It’s been an incredible couple of years for the eCommerce industry (due to the pandemic that unfortunately facilitated this boom) and, during this time, mobile apps have stood out as a powerful marketing tool and competitive differentiator.
A mobile app not only helps promote your brand, products, and services faster, but also teaches you about your customers and their habits, all while contributing to your marketing research.
A good mobile app strategy will help drive up your revenue. Read on to find out how.
Reasons to Have a Dedicated Mobile App
Before we get into some practical tips on how mobile apps can be used to increase sales, let’s look at how a bespoke app benefits business.
- Better accessibility = better audience reach. Smartphones are increasingly used for all kinds of shopping. A good mobile app supplies this demand to your existing and prospective customers.
- It enables faster conversions. Although the desktop version of your website might have its mobile-friendly counterpart, the mobile version still requires communication with the website’s host servers to fetch data. Smartphone applications speed up all associated processes (e.g. loading images, selecting and browsing items in the cart, and completing purchases) because they don’t need to retrieve data from servers or relay information through them.
- It is cost-effective. Apps are no longer the expensive enterprise they used to be, and with tools such as a free logo maker or other affordable graphic design options that can easily be found online, you can cut costs in several areas. One such area is marketing; you can boost your reach organically by incorporating an option to share to other apps. This allows happy users to spread the word about your products to their contacts.
- Better customer experience. Apps log data without taking up space like cookies do by retaining data on the devices themselves. You can provide more personalized experiences to your consumers by keeping track of their search behavior.
Include Additional Features to Incentivize Purchases
To draw in more clients, businesses should make smartphone apps more versatile rather than mere mobile-friendly versions of their websites. Depending on your industry, you may be able to integrate a variety of nifty features that will provide more value to your users and keep them coming back to the app.
For instance, providing additional features that have practical daily use not only incentivizes customers to download your eCommerce app, but also draws their attention more frequently to the app and your products.
Let’s say you run an online fitness apparel store and the main purpose of your app is to shop for sports apparel. In this scenario, customers are unlikely to reach for their phones daily to check on your app; however, including a step counter or location-based weather alert gives your customers daily, practical reasons to open the app and see new product offers.
Make Good Use of Push Notifications
Push notifications are a simple, yet highly effective type of mobile marketing that engages your users by pointing them to new and exciting product offers. Although they are quite conversion-friendly, you must use them carefully if you want to see a positive impact on sales.
A weekend sale is the perfect opportunity to schedule the rollout of push notifications. Companies often roll out one push notification as a reminder a few hours before the special event or sale begins, and a second one to alert users the event has started. However, you can also send notifications at random times throughout the day to inform customers of good deals or coupon codes.
Keep in mind that people become irritated with excessive push notifications. Test different notification frequencies to discover which one gets the best response from users. Only send out notifications when it makes sense to do so, and make sure you are aware of how users interact with your app.
Create a Personalized Shopping Experience
You can design more effective targeted campaigns, messaging, advertisements, and offers by understanding the actual customer experience. Many eCommerce business ideas are based on updating your marketing approach following what you discover about what works and what doesn’t. A bespoke mobile app can open up additional opportunities related to the in-app user experience.
Mobile apps make it much simpler to monitor customer behavior and adjust your business strategy accordingly by providing direct insight into when, how, and why users start an action on your app and never finish.
Let’s say a user added products to their shopping cart or wishlist, but never clicked the checkout button. This is a fantastic opportunity to trigger an email or push notification to remind them to complete their purchase.
Understanding why your customer abandoned the conversion will help you identify potential problems in your funnel, such as a bug or error within the app. You may also discover the customer decided that the item was too expensive, in which case you may bring them back by offering a discount.
Customer Loyalty Program and Rewards
A dedicated app with features like personalized product suggestions and messaging is a game changer in getting your customers to stick around on your site longer.is Your client retention rate will increase and your interactions with them will improve if you incorporate a loyalty program into your mobile app.
A loyalty, referral, or rewards program can also help you expand your reach and increase sales. The reward-based system appeals to many different kinds of buyers; you can offer perks like coupon codes or discounted initial purchases to new arrivals and reward points to existing users who share your products and app.
Customers are more likely to participate in a loyalty program that doesn’t demand a lot of their time and energy. The extensive amount of data stored within a mobile app allows you to customize user experiences and reduce irrelevant communication.
Conclusion
When built and used properly, a mobile app can open up many new avenues of profit for your eCommerce business. If you’re looking to increase your brand’s sales and still don’t have a mobile app, consider the tips and advice we’ve covered in this article and venture into the exciting world of audience engagement!
