2. What is the best delivery platform?
While considering the unique needs of your audience, remember to also think about the device best suited for your brand's mobile experience. Broad-stroke decisions are easy to make based on overall market share within the smartphone lineup, but with the arrival of the iPad, we have a new tier of mobile experience to consider.
The iPad offers significantly increased real estate along with a new dimension in mobile browsing. While a user will often view mobile content on-the-go while walking to the bus or moving between meetings, the iPad -- and subsequent soon-to-be-released tablet devices -- offers a more coherent mobile browsing experience.
So, generally speaking, do you need an iPhone or an iPad app? Do you need both? One thing is certain: The two experiences should be custom designed, capitalizing on the unique feature sets and capabilities that each device offers. Many marketers have already made the mistake of thinking they can simply tweak their iPhone apps to make an iPad apps. This mindset equates to the misguided notion that having a website means you already have a mobile-optimized website.
You must consider each delivery system and design experiences to fit that product. Your audience will thank you for it, and your brand will reap the benefits.
3. How will I measure the effectiveness of my app?
You can't manage what you can't measure. As marketers in this day and age, we need to think about ROI with every advertising dollar we spend, and we cannot create a mobile app without a strategy for measuring an app's effectiveness.
Today's mobile devices have full browser functionality. Mobile sites support Javascript and cookies and can be tracked like any other site, giving us the ability to track site usage and visitor behavior. However, this tracking model requires a direct internet connection, which is not necessarily common for app users. To overcome this challenge, analytics features must be built into the app while it is still in development so that tracking features are inherent in the app and can then log data and send it to a server once an internet connection is established. Today's app analytics offering can track app usage, visitor behavior, opens, app features and actions, conversion paths, and device information.
Marketers should think about metrics first and then implement tools early to effectively leverage user data within their mobile applications. Protect your investment by learning from user behavior and feedback, and make changes as needed on an ongoing basis. While a frenzy can be chaotic, it also signifies activity -- and lots of it. Put the appropriate analytics in place early to harness that activity and use the generated data to your advantage.
0 comments:
Post a Comment