We think that mobile communications – apps, email and social chatter on the go – offer some great opportunities to business…..but!
You can’t turn around at the moment without bumping into yet another excitable article discussing how ‘apps’ are the future, everyone needs them, and how they are revolutionising, well, everything. All these articles cite the huge number of apps, the massive number of downloads and the amounts of money being poured into them. The Angry Birds case study never hurts either – who can resist the idea of becoming a multimillionaire simply by making a simple, repetitive game? (Albeit a really great game!)
But we’re yet to read a great deal about the underlying business fundamentals which mean these are – or aren’t – a great idea. In fact it’s all sounding suspiciously similar to the early days of the tech boom and bust of the 90s…boundless enthusiasm married to an ‘everyone’s doing it, we should too’ mentality.
It’s never too difficult to come up with reasons why producing something will be beneficial to your business……“If they play my branded game, they’ll feel positively about my company and buy some products” – really? Does providing a child who has asthma with a loosely-related game app actually provide benefit beyond the feelgood factor? We certainly think it’s hard to quantify at best.
It’s worth knowing that 97% of downloaded apps are never accessed again after the first time….quantity definitely does not equal quality in this market currently.
So what would our golden rules for apps be at the moment?
1. Your app must support your core business. Sounds really obvious, but its amazing how many requests we are getting for things which are great fun to develop, but will ultimately not impact the bottom line.
2. Be specific, be targeted. ‘Everyone’ is NOT going to download your app…or even see it. How you launch an app is already critical to get any sort of uptake – and if you haven’t got a clear target audience in mind you’re likely to get lost in the noise
3. Be realistic. Your cable channel programme schedule which is only shown in the UK is NOT going to get as many downloads as Plants vs Zombies. You might be fascinated with cardiothoracic surgery – and so might your target customers – but just ‘sticking it out there’ isn’t then going to magically mean they all find it.
4. Be critical. We’ve discarded ten times the number of ideas as we’ve developed. Its easy to get attached to an idea which doesn’t really stack up, and it’s a very common mistake. If your first idea isn’t quite right, rethink it until it is.
There really are huge possibilities offered by proper mobile connectivity – particularly in the fields of medicine and direct sales – which can benefit both your company and your customers or clients….just make sure you plan first and implement second.
So if you’re thinking of apps….really consider your objectives first and the App second. ‘Just do one’ is never the answer.