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App of the Week - Kingswood Golf & Country Club
Aug 19th
App of the Week - Kingswood Golf & Country Club
This week’s App of the Week proves that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks!
As the Kingswood Gold and Country Club in Surrey, England nears its one-hundredth birthday, the KGCC app has arrived just in time to make membership more convenient and enjoyable than ever before.
Designed in 1920 by five-time Open Champion, James Braid, the KGCC features almost 7,000 yards of perfectly kept greens. Not only is golfing there a delight, but the facility is also available for weddings, business conferences, and other events. Now, the KGCC app lets members experience everything in a whole new way.
Golf Functions
For golfers, the app has a number of helpful functions. If you’re planning a golf outing, the KGCC app will show you the upcoming five-day weather forecast so that you can pick the most promising day. Then, you can book a tee time right from the app! Once out on the course, you can also consult the app to get information about each hole, including play tips.
Event Functions
Events are also incorporated into the app. Members can view the upcoming event calendar and get detailed information about each event. After review of materials, members are also able to RSVP, communicate with other attendees, and even submit event photos!
Other Functions
The KGCC app also has a number of other useful functions:
• Turn-by-turn GPS directions to the club
• Rewards and discounts for loyal members
• Photo gallery with user submissions
• Phone directory
• Member feedback and reviews
• Social media connections
The Kingswood Gold and Country Club has now officially joined the modern mobile era. Fans and members can still expect to find, however, the same old charm that has made the KGCC a success for nearly a hundred years.
To learn more about the KGCC app, click here.
BiznessApps Tip: Harness the Power of Push
Aug 16th
If you haven’t been sending out push notifications from your business’s app, you’re missing out on one of the most effective ways to get users actually using your app.
A push notification is a message that a user gets on the home screen of their mobile device. Push notifications emanate from apps, and can be turned on or off at a user’s request. They sound simple and boring, but get this: it has been reported that push notifications can lead to:
• A 540% increase in daily app opens,
• A 30% increase in social sharing, and
• A 20% percent increase in mobile orders.
In addition, the response rate is three times faster than email! Thus, if your app is going completely ignored on user’s devices, push notifications can totally revive it and help you make the most of your app investment.
“But wait,” you say, “Aren’t ‘pop-ups’ annoying to users?”
Good question!
Firstly, these aren’t shady pop-ups (the classic annoying pop-up occurs when you click one thing and then are treated to a window containing something completely different). Instead, these are text-only messages that arise only if a user already has your app. Secondly, as the stats above show, they’re quite effective, but you have to deploy them in the right way.
How do you do that? Glad you asked. Here are the keys to doing push right:
1. Give the user control
This is more important than anything else.
Your app must give the user the power to opt out of your notifications. Users that don’t want notifications will delete your app the second they get one – they’ll feel harassed by extra messages. So, you want to ask them right up front if they want notifications. And if they don’t, you want them to opt out and be left alone. If they use your app, great! If not, no amount of extra messages would improve the situation, we promise.
The remaining users that opt in to push notifications are now your core app audience. But they, too, have their limits. For them, you have to…
2. Make it relevant, then divide and conquer
Not every user is the same. Give each user a few options for the types of notifications they want to receive. Some want to hear about events, others about discounts, and others just want general news. If you can, let each user select the notifications that are most relevant to their interests. That way, you know that when you send out notifications, you’re sending out information that people actually want.
3. Be timely
If you’re using a sophisticated push system (like ours), you can schedule notifications to go out when they’d be most effective.
For example, you might handle social media planning each Monday, then dive into operations. But a Monday morning push isn’t right for every type of offer. If you’re a bar, for example, you want your “Fireball Friday” event push to go out sometime on Friday, probably. If, on the other hand, you’re a hiking expedition company, you might want to send a series of push messages over a period of weeks to members that have signed up for a big trip to remind them of various things.
The point is, if you schedule your push for the right time, and you’ll max out effectiveness and relevance to users.
How to Use Social Media to Generate Mobile App Reseller Leads
Aug 15th
You’ve no doubt heard that social media offers massive opportunities to market your business. But when it comes time to actually generating leads from social media, you may be at a loss. If this is you, we have a few methods you can use to generate buzz around your app business.
But first, let’s provide a few facts for the doubters who think that social media is a pointless pursuit for app resellers:
• It’s popular. More than a quarter of time spent online is spent on social media sites.
• It’s effective. Social media conversion rates are 13% higher than the average.
• It’s superior. Social media marketing creates nearly double the leads of trade show, telemarketing, direct mail, or PPC channels.
• It’s proven. More than half of marketers have found a customer via Facebook.
(Data compiled by Wishpond.)
Ok, so social media can definitely be used to create leads. But how do you do it? Here are some tried and true tactics:
Run a contest
“Tell us your craziest customer nightmare story and win a branded app for your business!”
Sounds like fun, right? It’s that easy. Broadcast your contest through social media platforms, and you’ll be surprised at the activity you generate. You might be worried about the level of interest you’ll get, but with a bit of promotional effort, you can make it happen.
Webinars
“5 Reasons Why Every Small Business Needs a Mobile App”
As a mobile app reseller, you can rattle off at least five reasons (if not more) why every business needs a mobile app, right? Then why not hold a webinar and explain them to the business community? Many businesses may be wondering what all the buzz is about, and they might not want to read about it on their own. A webinar is the perfect opportunity to give a detailed explanation of the benefits of having a mobile app. Use your favorite video conferencing or streaming platform, and spread the word about “going mobile.”
Polls
Social media lends it self to short formats best of all, so embrace it with a simple Facebook poll.
It can be mobile related, or just something like, “What’s the hardest part of running a small business?” The point is to try to activate people’s opinionated-ness, if possible. Afterward, you can also publish a blog post on the results and some of the comments you have received. All of this serves to promote your business, teach you about your community, and if you’re lucky, generate a few leads.
Chats
This is a bit like a webinar, but without the video. Hosting a Q&A about mobile strategies is a simple way to reach out to the business community via social media. Solicit questions and listen to your prospects. Even if you don’t get any leads, you’ll still learn plenty about the folks you’re selling to.
You can’t lose!
Bizness CRM Tip: Build Your Sales Pipeline!
Aug 14th
There are two approaches to sales:
1) systematic, regular, and self-correcting
2) not
Many businesses can get by without ever evaluating their sales efforts and developing a formal ongoing sales program. These businesses, however, can get rusty when current business is sufficient, and they miss out on the opportunity to improve sales programs over long periods of time.
The result is a business that is somewhat unprepared for tough times (when sales hustle is needed), and a sales team that is underdeveloped. A better approach is to maintain an ongoing sales pipeline. The flow can be increased or decreased as needed, but the important thing is to keep a formal structure in place that allows the sales team to stay sharp and keep improving in good times and bad.
That way, when you really need them (e.g. when a big client goes away unexpectedly), they’ll be ready. To help get your business on the right track, here’s a sample sales pipeline that’s easy to understand and implement:
Step One: Gather Leads
This can be done in a variety of ways. Some people rely on ads or their website to bring leads to them. Others do research to find prospects, or purchase lists for cold calling. And others use a simple tool like Bizness CRM that can find all the small business leads in a given area.
However you meet prospects, this is the starting point of your sales pipeline. Once you’ve got the contact info of a party that is interested (or may be interested) in your product or service, your sales team can take action.
Some owners might be saying, “Stop right there. I have enough business now. Why should I still be on the hunt?” Even if you don’t want to grow, you might be surprised what kind of business is out there. Every business can rank their current customers in terms of profitability or other characteristics. By prospecting, you may find better replacements for your least-favored customers, and improve profitability without having to grow at all.
Step Two: Follow Up and Close
Once you’ve got contact information, it’s time to reach out to your prospects. Whether you do this via email, phone, or in person, it’s important to take notes and keep a detailed schedule. A program like Bizness CRM can help you seamlessly select a prospect, reach out, take notes, schedule meetings, and collaborate across team members (noticing a pattern, yet?) That way, the ball never gets dropped, and everyone can keep tabs on evolving relationships.
Follow up regularly until you’ve got a response one way or the other. It’s important to keep active when pursuing a sale. Try not to irritate people too badly, though!
Step Three: Track and Analyze
This is where things get interesting. Your note taking and data gathering (you were using Bizness CRM to track everything, right?) can now reveal ways to improve. If your CRM tool has a report-generation function, you can easily understand your sales efforts at-a-glance. Now you know which types of customers to focus on, when to reach out to them, which sales angles were the most persuasive, what the most common objections were, and more.
Armed with powerful info like that, it’s easy to see what you need to change.
Step Four: Get Better
Now you can design some policies to help your sales team get better on the next go-round. Be sure to track key metrics like conversion rate so that you can compare from month-to-month and seller-to-seller. In time, you’ll see black-and-white improvements that will directly translate to more revenue and profit for your business.
Sound like a lot of work? It isn’t, if you have the right tool. You know where we’re going with this… we have just the right tool to help you implement a simple, cost-effective pipeline, and you can try it out for free to see just how powerful it is.
Google Play Surpasses the iTunes App Store
Aug 13th
Q2, 2013. Mark it on your calendars.
Why?
This past quarter was the quarter that Google Play’s total downloads finally surpassed the App Store, according to data gathered by App Annie. Don’t get too excited, though. Despite having 10% fewer downloads, the App Store still made more than double the revenue of Google Play.
(We know which one we’d rather have!)
Anyhow, let’s break down some of the background facts:
• Downloads by country. As you might already know, activity is not limited to users in the U.S. Countries like South Korea, Russia, Brazil, and India also top the list for total Google Play downloads.
• Revenue by country. The list changes a bit when we look at revenue, however. Google Play’s most profitable country is actually Japan, followed by South Korea, the U.S., Germany, and then the U.K.
• App types. As always, users just want to have fun. Games lead the way, and account for approximately 80% of Google Play’s revenue. The second spot goes to communication apps (e.g. LINE, WeChat, WhatsApp Messenger, and Viber), and after that come tools, entertainment, and then social apps.
• Devices. Growth in countries like Brazil is thought to be linked to new inexpensive devices offered by Samsung, Nokia, HTC, and LG.
What does this mean for businesses that offer their own apps and other mobile players? It signals the continuance of a shift from a totally Apple-dominated world to one in which Android has equal or more importance.
Multi-platform strategy
Because the mobile world is growing and changing rapidly, the best approach for small businesses that want to stay ahead of the game is to tackle multiple platforms at once. This means having an iPhone app, and Android app, and also a mobile website.
Each outlet has its benefits and drawbacks (for more on that, check out our infographic), but to maximize your mobile presence and to get your business in front of as many users as possible, you need to hit them all.
What do I need to know about the differences between Android and iOS?
Some info gathered by Bluebridge Digital is helpful, here. Android users are more likely to be men, and income skews lower and more rural. Users are more likely to be pessimists, savers, introverts, and followers. On the plus side, though, they’re a bit more likely to listen to a cold call pitch. They’re also willing to use something that is ugly, but more functional.
If you wanted to generalize, you might want to tailor your Android offering to a more practical, frugal mindset. To that end, delivering value through things like coupons and loyalty programs is probably a good strategy. But that’s only the beginning. We have a number of thoughts on the matter and are ready to help your business make the most of any mobile platform.
Oh, and as a Bizness Apps reseller we offer unlimited Android apps & mobile websites at no additional cost. Click here to learn more.
App Maker Tip: 4 Ways to Get More Sales Out of Your Website
Aug 12th
A website can connect you to billions of people, all around the world. So, why aren’t you rich yet?
Well, a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that most of those billions of people don’t need a mobile app. But for the ones who do, you want to be ready to get things started properly. To do that, you need a site designed to maximize sales. Here are six tips that will turn your site into a lean, mean selling machine.
1. Floating ads
A lot of people hated popups, but guess what a lot of people don’t hate?
Floating ads!
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they don’t go outside the browser window. We don’t know. But for whatever reason, floating ads are effective and can increase conversions on your site.
Another similar strategy is to use a chat window that opens up on your homepage. This lets you start a dialogue with prospects and provide personal attention right away. If you want to see an example of this in action, just head to our homepage and wait a few moments. Someone will be right with you.
2. Use testimonials
Honest, positive testimonials can have a powerful effect on the credibility of your website (in one case, producing a conversion rate increase of over 30%). If you display brief stories from actual customers regarding how your product helped their business, you can make it clear why people should do business with you.
Place a few testimonials below the fold on your website, and use actual full names of customers, along with business names and links to the app in question. With that info available, prospects won’t have to wonder what kind of product you create and why they should work with you. It will all be there for them in black and white.
3. Generate urgency
There are a lot of ways to communicate to people why they need an app or mobile website today. You can explain how competitors are gaining advantages over those who don’t have a mobile strategy at every minute. You can offer the promise of increasing sales through mobile apps, which is something most businesses would jump at. Or, you could make an offer that is time-limited.
However you do it, don’t make it seem like a mobile app is something that can wait until tomorrow. Things are changing quickly in the mobile space, and there’s really no time to waste.
4. Break it up and keep it simple
Don’t overload website visitors by trying to tell them everything about your business. Just keep it simple. Even something like this can be enough for a headline and call to action:
“Did you know a mobile app can increase your sales by __%? Click here to get started!”
If you do choose to include a lot of info, break things up into different sections with different layouts and visuals. The goal is to inform the reader without asking for too much of their time or boring them. Tell them what you do, tell them why it’s great, then ask them to take action.
Improving your website performance is that simple.
4 Ways to Get More App Sales Out of Your Website
Aug 8th
A website can connect you to billions of people, all around the world. So, why aren’t you rich yet?
Well, a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that most of those billions of people don’t need a mobile app. But for the ones who do, you want to be ready to get things started properly. To do that, you need a site designed to maximize sales. Here are six tips that will turn your site into a lean, mean selling machine.
1. Floating ads
A lot of people hated popups, but guess what a lot of people don’t hate?
Floating ads!
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they don’t go outside the browser window. We don’t know. But for whatever reason, floating ads are effective and can increase conversions on your site.
Another similar strategy is to use a chat window that opens up on your homepage. This lets you start a dialogue with prospects and provide personal attention right away. If you want to see an example of this in action, just head to our homepage and wait a few moments. Someone will be right with you.
2. Use testimonials
Honest, positive testimonials can have a powerful effect on the credibility of your website (in one case, producing a conversion rate increase of over 30%). If you display brief stories from actual customers regarding how your product helped their business, you can make it clear why people should do business with you.
Place a few testimonials below the fold on your website, and use actual full names of customers, along with business names and links to the app in question. With that info available, prospects won’t have to wonder what kind of product you create and why they should work with you. It will all be there for them in black and white.
3. Generate urgency
There are a lot of ways to communicate to people why they need an app or mobile website today. You can explain how competitors are gaining advantages over those who don’t have a mobile strategy at every minute. You can offer the promise of increasing sales through mobile apps, which is something most businesses would jump at. Or, you could make an offer that is time-limited.
However you do it, don’t make it seem like a mobile app is something that can wait until tomorrow. Things are changing quickly in the mobile space, and there’s really no time to waste.
4. Break it up and keep it simple
Don’t overload website visitors by trying to tell them everything about your business. Just keep it simple. Even something like this can be enough for a headline and call to action:
“Did you know a mobile app can increase your sales by __%? Click here to get started!”
If you do choose to include a lot of info, break things up into different sections with different layouts and visuals. The goal is to inform the reader without asking for too much of their time or boring them. Tell them what you do, tell them why it’s great, then ask them to take action.
Improving your website performance is that simple.
Also make sure to check out Bizness Web to create a free website for your mobile app company!
5 Ways to Boost Mobile App Sales
Aug 7th
Increasing sales as one of our white label mobile app resellers is a never-ending journey. But all too often, we can fall into habitual routines and forget to evaluate the effectiveness of our sales tactics. The usual result is that opportunities to generate revenue are not maximized.
The five strategies below will help you bring a fresh perspective to your mobile app sales efforts, and identify areas for improvement. Implement these tips, and your sales will be trending upward in no time.
1. Analyze your leads
Are you tracking where your leads come from, how well they convert, and what actions each prospect ultimately takes? If not, you’re missing out on critical information that can be extremely useful!
When you know where your leads come from (e.g. phone, SEO, banner ads) and how leads from each channel perform, you’ll know 1) which channels to work harder at, and 2) which are the most profitable.
Knowledge is power, and when it comes to sales, the more you track, the more knowledge you have.
2. Polish your presence
Your website is essentially your storefront, so it pays to put your best foot forward. Make sure the design is clean and simple, the text is error-free, and the navigation is intuitive.
No matter where your leads come from, it’s likely that they’ll take a look at your website at some point. If your site looks good – it will inspire confidence and aid your sales efforts. If not, you might lose a customer that was ready to make a purchase simply because your virtual appearance created doubt about your capabilities.
3. Talk to customers
There really is no substitute for this one. In conversations with customers (and prospective customers) you’ll learn what matters to them most, and you’ll have a chance to get honest feedback about your business. It’s easy to become convinced of incorrect ideas when the only voice you hear is your own. That’s why it’s essential to listen carefully to customers.
You might think that in an online world, actual conversations are a thing of the past, but that couldn’t be more wrong! Social media has created a perfect platform for reading up on what customers want. It also doesn’t hurt to simply reach out via phone every now and then and see how things are going with a mobile app you’ve produced for a customer.
Not only will you get good information – you might also find out that the customer needs additional apps or websites!
Talking to customers is a good thing.
4. Special promotions
Everyone loves a sale, and mobile app customers are no different. If you offer bundle deals (e.g. discounts for ordering apps on multiple platforms), limited time coupons, or trial offers, you can earn extra business.
Sometimes, you have to give a little to get a little, you know?
5. Focus on your customers’ customers
When you’re a B2B company, you have to look beyond your customers to see who it is your customers are trying to serve. That is, if you want to sell a restaurant on the idea of an app, you need to understand restaurant patrons. Or, if you want to sell a real estate agency on a mobile website, you have to understand a bit about buyers and sellers of real estate.
The point is, if you can demonstrate why your services will help customers serve their own customers, you’ll have a better shot at succeeding as a mobile app seller.
What? You’re not a mobile app seller? Click here to find out how to become one.
