Brands Fail To Attract More Than The Best Customers To Mobile Apps

Most mobile applications are not compelling enough for consumers to download and use them on their phones, but the act of searching for something inside the app reveals so much about the person's intent in that moment. That mobile moment is fast becoming the real-time metric for serving content and targeting advertisements, according to a study released Monday, but how can brands do more to develop a mobile strategy when the biggest challenge points to only the best customers use a brand's mobile application?

Consumers using mobile applications reveal a phenomenal amount of information about themselves, along with their needs and motivations through the use of search and features such as calendars, email, browsers, and cloud services, according to a Forrester Research study titled "Your Customers Will Not Download Your App." Mobile applications magnify the view, but browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer and operating systems such as Windows and iOS see cross-channel behavior even more clearly.

Since apps are for a brand's best customers, how should marketers use the app to make new customers their best customers? "Get to know them for a while first-- if they download the app--build trust, and delivery relevant, contextual services without being creepy," Ask told Search Marketing Daily. "Don't pitch them products--at least don't lead with that. Start with being helpful and offer utility or education, even entertainment."

When combined with search, there is no more powerful set of contextual information that offers clues into the motivations and needs of consumers as map and navigation apps, according to Forrester Research Analyst Julie Ask. The map app Waze and Google Earth represent 6% of smartphone minutes. Email makes up about 4% of mobile minutes, she estimates in the report.
Ask estimates about 85% of time on smartphones is spent in mobile apps, per the report. She suggests that mobile moments are the next battleground to win, serve, and retain customers. On average, only five apps that consumers download from the app store make up the 84% of time spent on non-native apps. Most of those apps are social media, 14%, or messaging. The combination of communication and social networks claims non-media mobile moments, and 21% of all smartphone minutes.

Social networks claim 14% of all mobile business, about 25 minutes per day. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that a handful of companies, such as Facebook, dominate U.S. mobile minutes spent in applications owned by major technology companies.

Facebook at 13% takes the majority, followed by Google at 12%, Enterprise at 8, and Native at 4%. Amazon and Apple each own 3% of the time. Yahoo owns 2%. Microsoft and eBay each own 1%. The numbers are based on 1,721 U.S. online smartphone owners age 18 and older. 

 

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