rapidly.  If anything prices will fall as more consumers are presented with greater choice and developers can monetize their apps instead by tapping into ad networks, as is planned by Apple.  You can be assured that viewing apps as a siloed revenue opportunity as opposed to a part of a larger mobile engagement strategy will soon be a thing of the past.

Marketers and their agency partners always seem to have smartphone demographics top of mind when discussions turn to mobile projects, and rightly so.  Until such time that applications are as universally accessible as on desktop computers, marketers need to make choices with respect to mobile strategy.

This article today on AdAge.com presents some generalizations to describe typical smartphone users:

iPod Touch: “The Touch user is young — according to AdMob, 65% of iPod Touch users are under 17 — and likes to game and listen to music.”

Blackberry: “The BlackBerry user is still very much a business user who uses the phone primarily for e-mail, instant messages and viewing attachments.”

Android: “According to Nielsen, 33% of Android users are single and, by Ad Mob’s count, 73% are male. Millennial’s Mr. Startzel calls it the ‘tough, terminator-like robot phone…’”

iPhone: “The iPhone user is tech-obsessed, wealthy and is less likely to have kids than other smartphone users… iPhoners are also using the device for much more than e-mail or messaging and are very active web surfers. They’re also more likely to buy things from their phones, download apps and content, according to Nielsen.”

While certainly good to know, such information doesn’t paint a full picture.  No matter what the generic user profile for a particular smartphone device looks like, it’s important to also consider whether or not consumers perceive a particular device as a viable application platform.  Although Google Android device shipments have been strong and are capable app platforms, the available market for applications pales in comparison to Apple’s App Store for the iPhone.

Right or wrong, currently the iPhone is perceived as the mobile app platform for consumers, due as much to its features and capabilities as the hundred+ thousand applications currently offered.  Some marketers invest in iPhone apps to reach their target demographic, others for the publicity which can accompany novel or interesting apps regardless of how well they are aligned to buyers.

Where trade-offs are not required is with SMS text message marketing programs.  These not only offer universal reach, but provide marketers the unique opportunity to learn more about their customers via direct engagement.  Marketers are not afforded the luxury of knowing who downloads their applications.

Today on my iPhone, browsing news on an application designed by Interactive Mediums for Newser, I came across this interesting article about a “Minority Report”-like mobile marketing trial taking place in Japan that will soon be brought to the U.S.

If not familiar with the movie reference, futuristic billboards presented personalized ads based on your actual identify as you walked by them.  The trial taking place in Japan is similar in that it features facial recognition capabilities to understand age and gender, and use these as inputs into personalized advertisements.

Although an interesting, if not very exciting marketing advancement, the article raises logical privacy concerns that arise with anything which consumers have little control over.  In this case, identities remain private and the scans are not saved following delivery of personalized messages.

Whatever form this takes in the U.S. or elsewhere, you can be certain that it will be followed by integration with location aware smartphones so that consumers may opt into being recognized and presented with personalized offers and messages based on actual identity, not just age or gender.

Preparing for this future now, marketers would be wise to develop mobile relationships with their customers using commonly available SMS text message marketing capabilities as offered by companies like Interactive Mediums.   Doing so successfully is equally a function of adhering to opt in standards which will not likely change even in the face of advancements like intelligent billboards.

In October of 2009 we mentioned a great example of mobile as part of a casino’s customer engagement strategy.  Good case studies are easy to remember, so I was not surprised to see this article today on MobileMarketer.com about where this business is evolving its approach to mobile.

I thought this was worth highlighting to show that mobile is not an “all or nothing” proposition, but that a phased approach to engaging customers in the mobile channel often makes the most sense.

Within the casino itself, mobile gaming is being introduced via proprietary mobile devices from a firm called eDeck.  These will provide on the go access to a variety of traditional games such that patrons can enjoy gambling wherever they may be within the property.  It’s an example of “micro mobile marketing,” in that customers are confined to a particular space that lends itself to mobile enablement in this fashion.  The upside for the casino will surely be more revenue while offering another channel of interaction with its customers.  Those two objectives are common among leading mobile marketers, whether their customers are more or less confined to a particular space or not.

While the article does not say so, this statement suggests the casino’s prior efforts around SMS text messaging programs to create an opt-in database of mobile subscribers will be used to help promote the new offering:

“Hard Rock will target its existing database and create eDeck awareness throughout the property.”

Other casinos will probably follow suit, or perhaps develop smartphone applications offering a similar experience in order to reach a greater number of potential customers than with a limited number of proprietary devices.

In an article published last Monday, Adage identified 6 applications created independently of retailers that are making a significant impact on the shopping experience. The article speaks to the challenge of retailers to adopt not fight this new transparency.  The applications reviewed are some of the very best at putting the power in the hands of the consumer by offering real-time coupons, in-store product reviews, competitive pricing, alternative store locations and more.

With 41% of iPhone users apparently actively checking prices, it’s obvious some retail CMO’s see these competitive applications as a threat. However the majority of big name retailers have already adopted and created their own integrated shopping applications to compete with these consumer advocate apps that threaten their pricing. North Face, Best Buy, Home Depot, Target, Nike, Gap, Wal-Mart, and Banana Republic all have integrated shopping applications, while Crate & Barrel, and Disney stores have their applications in development.

The challenge however is not to just develop a mobile shopping application, it is to create an incredible user interface that makes it simple and fun for your customers to shop with you. It is to create a fundamentally different way for customers to interact with your store.

For example, the NikeID store let’s you pick shoes out based on colors from photos in your phone. I found some great Nike Dunks just by showing a photo of a Fuji apple. Wal-Mart’s application lets you snap a picture of your living room wall to figure out an appropriate television size.

As more retailers enter the mobile ecosystem, it becomes clear that they must create a mobile shopping experience that goes above and beyond just acting as a portal if they want to keep their customers shopping with them over strictly shopping by price. With a combination of loyalty points, cool customization, interactive features, and convenience it’s still possible for the big name retailers (and brands) to win out.

Learn more about mobile application development at our resource center.

The other day my colleague Drew Myler posted about HTML5 and its ability to serve as a basis for mobile web applications offering a very similar user experience as native applications for the iPhone and other smartphones.   A lot has been written about mobile web browser-dependent applications offering a less ideal basis for engaging experiences due to the latency around data transfer involved in loading pages that a user links to in the browser.

Moreover, should the network connection be lost, a user must re-start the browser session, which does not occur with native mobile applications.  HTML5 apparently has the ability to stage data in memory on a device such that the user cannot perceive the data transfer usually associate with web browsing.

Drew points out HTML5’s ability as well to access device functions that historically were the domain of native apps, such as the built in GPS capabilities of the iPhone.  What this all means for marketers, agencies and others considering mobile application development projects is that the mobile web offers essentially a “write once, run anywhere” experience that alleviates the need to create unique applications for different smartphone platforms.   At least for those devices with browsers supporting HTML5.  Of course, were it that simple, demand for iPhone applications would not be so strong, which Drew correctly identifies as a strength Apple brings to the table via the App Store.

This article I came across yesterday on InternetRetailer.com titled, “Apps versus sites,” doesn’t discuss recent developments aimed at closing the gap between the mobile web and applications, which illustrates how important maintaining touch with the technical community is so critical to success in the mobile channel.  Things are happening so fast, that once defacto stances around what works/what doesn’t are constantly being revised.  For example:

“M-commerce sites and apps differ in four fundamental ways: reach and discoverability, which favor sites, and experience and performance, which favor apps.”

In reality, apps are probably as “discoverable” as mobile websites given the visibility of the App Store.  Their point is that just like SMS text messaging, smartphones of all varieties have web browsers.  But with “experience” and “performance” becoming an immaterial aspect of the debate, it will be interesting to see what decisions marketers make with respect to mobile web and application projects.

Here’s a suggestion:  If torn between smartphone application development platforms due to the demographics and reach associated with each, why not create a rich web-based application that is universally accessible.  Then, in order to leverage the marketing-might of the App Store and other smartphone application stores, simply create small applications that offer a gateway to the mobile web app.  In this way, you lower your costs, ensure access to the widest audience possible while tapping into the demographic niches associated with different smartphones.  Don’t be surprised to see more than a few retailers and other industries begin taking this approach as HTML5 becomes more mainstream.