The #1 mobile app platform worldwide
Mobile Industry Concentration and Why It Matters For Small Businesses
Nov 25th
We recently came across an interesting post from Sameer Singh over at Tech Thoughts, and wanted to talk a bit about what it means for small businesses and their apps. One of the main points he raised was that the mobile industry is very rapidly becoming more concentrated – much faster, in fact, than the PC industry did many years ago. The implications are worth understanding if your small business has an app (or you’re thinking about publishing one).
What is “industry concentration?”
Industry concentration may be an unfamiliar concept for some, but it’s not a complex metric. The basic idea is that you look at the largest companies in a given industry, and figure out how much of the market they own in the aggregate.
For example, if the four biggest companies in an industry own 90% of the market, the market is considered highly concentrated. If, on the other hand, they only account for 35% of the market, then there are a lot of significant players in the industry and it is not considered to be very concentrated.
How concentrated is the mobile industry?
According to the charts in Mr. Signh’s post, mobile platforms now account for over half of operating system usage, and mobile platform (e.g. Android, iOS) concentration is growing twice as fast as PC industry concentration grew in its first years. This means that smaller players are being squeezed out at an extraordinarily fast rate in favor of the leading platforms.
Let’s put in another way: iOS and Android account for over 90% of the smartphone market now.
There may be certain niches that are committed to the remaining platforms (e.g. Blackberry at 4%, Windows Phone at about 3%), but they are grossly eclipsed by the Big Two. This greatly simplifies things for small businesses that want to publish apps. Unless your target market has an unexpected preference for a niche operating system, you don’t need to worry about a number of platforms and devices. Instead, you only need to worry about three things:
1. An iOS version of your app
2. An Android version of your app
3. A mobile website
Deploy those three things, and you’ve essentially got all your bases covered. Don’t spend another moment worrying about what else is out there in terms of devices and platforms – the chances are, it isn’t at all cost effective to address them.
Okay, so now your problems have been narrowed down to three things. Where can you handle them all in the easiest possible way?
Software Progress Report 11-21-13
Nov 21st
Important Updates
NEW Publish System
We’ve completely revamped the publish pages when submitting your mobile apps.
These changes will reflect clearer guidelines to how long it will take your app to reach the app stores and also show clear pricing on our upgrade options for submissions which include the $50 expedited uploads and the $50 iTunes Updates.
In addition, if submissions are being delayed longer than usual due to high demand, we will list this in the expected time frame boxes for iTunes until upload times return to normal.
Basically, we’ve drastically improved the user experience when publishing your mobile apps!
NEW Reseller Onboarding Tool Bar
We have also enable a new “on boarding” toolbar that will help all of our resellers complete critical tasks in order to become successful resellers. Each step in the tool bar has information on how to complete and an option to mark completed once your are done. These steps include reading our set up guide, branding your client panel, setting up a front end website with your pricing & contact information, gathering sales leads to contact, and asking for DEMO apps from our team.
This will help ensure all resellers are on the right track and understand our program better!
Bizness Apps Web Platform
Oct 31, 2013 to Nov 21, 2013
Getting error message when importing contacts from mailing list tab to mailchimp (Started)
Menu tab- 2nd tier Section titles (Fixed)
IPhone 5 Images Viewport size (Fixed)
Add settings for each section under background Images (Completed)
IPhone 5 slider section (Fixed)
Music tab Error (Fixed)
Add Currency -> Georgian Lari (Completed)
Recurring Events — Added Hour/Minutes (Fixed)
Change Text in Flickr (Completed)
Add Currency -> South African Rand (Completed)
Analytics UI missing change month arrows (Completed)
Update the Campaign Monitor Logos in the mailing list tab (Completed)
Add a Please Wait / Loading — Push Note Dashboard (Completed)
Reseller Admin Design Updates on Bizness Apps only (Completed)
New Publish System (Completed)
New Reseller Onboarding Tool Bar (Completed)
Bizness Web
New Instant Website Feature
With Bizness Web, we’ve created a feature that allows you to gather content from step 5 inside Bizness Apps and pull it into a template to create a website for your app in literally seconds.
Read the full tutorial here.
Android
Oct 31, 2013 to Nov 21, 2013
Offline Content Caching (Completed)
Update Lithuanian Strings (Completed)
Update French Localizations (Completed)
Update Spanish Localizations (Completed)
HTML5 / Mobile Websites
Oct 31, 2013 to Nov 21, 2013
Known Issues:
Delivery Radius Issue (Started)
Add Custom global headers (Started)
Fixed Issues
Add Layouts (Completed)
HTML5 analytics not showing for this app (Fixed)
Merchandise tab — when the user tries to make an order in the “Join/Store” tab, the item disappears (Fixed)
Opening Times -> Web Widget - Food Ordering (Fixed)
Background image not showing up on HTML5 (Fixed)
Food Order is printing duplicate tickets for 1 order (Fixed)
Date for Orders Placed (Fixed)
Mobile Website is showing deleted events (Fixed)
Update Lithuanian Strings for Food Ordering (Fixed)
HTML5 Redirect Slider Images (Fixed)
Food Order email confirmation time (Fixed)
Section Sorting - Enable Drag and drop from Web platform (Fixed)
Tab shows different within the Mobile Website when the more button is not enabled (Fixed)
Additional Information
LIVE Code Push Schedules:
Bizness Apps Web Platform: LIVE code pushes will be Monday OR Thursday (this means we take it from our “sandbox” testing area, and place it live for all of our users — after it has been tested.)
Android: Live codes pushes are instant as soon as the issue is “Fixed” or “Completed”
**Preview App Updates will be Every Monday. (Weekly)
HTML5: Live codes pushes are instant as soon as the issue is “Fixed” or “Completed”
Smartphone Market Share Continues to Climb
Nov 20th
Mobile subscriptions will reach almost ten billion by 2019, according to projections in Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report. The majority of these subscriptions will be tied to smartphones (as opposed to tablets, for example), thanks to a projected tripling in smartphone subscriptions and tenfold increase in smartphone traffic.
Those are some pretty bold numbers, right? Well, you’ll be happy to hear that they didn’t come out of thin air. While smartphones are currently around 25-30% of the mobile market, in the last quarter, 55% of all devices sold were smartphones. Thus, the hard data is already there when it comes to the smartphone takeover.
It’s already happened.
All that remains is for aggregate numbers to begin reflecting the current buying activity in the mobile marketplace.
Why have smartphones become the device of choice?
The change may be due to a few key advances in technology. At this point, the performance of smartphone browsing, gaming, and video watching have brought the experience near enough to the traditional experience to make large numbers of users dedicate a growing portion of their computing time to their smartphones. Coupled with price drops and the availability of high speed unlimited data plans and extensive Wi-Fi coverage, a lot of the necessary pieces have fallen into place to make smartphones the industry leader.
Why is this important to small businesses?
Everything we do comes back to SMBs, and this data drives home our core message (as if it needed further driving home): the world has gone mobile, and businesses must keep up if they want to stay in touch with the market.
Simply having a website doesn’t cut it anymore – not when a majority of Internet visitors will be browsing your site on a smartphone. Sites absolutely have to be mobile-optimized, or when people arrive at your virtual doorstep, they’ll take one look at the place and then turn right back around.
This also shows how big an opportunity mobile apps are. Most of your target market will soon have a smartphone in hand (if they don’t already). Simply because of the numbers that are (and will be) present in the mobile user base, connecting via an app is one of the most cost effective ways available to increase sales (through mobile loyalty programs, push notifications of offers, direct sales and bookings, etc.), customer satisfaction (through mobile support tabs, quick-reference info, etc.), and engagement (through social media, contests, etc.).
Etc., etc., etc. Mobile has it all, these days. Shouldn’t you make the most of it?
How YOU Can Get in on the Exploding Mobile Industry
Nov 19th
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last ten years, you know that the mobile industry is fast-growing and is responsible not just for the creation of wildly successful companies, but entirely new niche industries.
As the early settlers of California during the Gold Rush days used to say, “There’s gold in them thar hills!”
Today, the “hills” are in mobile technology, and the “gold” is money to be made, but the same basic principle applies: this is an early time for a booming industry. Those who enter the mobile industry today have an opportunity to get in on something that will in the future become increasingly saturated and difficult to break into.
For today, however, the door is still open.
And we’re issuing open invitations to entrepreneurs through our white label app reseller program!
The product
Bizness Apps is the world’s most popular platform for small businesses to build their apps on. App creation is simple, the features are robust, and the apps function smoothly and look great. We think our product is awesome and judging by the market’s response, a lot of people agree.
The opportunity
There are over 20 million small businesses in the U.S. alone, but less than a half of 1% has published their own apps! With mobile device usage exploding, the opportunity here is incalculably large. Small businesses need apps, and if you can give them those apps, you might just have a fantastically successful company.
I want in!
No prob. That’s why we created our app reseller program. It allows you to run your own app selling business your own way, but to use our platform to provide apps to your customers.
Even though our program offers as much independence as you want, we still offer unprecedented support. Need a slick website for your business? You can make it for free in minutes with Bizness Web. Need leads to get you started? You can find them, contact them, and track progress for free with Bizness CRM.
You don’t have to grasp around in the dark. We give you everything you need to get started and hit the ground running.
Millions of small businesses are waiting for you to help them go mobile. If you’re up to it, we’ve got all the tools you need.
6 Sales Tips for Mobile App Resellers
Nov 18th
No matter what your approach to selling apps is, there are a few guidelines that are useful in all scenarios. Whether you view sales as a performance, as a conversation, as therapy, or as a problem-solving endeavor, these tips are things that you should never forget.
1. Practice makes perfect
Some sellers never take the time to try out their pitch and evaluate it outside of a sales call or meeting. Rehearse in front of a mirror, or record your pitch, then listen to it objectively or get some outside feedback. You’ll be surprised at what you find, and we can promise you there’s at least one thing in your pitch you’ll want to change.
2. Do your homework
It’s mandatory to know what your prospect’s company does. There’s nothing that sinks a sale faster than making a statement that shows that you have no clue about your prospect. You don’t have to do extensive research, but a quick visit to a website should always be your first step before dialing.
3. Be honest
Many customers are new to the idea of apps, but that isn’t a license to lie. And few of us are as clever as we think we are. If you try to obscure the truth, your prospect will probably see through it.
Just be honest, and earn business the right way.
4. “Buy in” to your product
How do you feel about apps? Do you believe in the value they can deliver? If not, you won’t be able to sell them effectively.
Read up on the many ways that apps can provide value to businesses, and learn what makes them so useful. Once you understand the real value of apps, your own passion for the product can carry a lot of conversations and convert prospects much more effectively.
5. Light a fire under the prospect
A little pressure is a good thing. When it comes to apps and mobile technology, the statistics show that more users are connecting via mobile devices than by desktops. This means that the world is moving to the mobile space, and that businesses that haven’t gone mobile are missing out on opportunities and falling behind forward-thinking competition.
Share these facts, and let prospects know that mobile tech is not something that can wait forever. When it comes to mobile, the best time to get started is yesterday, and the second-best time is today.
6. Be direct and clear; keep it simple
Mobile tech can be confusing for some small business decision-makers. Explain things clearly and directly. Don’t try to convince prospects that you’re a tech guru and that they simply need to trust you. Instead, describe the way mobile tech works and the benefits of it in a way that anyone can understand. After all, almost no one will become a buyer before they understand what they’re buying.
You’ve got a great product to sell. Now all you need is a great pitch.
Put them together, and you’ll have a great business!
Why Every Restaurant Needs A Mobile App and Website
Nov 15th
You might think the success of your restaurant is decided in the kitchen, but the Internet’s role in a restaurant’s success has grown steadily since it was first launched. Now, the vast majority of customers find restaurants after an Internet search.
And where are most Internet searches being conducted nowadays? The answer surprises many . . .
Mobile devices have become the most popular means of searching the Web! The mobile web is not the same thing as the “desktop web,” either. Simply having a website is no longer enough to ensure that the connection is made with online searchers – businesses, including restaurants, must now have mobile-optimized websites.
The process of creating a mobile-optimized website is not difficult, but the small effort that’s required is definitely essential in today’s modern restaurant industry.
Why is a mobile site essential?
Without mobile optimization, visitors that use mobile browsers will find a site hard to view, difficult to navigate, and ultimately, unpleasant. The result is that they will quickly hit the back button, and head to a competing site, where checking out the menu is easy. When searching for a restaurant, it’s easy to click into a restaurant’s site, reject it, and click on to the next one. And that’s just what users do.
Business is lost, and for a pretty silly reason, too.
The overlooked opportunity
Easy-to-view mobile sites are still a huge competitive advantage for the restaurants that adopt them because, to date, only 5% of restaurants have created mobile websites. Many are still reliant on traditional channels to bring them business. So, for those restaurants that are ready to move with the customers and meet them where they now are, the rewards will be significant. The others stand to lose market share gradually to those restaurants that are connecting with an increasingly mobile world.
What about apps?
Not appetizers, mobile applications!
Apps open up communications between your restaurant and your customers, making promotions, reservations, visits, and many other things easier. In fact, if you make your app with Bizness Apps, customers will be able to call your restaurant or get GPS directions with a single click, make reservations from their mobile devices, and receive messages (like coupons, or invitations to special events) that you can send at will.
An app is a big revenue booster, and a great way to get your fans more engaged and visiting more frequently.
“I’ll only do this stuff if it’s easy.”
Don’t worry, it is! Click here to learn more about Bizness Apps Today!
5 Tips for Sending Mobile Coupons and Offers
Nov 14th
Using Bizness Apps gives you the power to send push notifications and deliver mobile coupons, offers, and other messages to users. But this amazing power has to be used in the right way, or it will be ineffective, or even worse, irritate users.
The five tips below deal with the most important points to remember. Follow them, and your mobile offers will become a significant pipeline to bring you increased sales and revenue in short order.
Value
Mobile offers need to provide users with something of value, or they won’t be compelling and generate action. If your offer is for a 10% discount on an item that no one really wants, you won’t see much of a response. If, on the other hand, you offer something that people can’t resist, you’re going to have a much more successful campaign.
Of course, this is obvious to most people, but when designing an offer, it’s important to stop for a moment and think about whether people will really be interested in what you’re offering. If you’re merely doing something that’s convenient and free for you in the hopes that it will create a bit of buzz, it probably won’t work.
Urgency
Time limits are a great way to boost response rates for your offers. If a coupon is only good for the coming weekend, people will be much more likely to redeem it. If it’s open-ended, however, they’ll file it away on the theory that they can pull it up if and when they decide to use it.
Selecting the right deadline will depend on your product and the nature of your offer. But remember – it doesn’t have to be a strict timeframe. You can give your offer a sliding structure, where earlier redemptions get better terms. Or you can offer second-chance redemptions after the offer expires. The key is to motivate people to act.
Advertising
Don’t just push out an offer and leave it at that. Create signage for visitors to your physical location, post the offer (or a solicitation to download your app) to your social media profiles, leave up a banner on your website, include the offer in an email to your subscriber list, and more. Promote the offer so that it can succeed!
Timing
Experiment with days and times to find the sweet spot that maximizes redemptions. If you’re running a bar, for example, an offer sent out on a Friday afternoon will probably do better than a Monday morning offer. If you’re running a sub shop, an offer sent out an hour before lunch might be right for you. Analyze response rates at different times and days of the week, and find what works best for your business.
Frequency
Don’t irritate users by sending offers too often. Daily is probably way too much. Think about businesses you enjoy – how often do you want them blowing up your phone? Every few weeks, maybe? Track your offers and user base, and send offers at a frequency that doesn’t negatively impact redemption and subscription rates.
If you decide to just send offers rarely to avoid these issues, don’t forget to stay regular. If you disappear, your messages will come out of the blue and customers will be less likely to redeem them. A certain level of regular communication is necessary to keep things “hot.”
Click here to learn more about our powerful push notification system.
More Simple Tips for Landing a Mobile App Sales Appointment
Nov 13th
Recently, we blogged about the right way to approach cold calling when you’re trying to secure a mobile app sales appointment. Today, we want to offer some further tips to help resellers continue developing. Successful cold calling takes a lot of practice and thoughtful preparation. But if you put the right amount of energy into it, your next sale will only ever be a few calls away.
Preparation is key
It all starts with initial research. The more you do, the better off you are. Of course, it isn’t worth it to deeply research each person and company that you call, but it’s essential to have a basic idea of what the company does. Even better, browse the company website for a few minutes, and see if you can spot any business lines or other opportunities that might match up well with apps.
The more you know, the more fluid the conversation will be. It also can impress a prospect if you already have an understanding of what their business does. It shows that your business is detail oriented, and it also helps a bond begin to grow between your companies.
The bottom line is that a couple of minutes of research could have a meaningful impact on your conversion rate. Why spend that time calling and getting rejected when you could do your homework and break through the insta-rejection filter more often?
It’s worth it!
How to grab attention quickly
People are used to filtering out sales calls, so you need to catch your prospect a little off guard, and pique their interest. You can do this with a figure (“Our average customer sees a __% increase in sales after publishing an app” or “Over half of Internet activity is on mobile devices now, and businesses with traditional websites are starting to lose out”) or you can get creative.
Think of what would stop the business owner in their tracks. Maybe a competitor issued an app and has 2,000 local downloads? Maybe you went to their site on your mobile device and you got errors everywhere? You need to give them a reason to keep talking to you, and it can’t be about you.
It needs to be about them.
Focusing on core rewards
Apps and mobile websites can offer a lot of benefits, but it’s often most effective to focus on one or two. During your conversation with the decision-maker, try to learn what problems are occupying his or her mind the most. Then, find the benefits that speak to those needs. Don’t overwhelm the prospect with all the bells and whistles. If they’re worried about increasing sales, focus on how they can boost promotions with push notifications, or offer an online store through their app for direct ordering.
That way, you’re the solution to their biggest problem. And that puts you in a great position to earn a new customer.
Stay committed
“No” is not necessarily a final answer. Sometimes, you can call back an interested person who wasn’t ready to move forward, and things will be different. Don’t harass people. Just mark them for follow up in Bizness CRM (free to use for our resellers). If they say, “No” more than a few times, however, leave it alone.
We’re sure you’re having interesting experiences out there with cold calling – share them in the comment section below!
How to Cold Call Your Way to a Mobile App Sales Appointment
Nov 12th
A lot of people consider cold calling to be frightening, pointless, or both. But believe it or not, cold calling remains a cost effective way of generating revenue, even in the cutting edge mobile tech world.
For those that are scared to get started, it’s usually a matter of not knowing how to make cold calling work. If this is you, we’ve got a few tips that can make the cold calling process a lot easier. Follow these tips, and you’ll be able to find an increasing number of sales amid all of those depressing hang-ups.
How to open
One of the most effective ways to start is to ask people if they have a moment to chat. Small business owners are incredibly pressed for time, and you need to respect that. If they say they don’t have time to talk, ask what part of the day is usually quieter. Don’t do what most unsuccessful salespeople do and try to “bowl over” the prospect:
“Hi there my name is Jack Jackson I’m calling about APPS you wouldn’t believe how great they are you can do EVERYTHING they’re going to take your business into the future and generate a million dollars$$$ in sales right away can I put your purchase through on a major credit card right now?”
…
*click*
Desperation is a very unpleasant cologne. Don’t be so hungry for a sale that you make it all about you. Instead, the call is all about your prospect, and his or her needs.
“What? The goal isn’t to make a sale?”
Nope.
So, what’s the goal?
To learn about the prospect. You need to get them talking about their problems. You’re trying to see what their issues are so that you can figure out if your offering can help them. Thus, the goal is to ask a few questions that quickly get prospects talking about the things that matter to them the most. Then, you can find the fit between the benefits of your product and the problems that the prospect is having.
Use a flexible style
To figure out how to get a prospect to open up, you need to be very attentive and try to figure out your prospect’s preferred style. Some people are laid back, some are serious; some are rushed, and others want to take things slowly. Match your prospect’s preferred style, so that they’re comfortable continuing the conversation and become more receptive to the interaction.
Ask for the appointment
If you’ve had a brief chat and the prospect has some interest in hearing more, ask for an appointment. It’s that simple. Try to schedule it for a time of day and day of week that is fairly quiet, so that your prospect isn’t inconvenienced by the meeting, and might even look forward to a little break.
Confirming or canceling?
Don’t call to confirm – too often, it comes off as an invitation for a cancellation. Instead, leave a voicemail after the close of business, or send a confirmation message. If they want to put off the meeting, suggest a video call as a compromise.
Always improve
Hone your script based on what is effective in your experience – don’t just repeat the same thing forever. A continually evolving script is a continually improving script, and the results will show in your conversion rate.
Good luck out there!
Understanding App Marketing For Mobile App Resellers
Nov 7th
You can spend all the time you want configuring the perfect app, but if you don’t understand app marketing, your app is only going to be downloaded by your friends and family. And no offense to anyone’s friends or parents, but that’s not much of a user base.
So, in order to ensure that your app makes it to the widest possible audience, there are a few things to consider when it comes to app marketing. Apps are extremely hot, and downloads are increasing by the day, but existing apps are slowly becoming harder to displace. For that reason, a bit of app marketing is almost always necessary to help your app earn downloads.
Paid or Free?
This is the first choice you make when it comes to marketing your app, and it’s an easy one. Just go free. Paid apps only account for a very small percentage of downloads. The rest of us need to give our apps away and find ways to make them pay after the fact through in-app purchases or other means. For small businesses, this is no problem. A business’s app can generate value in so many ways that it actually becomes hard to list them all out (direct sales, increased revenue from promotions in push notifications, social referrals, etc.).
Don’t try to publish a paid app for your small business. Even if a person is a fan of yours, he or she will probably still skip it if it costs money. The idea that an app download should be free has taken a very powerful hold on the market, and at this point, it just doesn’t pay to fight it.
Browsing behavior
Next, you need to understand how users are going to find your app. Some will search the Web. Others will search in an app store. And still other users will browse categories in the app stores. Optimize for each audience.
You can check out our post on optimization here, but the highlights are:
1. Titles. Titles should be researched, in order to find what the most common keywords are in your niche. Then, the title you choose should be obvious and descriptive, as opposed to a made up word that’s unrelated to your app’s purpose. The result is that a lot more users will find your app.
2. Logos. It’s worth it to hire a professional designer to create a nice logo/icon for your app. The process should not involve MS Paint.
3. Keywords. Use them (only applies to the App Store).
4. Descriptions. Make them clear, brief, and engaging. Get users interested quickly, and don’t overload them with information.
Advertising your app
Social platforms are the most natural, cost-effective way to promote your business’s app. Hit them all. Connect with your followers and friends, and offer incentives (e.g. a contest) so that people are excited to download your app and you earn new connections. You can also advertise your app online through paid search engine links, emails, mobile ads, and more, but there are so many free promotional channels (YouTube, your own blog, etc.) that turning to these methods is by no means mandatory.
Demonstrating value
Marketing an app comes down to showing users what value they’ll get out of using your app. Make your core offering and use case very clear, and make sure that you’re honest with yourself about whether you would use your app, if you were a stranger. If you wouldn’t, you might need to re-tool until you can find the key feature that will make your app download-worthy.
If you nail the reason for downloading your app, promote it effectively, and optimize listings for the app stores and the Web, it’ll have a fighting chance to reach a reasonable audience and become a well-used app.
