Here are four questions to ask yourself when considering mobile application development:
1. Should I app?
Identify the unique value a mobile application would provide for your audience. Our relationship with our audience has clearly changed. As marketers, we no longer create one carefully constructed message using mass media channels to broadcast out to a large passive audience. We now send many targeted messages through specific channels to an engaged and educated audience. They know what they want and how to find it. When today's consumers come to the app store looking for your brand, make sure they're finding and experiencing something that supports and enhances your brand promise and takes into account the unique opportunities inherent in a mobile experience.
An app should be viewed as one tool in your marketing toolbox, not a must-have and certainly not just because it's in vogue. Take a step back and ask yourself if your app strategy fits within your comprehensive digital and mobile strategies and aligns with your business goals. If it doesn't make sense, don't do it.
Consider your audience carefully. Do they want a mobile app? Do they need a mobile app? Will a mobile app increase opportunities for meaningful brand interactions? Will a mobile app build on your brand in a significant way?
The life of a successful mobile app can certainly be measured by the number of initial downloads, but even more so by the subsequent updates installed. If a user is updating an app as updates become available, presumably the app has remained relevant and useful. The app is providing ongoing value to the user and has become an integral part of that person's mobile life.
Facebook's mobile application is an excellent example of the right way to build an app. Facebook's apps are some of the most downloaded and heavily adopted mobile applications across iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry users. Facebook's app is so valuable that many Facebook users no longer log into facebook.com on computers anymore, but exclusively use the mobile app to access content and interact with friends. In fact, at any given moment, more than 100 million folks are accessing Facebook via a mobile app. Consider Facebook's total number of active users: 500 million. The usage and widespread adoption across platforms indicates that Facebook successfully defined user experience and functionality needs, delivered well, and is providing value to their audience.
MLB-At-Bat is another app that clearly and accurately defined an audience and their needs, and addressed those needs perfectly. Price point and sales figures alone indicate that the audience is seeing value in the app's in-game experience, pitch-by-pitch batter's view, almost-instant video replay, and live streaming. Users can even tweet real-time during the game to talk trash with fellow fans and rivals from the opposing team. MLB-At-Bat created a perfect environment for fans to interact in meaningful ways, thus leading to greater brand affinity.
Nike has successfully integrated an innovative product and full-scale website community with its Nike+ mobile app. This app reads data from a chip in a user's shoe while, and after, they run, tracking their distance and time. The app then ties into a mobile device/smartphone and keeps track of a runner's history. Reaching certain milestones initiates motivational messages, changes musical choices and tempos, and delivers messages from professional athletes like Lance Armstrong. The app ties into a larger running community, where users can upload times, buy gear, compare running performance with friends, set up challenges or virtual races, and map out running routes.
However, for every valuable app there are several apps that either fail to deliver on the brand promise, don't make sense for their user, or are too redundant in the mobile app market to be effective.
E*Trade launched its app too early with limited features and ultimately failed to provide useful information in a meaningful way. What information its app does offer can be found for free in other places and is presented in a more usable format and better UI elsewhere.
The popular online money management web service, Mint.com, has yet to realize its full potential as a mobile application. The opportunity for a mobile app that allows users to access their financial information, manage accounts, and create budgets is definitely there, but the app's current form doesn't deliver maximum value. The functionality and features offered are so limited that it doesn't exist as a useful extension of, or meaningful counterpart to, the website.
This is an example -- one of many -- of an app that could have had great potential, but probably got out there too early with an inferior product. With such a choice, you risk customer loyalty, and you might not get a second chance. With often only a fraction of the development timelines of that of a website or larger digital marketing initiative, some marketers jump the gun and rush to launch. Consumers are being spoiled by the well-constructed, valuable apps, and likely won't be forgiving of a mobile letdown, especially if there is another mobile app option available to save the day. Plan carefully and launch only when you're ready to do so.
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