Over the weekend, Apple announced that it had reached the 25-billion download mark through its app store, which opened in 2008. Further, the company counted 550,000 apps and has reportedly paid developers more than $4 billion in royalties.
Impressive stats. However, what is missing is data on the return on investment for brand managers, some of whom took the plunge in the very early days in part because of a misguided belief that the mere creation of an app would be newsworthy.
“Companies were making decisions to develop an app and rushing to launch something just so they could point to it in the app store,” Joy Liuzzo, InsightExpress vice president and director, says in my soon-to-be-released book, Mobilized Marketing: Driving Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile Devices http://jeffhasen.com/pages/mobilized-marketing-book.
“The lack of strategy is shocking in hindsight—and even during the time—but it spoke to the still naïve understanding of mobile by most companies. They thought of it as an isolated channel, something fun and fluffy, and that consumers would be willing to engage with anything they put in front of them. I think the realization that the channel and consumer were more sophisticated than they realized was a hard wake-up call for brands and agencies. However, those lessons were necessary to force agencies and brands down a more integrated strategy path, one that included proper planning and multiple mobile channel executions and media.”
Among the lessons learned was the need to drive attention to an app. Many now do so through mobile advertising.
Certainly a number of brands have successfully employed apps. Many winning applications serve utilitarian functions, providing such content as recipes, nutritional information and flight status. Others, such as an app employed by Starbucks, expedite payment at the point of sale.
Savvy marketers are giving consumers a choice by providing multiple ways to engage on a wireless device. That strategy is wise because it is more inclusive than a program that banks on one mobile product being available on an individual handset, then found and used by a brand’s customers and prospects.
What are consumers finding most interesting when it comes to apps?
Draw Something Free (social drawing and guessing game), The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Camera Awesome (that replaces the iPhone’s camera) were the top moving free apps on Saturday. Facebook and Twitter apps are always customer favorites, as is Angry Birds, the top selling iPhone and iPad app in 2011.
The top paid Android apps as of Saturday were Draw Something, Where’s My Water (game to test skills with a cranky alligator) and Beautiful Widgets (to customize such things as time and weather).
Jeff, this is an important question that definitely needs to be answered in the coming years. As you mentioned, early on I saw many brands building apps, just to have apps, without giving thoughts to goals. The integrated strategy path is certainly important for a brand. A question you don't bring up explicitly here, but that I think you touch on is this: When you're building your app, are you trying to build an experience that a consumer could have on a daily, if not hourly basis?
The key to understanding mobile is that from a consumer's standpoint it's the most personal piece of technology that we've ever had. If you're to establish a presence in this very personal space, it's important to think about how to be more personal. That encompasses everything from ensuring that you're properly using GPS to personalize when relevant to engaging on a 1:1 basis, directly in the app (something we see happening often for our developers). The brands who are really using apps as part of their strategy to engage more deeply and personally are the ones I see doing the best job today.
Robi Ganguly
CEO, Apptentive (www.apptentive.com)