Retailers and brands are putting too much importance on their return on investment and not enough on their Apps importance on the shoppers journey and overall brand experience. If you truly want a kick-ass mobile App check out these 5 ideas to put you above the competition.
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Reward Loyalty! Do you know who your most loyal customers are? And if so, how are you rewarding them for engaging through your App? Here are two ideas…Sears just rolled out a rewards program where in-store shoppers to find “Pets” similar to Pokémon Go. They have teamed up with “The Life of Pets” movie and made an in-store game where users are rewarded for finding and capturing “pets” while in the store.
Flip Shop Marketing has an App that allows retailers to put in product image designs of concept products. The idea is that if you have 1000’s of potential products like Shoes or dresses you can reward your customers from Swiping through and liking or passing on product designs. Brands can then offer a discount or cash reward for customers who swipe through 100, 200, 300… products. Not only are user rewarded but brands can use this data to determine what their existing customers actually want and which designs to invest in.
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Personalization! Make no mistake about it personalization is here to stay. Eventually everyone will have personalized education and a diet specific to their DNA structure. Imagine how much longer we will all live and intelligent we will be!
Having said all that… you likely do not have a diet or education brand. But regardless you need to know every action a user takes on your website and App. Every single product they looked at, add to their cart, bought or did not buy. Are you tracking this on an individual basis? Are you linking users from your website to your App via their email? You cannot have personalization without data. So first things first tighten up your data gathering. And if you have data start thinking of how you can leverage it in your App!
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Image Size and Quality! Gone are the days of small crappy images people. List views or even Pinterest style layouts are not taking advantage of the entire screen space. If there is an image on your site it should be the entire width and height of the device. Plus in every survey under the sun related to mobile, user want bigger images. Weather its news, products, event venues, people want a large visual image. Here is an entire article if you don’t believe me: Size Does Matter!
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No Top Navigation! That’s right you heard me… you do not need a banner across the top of your app with the App name and navigation. It’s a complete waste of space. Does Snap Chat have a top navigation bar? Nope, and you shouldn’t either. Users are expecting things to happen when they swipe in an App. For instance, Swiping down on Snap Chat revels the settings menu.
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Fast Purchasing! If you have an “Add to Cart” button on your App you suck! You are copying everyone else and using a method that was designed for desktop websites. This is mobile baby and if you use the term “Path to Purchase” you are setting the industry back. There is no “path”… the user should click “Buy Now” and be taken to a confirmation screen.
Make no mistake about it, the reason Uber is so successful is that you never have to pay when you get to your location. Every time you take an Uber it’s like a free ride (until you get an email or bank statement). And this is exactly how buying anything on mobile should be. If you have the users Credit Card make the sale now!