Mohamed Shaheen

Leveraging in-store QR code marketing for retail business

Digital media can be very powerful in cementing your customer’s loyalty and keeping your business in their minds. However, many of your customers may not be very active in adopting digital venues. How do you introduce those people into your digital funnel? We do have a few tips for you in leveraging in-store QR code marketing to benefit your retail business.

Why would you even need to move offline customers to an online world?

Knowledge, visibility, brand image, and customer loyalty. Looking into each of these:

Customer loyalty: Think of yourselves as customers: don’t you like free stuff or points you can spend on benefits? Loyalty programs are a great way to keep your regular customers with you or turn casual customers into regulars. While there are ways to run these with traditional media like coupons, it is just easier and way more effective through the digital one.
Information: We keep saying this, any marketing effort is only as effective as you know your target audience. Short of doing paper form surveys and one-on-one questionnaires, which tend to annoy people, digital media is the only place to gain this knowledge. Perhaps the most important benefit is that you can retarget these people with the right messages to get them shopping again!
Brand image: There are few things that can scream as loud as a good digital presence about being accessible and in tune with the times. People can use a page or an app to check whether something they need is in stock or not, they can take part in your loyalty programs, or just learn bits of cool information on your web page, social media profile, or mobile app. They will be more likely to choose you over a competitor who didn’t catch up with the digital world yet.
Visibility: A presence in the digital world makes that online users can find you without the need of you trying to find them instead. You can advertise on popular social media sites, search engines, videos, apps, etc. Moreover, people can find you in search engines and app stores. If you can get your happy customers to this world, they can easily share their experience with you with their network, essentially becoming free promoters for you!

So, you see the benefits are many. But how do you use in-store QR code marketing to get your offline retail customers online? Better yet, how can you use them to get more people in your store to buy your wares? Let us see one by one.

Do your customers like your wares and deals? Get them to share the love!

Happy customers are among the best marketing you can ask for. A happy customer is a brand ambassador, doing your retail marketing free for you! They share their experience with friends and family to get your retail business more and more customers. While the word of mouth has a special power of its own, the digital word of mouth has the ability to propagate very wide, very fast. And you can make it very easy to share their experience in the digital world.

Put a QR code to scan under your select products, and say “like this product? Share it with your friends!” You can offer small rewards or points to further incentivize their sharing if you like.

Out of stock? No problem!

Especially apparel retailers can benefit a lot from this. Say, there is that new cool t-shirt that everybody likes… many will end up missing the color or the size they wanted. Put a QR code under them, they can scan it and tell you that they want that color and size, so you can backorder it.

Another thing you can do is that, if you have products that you don’t keep in stock, but people want to see before they buy, you can keep exhibit copies so people can see them, and scan a code under the product to go to ordering page.

Aside from benefitting the customer, this approach also gives you important information. You can know how much in demand something is from how fast it is sold alright. But how many more still want to get it after it is out of stock? What features do they want most? Also, if you allow them to place orders online too, you will not lose those sales when the product is not in stock.

Offer in-store discounts for first purchases, subscribing to your newsletter, etc

This is something we see often in online stores, but why limit it to only there? You can leverage QR codes to get people in your store to become a customer to enjoy a discount, or to add them to your mailing list, to get them to download your app, etc.

Power of smart deep links will also let you gain valuable data from customers while making their digital journey much simpler, thus increasing their conversion rates.

Now knowing what they are interested in, and having a line of contact, you can use one of the most effective retail marketing trick: retargeting!

Inform the customers about the product

While seeing a product in person is one thing, it will often take more than that to convince some customers. They need to learn about it, they need to read their specs, etc. Store staff can help with it to a degree, but they can not be everywhere every time. They can’t be trusted to know it all correctly either. We’ve all been there, asked about a product to store staff, only to get less than convincing answers.

Why not let users scan a QR code, and go to your app or web page, where you can describe the product with all the details, and rich media like videos and images etc?

As a bonus, you can get the user to subscribe to your notifications, newsletter, etc.

QR code marketing: Appgain is the automation platform to cement it all together!

We offer complete QR code, smart retargeting, multichannel marketing, and event-based automation for retail businesses to increase their sales and growth.

You can use our all-in-one marketing automation platform to create mobile and SEO optimized landing pages, generate a database of users to retarget, create social media shareable posts, and generate QR codes powered with smart deep links. Powerful analytics is the cherry on top.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Retail growth mega-boost: Smart Retargeting

Today with the power of smart devices and internet, promoters and enterprises can reach more people than ever. We now have the power of knowing the profile of customers interested in our business. We can retarget them to turn people who are on the edge into a customer or to increase the brand loyalty of those who already are. Using a smart marketing approach can help greatly in achieving a big boost in retail growth rate. Smart retargeting approaches can take your retargeting efforts a step further in that direction.

Let’s have a look at how can it do that, and how can we use it.

Turn more of the potential customers into actual customers

The process of getting new clients happens through multiple phases. First, you attract people, pique their interest, and make them aware of your existence. Then they step through the other phases to become your clients and even voluntary promoters.

: It is essential for retail growth to turn people you have attracted to have a look into actual buyers. They are already interested in what you have, that’s why they have checked you out in the first place. Now give the last little push they need!

Thing is, you will lose some of the people you have attracted along the way before they become actual customers. In fact, their numbers will usually be more, much more than those that become your new clients.

Retargeting will, however, allow you to reach out to those who were about to close the deal, but didn’t.

Reach them out with a reminder, or better yet, an offer to convince them, to give them the final little push they needed to go for your product or service.

However, retargeting can run the risk of being spammy and feel pestering to your audience. Especially when it seems arbitrary and impersonal. This can hurt your brand image, and we don’t want that…

Here, the smart retargeting rushes to the rescue! With smart retargeting, you use the right campaign content for the right people. You use behavior and demographics data to retarget them with the right offer for the right product.

Not only will it make it more likely for them to finally go for your offer, but it will also help you with achieving a more sustainable growth since your audience will not see you like “yet another spammy salesman”.

Don’t let poor abandoned shopping carts to languish, let them become actual sales!

Retargeting helps your growth not only with getting new customers, but it also helps with the existing ones. Let’s say, someone either forgot or decided against a purchase after adding products to a cart.

Isn’t that one of the saddest moments for a retail business, when a happy purchase falls apart just as it was about to bloom? Do not despoil though! As this is just the right job for retail retargeting!

When a user leaves a cart behind, you can use retargeting to entice them and get to reconsider.

Increase customer loyalty

Another benefit of smart retargeting is that you can remind your existing clients of your business.

: Make your customers irresistible offers, provide the benefits. Retargeting them with these will keep them coming, and hep your retail growth a lot.

Let’s say a group of your customers who were interested in a certain type of your products or a campaign.

When you do another similar campaign or release a similar new product you can retarget those users who were already interested before.

Another use of retargeting can be reaching out to customers who have not been active for some time. Remind them of the products they liked, or incentivize their patronage with an offer.

So, ok, smart retargeting is good, but how does it work, how will it improve the retail growth rates?

: Don’t be this guy… shooting random messages will not guarantee your retail growth. Try smart retargeting instead 🙂

Well, not every retargeting tool will give you the options we call “smart”. Usually, you need a completely integrated toolkit to build databases of audience analysis and feed this information to the channels you want to use for retargeting.

In Appgain’s case, Mobile Landing Pages technology lets you to create landing pages for products and/or campaigns, and also give you a channel for Web Push Notifications. People will find you through these SEO and mobile-optimized pages and can subscribe to your notifications. These subscribers grant you a base of users who are interested in the offer you are promoting with the page.

You can also use your existing mailing lists or phonebooks to integrate with event-based marketing automation where many channels like SMS, App, and Web Push Notifications, or emails.

You can also track the success of these actions, who opens and follows on with the actions in your message? Where are they from? What platform are they using?

This helps you with refining your campaigns and go for better aimed and more personal retargeting.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Different types of retargeting in retail marketing

You are probably aware of remarketing & retargeting, if not, you really should be! In a nutshell, it is a practice that lets you activate the customers/users you already acquired, instead of trying to acquire new ones from scratch. As with most things though, there is more than one way to do it. Each can be more or less beneficial given the type of scenario at hand. Let us have a look at a few different kinds of retargeting in retail marketing.

Retargeting visitors: Get them from “just-looking” to “totally buying”!

We all know that not everyone who steps in our shop will go out as a customer. Often, they are just having a look. While every retailer’s dream would be selling something to every visitor, sometimes they just won’t buy anything at that point.

: Retargeting in retail marketing: if someone goes from “just-looking” to “OMG what a deal!” in a second, you’re doing it right 😉

You can think of the same for a digital retailer too. Does your page get visitors? Great! Do they buy anything? Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no…

However, the very fact that they at least take time to visit you means that they are potentially interested in what you offer. For this fact alone, they are too valuable to forget about!

For example, it is enough for people to have just taken a peek at your Appgain powered mobile landing page to catch their social media “pixel”, so that you can target them on social media venues with your ads.

If, however, you would like a more direct approach, you can reach with web push notifications to visitors that subscribe to your notifications.

Now, what if your store is offline only? You can use the power of our smart QR codes to still be able to reach people online! Offer them a digital catalog, a coupon, or perhaps a digital magazine about your sector if people will be interested in it!

Keeping the pulse up Retargeting big-time shoppers!

Some customers, either for their love of a product, or of your business, can buy a lot from your retail shop, and perhaps even do so frequently.

: Keep her smile up by remind of all the excellent wares and deals and keep those shopping bags full!

Such fire shall not go to waste! No, you should attend to it, and keep it alive ;). Do you have a cool new product or offer? Is there a new model of their favorite product? Or did they just take longer than they usually do to buy from you? Well, then it’s time to reach out to the customer, and remind them of the offers or products in-store.

Especially in markets like technology or collectibles/hobby, the arrival of an anticipated new item, or a discount on one will likely get this type of customer to act.

Customers are happier for knowing the arrival of items they are looking for, or a sale they were looking forward to, and you can be happier for keeping them shopping!

Giving a pulse where there is none! Targeting less frequent shoppers

This approach is the polar opposite of the previous one: Instead of going for the frequent buyers, you target infrequent shoppers.

Sometimes they need that little push, the little reminder to finally make their purchase. This fits especially well with retailers of long term and/or relatively pricey goods.

People tend not to buy a new TV every day for example, but having looked at some means that they are interested in getting one. Don’t miss them. Seeing a nice model and/or a good offer can give the final push they need to make a purchase from you.

Do not let those poor abandoned carts languish in despair!

: Such a sad sight isn’t it :(? Retarget the owner to avert this tragedy! 🙂

Isn’t it a sad moment when your users abandon their shopping carts… The goods sit listed there, forsaken, so close, yet so far, silent witnesses of what could have been.

Do not let it stay so! Take action, and make the user an offer they would not refuse. Perhaps offer a little gift or some store points if you have such a thing. Perhaps a discount.

The user gets what they wanted to, and you make a sale, and the good aren’t abandoned in a forsaken shopping cart, everyone is happy! 🙂

Types of retargeting for retail marketing: Use the right kind of retargeting in the right context

In a nutshell, different kinds of retargeting works better in different kinds of situations. Some fit better with certain markets, others work better for certain types of customers.

There are many kinds of retargeting in retail marketing, use the right combination at the right time to maximize your profits.

Of course, you will need to know about your customers and have access to all the channels you can retarget them with.

This is where Appgain comes in. From analytics and automation to multi-channel messaging, Appgain has all the tools you need in one place. Our smart retargeting package is designed to carry things a few steps ahead of traditional retargeting.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Smart retargeting – the future for retail market

Retargeting has been around for a while now. Quite a while in fact… enough to know that it can both win and lose you, customers. It is essential to check back with your target audience, to remind them of your campaign. But retargeting without having the right audience, or making it so impersonal that it will look like “just another marketing spam” will yield less than satisfactory results. Thus, you need to look beyond the brute force approach in retargeting. Now it is time for smart retargeting, the future for retail market!

The smart entails having the right audience to retarget, using the right channels together, and making the call more engaging. Let’s have a look at how we can achieve these.

Don’t just spam anyone and everyone, pick the right audience

It is easy to retarget anyone and everyone who has ever been in your marketing audiences. It may or may not work for every one of them. But hopefully, some of them will be interested, right?

While that is true, this approach also leads to increased marketing costs, as well as the risk of being seen spammy by the people you retarget.

A smarter approach will be to pick those who are actually interested in the campaign but didn’t go ahead with it yet.

This may be chosen from the people who had visited the landing page(s) you have for the campaign and chose to subscribe to your updates. Other examples of good retargeting audiences can be:

People who have registered an account on your campaign’s site, but haven’t started using it.
Customers who filled a shopping cart but abandoned it.
People who were interested in similar campaigns/products before.
Finally, people who are using or have used competitors.

This way, you will be able to target people who actually are likely to be interested in what you have to say them. The conversion rates of your retargeting efforts will be much higher this way.

Another side to choosing the right audience for retargeting is that just going shotgun on choosing people to retarget can, and often does result in some damage on the brand identity. Let’s be honest, none of us enjoy it when it is like “oh, great, another random marketing message pestering me for something I am not too interested in”.

There are lots of communication channels, utilize the right ones at the right times

Today, there are many digital channels to reach an audience. Each of them has different advantages and disadvantages. Which one leads to the future for the retail market though? Well, all of them, but only in the right context for each!

If you can harmoniously combine your audience research efforts with targeting these channels, you are going to be more likely to reap the rewards for your work.

Today, some of the marketing automation platforms can either be integrated with others or just outright include all the steps of your remarketing journey in their toolkit. Make sure you are using one of those. If, however, you want to facilitate this coordination manually, make sure you do your work very thoroughly so things will not get “lost in translation”. Also, know that you will spend lots of effort, time, and hence money in getting this right.

SMS messages, emails, app push notifications, web push notifications all have their specific pros/cons. App push notifications, for example, have some of the highest engagement and conversion rates, but they require an app to be installed on the targeted users’ device beforehand. Web push notifications, however, does not have this requirement and can work even on desktop/laptop computers.

Finally, no need to feel like all your retargeting needs to be through digital channels. You can use offline, physical media too. Let’s say that your audience frequents a certain venue. Why not print some stickers with QR codes of your campaign, along with an attractive offer on them?

Make your retargeting content engaging, make the user feel special

Something to the effect of “pssst! Why haven’t you still bought this cool thing yet?! You know you want it!” may not necessarily be the best way to go.

We are, after all, end-users too, be honest and ask yourself, what do you usually do with those?

It tends to go like:
“Mmmh… yeah, right…” (clicks delete).

We really need to put the smart in smart retargeting. Do a bit of due diligence and find out a few reasons why the users who were on the line decided not to go past it. Construct your messages with that information. Play on what they liked, reassure them against what they may not have liked.

Having composed a single message to fit-all is too old-school. Make sure that you at least have a few that are crafted for each persona.

If you can get the user feel like they are addressed in person, rather than as a part of a mailing list, your chances of persuading them will be much, much higher.

Make sure the message is engaging, and persuade them that you are selling a solution or something that they desire, and not just trying to move more copies out of your stock, and more dollars out of their pockets.

Use the right tools to get your retargeting smarter

First, you need the information to get your retargeting to be smarter. And by information, we mean lots of it.

Know the audience, know who was interested, who were on the verge of becoming a customer, what did they like, what they didn’t, where are they, what are they using?

Schedule your retargeting for the right time, automate your process based on events, use app push notifications where appropriate, web push notifications where available, etc.

Obviously, the best option is to have a solution that has all these integrated on a single platform.

A couple of other things to look for in the platform are:

The ability to compose short & to the point, but still engaging marketing content. Especially the shorter message media like SMS and push notifications fit the bill here. The best way to use these would include emojis etc. to make them more relatable and engaging, and also use shortened links to lead users to where the action will take place.
Also being able to host a page with much more rich content. Text as long as you need, images, animations, videos, etc. You can lead retargeted users here to give them the final push they may need to be convinced. The page may also attract new people on its own with SEO.

Appgain to the rescue! We offer what you need for smart retargeting, and to pave the way to the future for retail market enterprises

Appgain is one of the few solutions that offer all of the above features in a single package, and still with affordable prices.

Our platform gets you valuable attribution and analytics data to form the right audience for retargeting. On top of that, we offer rich push notifications, mobile landing pages, web push notifications, emails, SMS, high quality and engaging social media sharing of content, and creation of QR codes linking to these features so that you can join your offline and online marketing together.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Best ways of retargeting in retail marketing

Retargeting is the hottest type of marketing nowadays. It allows you to actively target people who were interested in what you offer in some way. Instead of trying to find new customers, retargeting lets you get your existing customers to buy more of your offers. It is not surprising that retargeting fits so well into retail marketing too. Still, as with everything, there are right ways, and not so right ways of doing it. Let’s see what are some of the best ways of retargeting in retail marketing

Know your customers

Since retargeting means reaching out to specific people, you need to know in some way who those people are. Thus, we can safely say that the first step of a proper retargeting campaign is to gather knowledge on who to retarget.

Follow what customers are more likely to buy what product, and when for example. With this knowledge, you can target them with the right offer when they are likely to buy it.

Modern technology allows you to have many ways to learn a lot about online users and to use this information to inform the right marketing plan for the right audience. Of course, you need the right tools to be able to enjoy these benefits.

With Appgain for example, you can target your social media ads towards people who have visited the landing page for your product/campaign.

Though, since digital media is the best place to learn of your customers, you should try your best to get them to your digital funnel.

Use all the channels in the right context

There are quite a number of ways to reach out to your customers to retarget them. App or web push notifications, SMS messages, emails, social media ads…

Each of these channels has various advantages and disadvantages compared to one another. Make sure that you are able to make use of them all.

Target the most valuable customers

Extending further from knowing your customers, how much lifetime value they have provided you with is a very useful thing to know.

Every step in retail marketing costs you time, effort, and money. Therefore, it is wise to use these resources on targets that will benefit you the most.

For example, if a user has bought lots of a particular brand of perfume many times, you can let them know when you have more of those in stock.

Deliver your message at the right time

Depending on the type of customer and what kind of retailer you are, there are a few critical times you can choose to retarget someone.

For example, if you know that a user buys a certain type of consumable in let’s say every month, you can remind them to buy some more when their last purchase was about 4 weeks ago.

Alternatively, you can retarget someone right after they buy something! Did they buy a new, shiny gaming console? Well, remind them to buy an additional controller or a game that is rather popular for that console just after their purchase!

Did someone place an order for a product of yours? Great! Send a confirmation SMS/mail, and add them to your retargeting queue to turn them into more than a one-time customer.

Examples of similar “critical times” to trigger your retargeting messages are:

People who have visited recently
People who have not visited in a while
People who have bought something recently
People who have created a shopping cart, but abandoned it without completing their purchase.

Use the most applicable of these opportunities to reach out to your customers to get them interested in your products again.

Appgain is the toolkit you need in retargeting, and retail remarketing

With Appgain, you can get a detailed database of users, see their information neatly, target them with web push notifications, app push notifications, emails, or SMS messages. Host a mobile and SEO optimized landing page, and get social media ids of users to show them targeted social media ads. Retarget them based on their LTV, last order date, number of sessions, etc. Create Smart QR Codes to bridge your physical and digital marketing. Automate your marketing actions based on events.

All you ever need for smart retargeting in one place, Appgain is ready to cover all your retail marketing needs.

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

QR codes in marketing: Phygital bridge between online & offline!

Today, both online and offline media are vital to your marketing campaigns. They both have wide reaches into different audiences, and one can cover where the other may not be easily visible. Although they are virtual vs physical in nature can make it difficult to run them together seamlessly. So can you even bridge your offline and online marketing together? Of course, you can, just use QR codes in marketing! Let us have a look at how!

: “Are QR codes dead?” we often hear being asked. On the contrary, the use of QR codes in marketing is the bridge between digital and physical media! Hence the term “phygital”.

QR codes in marketing: Connection between the worlds!

Are QR codes dead? This question seems to be a popular one… Well, QR codes in marketing are quite alive and kicking 😉 They have this important position of being the bridge between online and the offline. They are, the heralds of phygital marketing!

Since pretty much everybody has a smart device nowadays, they can scan and use the QR codes pretty easily. Just incentivize them, offer rewards for using the QR code to let them into your digital marketing funnel.

These codes can be printed on any media: flyers, coupons, billboards, bus stops, or even on digital signage… Where you will use QR codes is only limited by your imagination!

These codes allow you to link people from any offline media to any digital content, and, with use of the right platforms, also give you ability to retarget these users, and gain valuable information from them like where the best buyers come from, which campaign performs best, etc.

Now, yes, online and offline marketing campaigns are connected great! But what’s the benefit? How can I use QR codes to bridge online and offline marketing?

There are multiple things that you can do, let’s look at them one by one.

Do you have an app? Use offline ads and get them to download it!

Apps can be either the meta or a channel in a marketing campaign. Since smart devices are everywhere, apps are always with us, so they are a great marketing channel.

However, for an app to be profitable, you need many downloads. There are many ways to achieve this. ASO and SEO efforts being the first two that comes to mind.

However, you can get people to know of, and even directly download your app even when they aren’t browsing the internet or app stores.

Let’s say that you hand out promotional items, perhaps in an event. Brochures, or a nice, branded notebook. Feature your QR code link there with an offer for additional benefits to app users.

Someone who is already positively influenced with the experience in the gift item will be more likely to check out the offer of the app, and you can gain users easily like that.

By turning QR codes into Dynamic and Trackable QR codes, Smart Deep Links technology makes it easy for users to get onboard within the apps. These context-sensitive links provide the following benefits:

They will take the user to their destination regardless of the platform they are using.
Let’s say they don’t have your app and are using an iPhone, the link will take them to download the app from App Store.
If they are using an Android device instead, the same link will take them to Play Store page of the app.

Handout coupons

Coupons and vouchers are a great way to build bridges with potential customers. It is even better if you get them to scan a QR code to enjoy the benefits. This way you will be able to track the success of your campaign, and even potentially build a database of users for later remarketing.

: Coupons and vouchers are a popular customer loyalty and marketing tool in many industries, such as retail market. When used together with smart QR codes, they are the incentivizes of the phygital marketing.

This is usually a great option for food and beverage venues for example. But it can be used in other services and products as well. The retail market would be one of those, for example.

Do you have a great landing page? Well, let people see it!

While a flyer or a billboard is great in their own right, a web page can feature so much rich media content that can not.

This way you can really get two types of media to mutually support each other. People can see a physical ad anywhere, in public transportation, in a cafe, just anywhere… You web content, on the other hand, can include many images, videos, text, and even interactive elements. These can help you convey the message of your product/service much more strongly.

Just put the link to your web content inside a QR code and feature this prominently on your offline ads, and reap the rewards.

Know what your ads are doing

Information is the greatest strength in marketing. You need to know many things to achieve the most successful campaigns. Who is the best audience to target? What do they want? Where are they? What time they are most likely to buy? Do they respond better to this or that kind of campaign? Marketing is hardly the cheapest thing when you don’t know what is working and what isn’t! Are you doing it right, or are you just losing money? Information is paramount in knowing this and adjusting accordingly.

However, collecting all this information may not always be the easiest thing to do. Well, at least it wasn’t always, but now marketing automation and analytics tools let you have this power at the tip your fingers!

Though, unless you integrate offline and online campaigns, their powers will only work in the digital realms.

This is where QR codes come to play! They can help with getting data from your offline campaigns too.

Retarget people who look at your offline marketing materials

Giving people an incentive to scan that cool little QR code on your ads will make it possible for automation platforms to retarget them later.

First off, you may ask the user to fill out a contact form to enjoy the benefit you offer. They may give an email or phone number.

Almost uniquely among the platforms, Appgain also enables you to get a database of interested users without even asking their contact information. As you may know, some users don’t quite like giving personal info to marketing campaigns. With our web push notification feature, they can just subscribe to your notifications and then you will be able to retarget them with notifications even if they are on a desktop system.

How can you use offline and online marketing together? How do you employ QR codes in marketing?

: QR codes will let your online marketing efforts work on physical media too, here you can see how it would work for a retail market case

Well of Course With Appgain! Appgain gives you the opportunity to make the best use of the QR code’s powers, and adds more to the pack! The answer to “are QR codes dead?” is a resounding no, and our platform is ready to provide you with all the benefits phygital marketing and more.

Retarget your customers on social platforms, with notifications, SMS or email. With Dynamic, Colorful and Branded QR codes, our offer is feature-rich, and besides, we offer not just a QR code platform, but a whole marketing solution!

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

How mobile marketing automation boost conversion!

Mobile Marketing Automation

It is never easy to take a campaign literally from zero to hero. You need to reach out to people, make them aware of the product/cause, and then get them to be a part of it. But your campaign needs to champion that new thing, which is a droplet in an ocean of other, perhaps even well-established competitors. It doesn’t always need to be this hard, however, to boost conversion rates of your campaigns.

Let us have a look at how you can achieve great campaign results, and how we can benefit you in doing this.

Acquire the Attention of Right People

The first step of any campaign is to attract people interested in your cause, who may then decide to buy, join, donate, and/or share with other like-minded people to build more awareness for you. While the traditional media like TV (or nowadays YouTube) ads, billboards, etc. do have their places, today the greatest and cheapest way to be found is using the power of web and search engines.

Therefore, a mobile-friendly and SEO optimization-ready landing page is where it all starts. Your landing page needs to be visually simple but attractive and should have short but strong lines of text to outline the offer of your campaign. It should include a visible call to action (CTA), and the content needs to be created with a good target keyword in mind. Having a strong domain name in the address is also important.

Appgain’s benefits already start right here. Mobile Deep Pages are among our most prominent features, and allows you to have just that!

The benefits of Mobile Deep Pages include:

Stripe payment and lead forms
Can be created easily with a visual editor
Or, if you have an app, can be autogenerated from app metadata
Gives you a place with rich and powerful content to link from less powerful media like SMS messages.
Creates valuable advanced analytics for you to visualize your users’ journeys, see what works and what doesn’t in your campaign. Where do you lose interested people? Who can you retarget to convince?
Fully supports custom domains.
Allows the users to subscribe to your web push notifications. This is a very powerful tool that enables you to create a database of interested users without collecting contact information. Not only does that allow you to send notifications to both desktop and mobile without needing an app, but it also lets you retarget the correct people with notifications.

To fully benefit from our Mobile Deep Pages, we complement it with another powerful technology built by our tech team: Smart Deep Links. More importantly, they will help you to improve your conversion rate significantly!

Turn them into Customers With Mobile Marketing Automation!

The users are most often lost at the step of registering or the actual checkout process. The whole journey needs to be as simple and enjoyable as possible for them. It doesn’t matter what your campaign goal is. Whether you are trying to get more users for your app, get people to register for an event, sell some product, or gather donations for a charity… If your users need to jump through hoops, crawl under rocks, and dodge a few arrows, while also having to listen through useless and boring rhetoric, you can be sure that you’ll lose them…

Smart Deep Links are designed to help you with this issue. These links allow you to take the user to the right place, according to their context.

How does it do that though? Well it offers benefits such as:

Takes the user to right place depending on their platform. Let’s say that you are trying to get them to see a specific page in the app. Do they have the app at all? What if they don’t? Do they use Android or iOS? A single smart link can consider all these cases for you! If your user has the app, great! The page launches right away! If they don’t? Well, if they use iOS, they’ll be taken to the app’s App Store page, and if they use Android, they’ll go to Play Store one. Once the app is downloaded, they’ll still see that page you wanted when it launches! It doesn’t limit to apps either; if the user is on a desktop, you can get them to a website or a PWA.
Are you using SMS messages to reach out to potential customers? Well, you can incorporate the link there. This way you can use shorter but still more powerful messages, which will take the user to a media-rich page.
Let’s say you use the link to take the user to a checkout page for payment. Depending on being on mobile or desktop, you can choose to take them to a payment page, or SMS payment.
Do you want to tie your old media and digital media campaigns together? We can encode a quick deep-link to a QR code, and you can put it on your ads, etc. to take the users into your mobile marketing automation funnel even from a billboard ad!

All these features are tailored to make it much simpler for the users to go exactly where you want them to. No hoops to jump, no bullets to dodge. It is quick, friendly, and easy for them to go and do what they will. In just one magic link to get them right there!

This ease of use and the ability to suit every platform to work with just one link increases the user conversion rates with a considerable degree, often even multiplying it!

Well, This All Sounds Nice and Pretty, but… Do You Have Any Examples of It Working?

Well yes, indeed we do! And the example we chose here may not be what you are expecting: it is a charity! Shows that you can use our mobile marketing automation to benefit every kind of campaigns!

Here in Appgain, we are not only helping app developers and marketers, to achieve their goals. Our product also helps charity organizations! Furthering a cause, rushing to aid of those in need…

The charities are fighting the good fight! But to get people to move, they first need to reach out to them. This, in turn, is only possible with running an effective publicity campaign, using all the right tools available for the task. Today, the most important tools are digital media.

Through the digital channels, you can:

Reach potential benefactors
Make them aware of the campaign
Make it easier for them to donate, and hence…
Convert them into actual donors

One such charity organization is Sharjah Charity International. They usually do charity campaigns on social media channels and run SMS donation campaigns. While looking for a solution to make donations over SMS an easier process, the organization has found Appgain to be the answer.

And the answer we indeed are, as the Sharjah has enjoyed:

An increase in their SMS conversion rate from 3% to 12%
Shortened SMS length from 3 messages long to 1, decreasing their campaign cost at the same time.

Sharjah is just one of the many other charity organizations that have enjoyed a great jump in their success rate, as well as a great decrease in their campaign costs. And this is just one industry, we have app creators, digital marketers, and app marketers benefitting from our marketing automation product.

With the Right Tools, mobile marketing automation isn’t Rocket Science! Boost Your Conversion Now!

The science between digital marketing is made available in a custom-built automation tool in Appgain. Our features are designed and built by industry veterans of both technical and PR side of things, to offer you the solution for the challenges you will meet in converting people from mere strangers into clients, donors, and volunteer ambassadors who do your marketing for you!

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Mobile Marketing for Apps – How To Acquire, Engage and Retain Users? Part 3

How to acquire, engage and retain users? How to create the right mobile app marketing plan to achieve so? These are the questions we have been answering since we started the series. In the previous parts of our guide, we shed light on our user growth model; AARRR MODEL. Tackling 3 of its pillars which are acquisition, activation, and retention, we are now ready to address the 4th pillar.

How to earn money from apps? Time to learn to utilize the app revenue item!

IV- Mobile App Revenue

How to get money from the mobile app?

“By 2020, mobile apps are forecast to generate around 189 billion U.S. dollars in mobile app revenues via app stores and in-app advertising.” Stated Statisa in one of its mobile app marketing thoroughly researches, proving that apps can drive you colossal revenue and raising the urge to earn money for your app as well!

For that mission, we have collected the most useful app monetization models that can help you figure out your options when it comes to earning money from apps.

Explore your app monetization options for generating the highest mobile app revenue:

1- Freemium

Free apps are the top and the most useful app monetization model among them all. Whatever your app is offering to users, being offered for free is the always-working teaser that turns possible purchasers into actual app users.

Freemium model functions as:

A “Trying before paying” strategy
Users can download fermium app with no charges at all, and they can enjoy some of your features for free as well. However, at some point, their free trial will end, and you will need to make them pay for unlocking more features or viewing app hidden partitions.
A teaser campaign.
It’s all about getting your users to feel and live the real user experience you are offering in here. Your job is to make them fall in love with it; get them attached and then they will never stop asking for more!

Both ways, you will need to follow the below tips to make sure that you are playing it smart enough to generate actual app revenue out of your freemium model.

Don’ts:

Offering too much: “don’t make yourself too available” this advice goes for freemium apps as well! Offering too many free features will make them get all that they want without having to spend a penny.
Offering too little: avoiding too many free features doesn’t mean to go for the “too few” strategy. Offering less-than-expected free features will not give your users the change to fully explore your app and will not be tempting enough for them to pay for it. Be moderate. Give them enough reasons why your app deserves their money.

Dos:

Turn them into your app advocates: yes they don’t pay actual money, but they can unconsciously work as your marketing team.
Hint: offer to unlock them a new feature when 5 of their friends download the app, or when they achieve a certain number of shares for your app on their social media accounts.
Get as much data as you can: the broader the base you have, the more data you can get.
Hint: Always ask for their data and for accessing their data and their friends/email lists, then you can keep push marketing messages to them all
Give them something to look forward to: People love mysteries and surprises.
Telling employees that there will be a surprise by the end of the month and watch how curious they will be. Do the same for your app users.
Try to withhold a particular feature or section in your app that would unlock with paying and watch how dynamic they will be.

2- Paid Apps

Unlike freemium ones, this app monetization model is about getting paid per each download. It’s a “pay first, play second” strategy. Paid apps are the most direct sales generator model yet the hardest one. As we all know, getting users to pay is not the easiest thing to do. So you will need to follow the following:

Dos:

Mind-blowing added value: you need to offer something unique, something free apps don’t afford to provide.
Hint: use all of your weapons to show the added value you got! Showcase five stars rating, offer video tutorials, present screenshots, etc. Just let people see the real value they will get.
The precise targeting: the three segments you need to target are:
1. experience mobile holders
2. users who are addicted to your app category
3. those who already downloaded a paid app before.
These categories of users are the ones who are having the mindset of paying for an app, so customize your marketing strategy to fit them perfectly.

Don’ts:

Make them feel that they are getting double what they paid for: they do pay, and now they are on your app. But they are finding nothing! Too few features that it isn’t unique. Don’t be stingy when it comes to the features of your paid app, be the opposite.
High pricing: free apps are all over the place. So when you decide to launch a new one, it should be as cheap as you can. Users will not pay much money on something they didn’t try first.

3- In-App Purchases

In this app monetization model, your app functions as a showcase. It’s your online store where you start selling your goods, whether it’s visual like some icons for a game or it’s actually like food or clothes.

Such a model will suit you the most if you belong to the eCommerce app categories, but of course, it can be used in other categories too.

Dos:

Explore your options: you can use in-app purchase for both free and paid apps. You can also use this app monetization model differently with each industry.
Hint: If you are a magazine/newspaper it will be in the form of paid subscriptions. If you are a music app, it will be in the form of latest hits downloading. It’s a model that fits all.

Don’ts:

Poor visuals: you are targeting people who are possible online shoppers. So whatever you are selling, it needs to be showcased perfectly.
Hint: Post many pictures to what you are selling and feature the zoom in the bottom. Just make sure that they can check everything so clearly.

Regarding this one you need to take care of two points:

When you are selling non-physical goods, apple store got a percentage out of your revenue
Apple and Google stores are applying restriction policies to prevent accidental purchases done by kids

4- In-App Advertising

In-App advertising monetization model has the same concept of in-app purchase; both are advertising/selling using the app as a showcase.

The differences here is that the In-App advertising app monetization model is not selling your goods, it’s functioning as an ad banner for others. The challenge here is to gather as much database as possible so that your app will be tempting enough for others to advertise in.

Dos:

Play it cool: when it comes to in-app purchase, you need to make it feels like it’s a part of the app itself.
No annoying pop-ups.
No pauses for your activities on the app with an ad banner and definitely.

Examples of the apps that use this model so smoothly and perfectly are Facebook and Instagram. You can pass by a sponsored ad without even notice that it’s an odd item among the rest.

Don’ts

One-size-fits-all: Never follow that concept! No one size can fit in all.

Thoroughly study the suitable ad banner dimensions of each device.
Nothing is more annoying than an ad that is poorly designed and not even fit into the screen.
Customize the suitable ad position for each screen size. This infographic will help you that mission.

These were the main four app monetization options that you can use in your upcoming mobile app marketing plan to generate the highest revenue. However, they are not all. There are two extra models which would be extracted from the four main ones mentioned above, and they are used along with any of the above mentioned.

5- Subscriptions/Paywalls:

This app monetization model is another version of free apps. But what is offered for free is your app content, not your features.
Example: you are a reading app. You start offering readers free samples of a certain number of books they searched for; then you ask them to pay for a subscription to access the full books and more other books as well.

This model is a great way to engage users, but it can’t be used to a wide range of app categories.

6- Sponsorship

Sponsorship is the latest model of app monetization models. It’s an incentive system where users are encouraged to take more actions through the app to get rewarded. And these rewards are all sponsored by other parties.
Example: When a transportation app collaborate with a mobile company and start advertising the following “reach more than 50 rides per week, and you will get a chance to win the mobile X for free”. As an app owner, your revenue is generated directly from the sponsors and adversities.

This model hasn’t been utilized enough yet to judge its effectiveness, but it is a promising one.

One extra tip for that part is: you can always as for our help!

Appgain has been successfully diving revenue to mobile apps globally. One of our big hits was ikhair app – the first mobile donation app in Middle East – where we are driving them revenue that is more than 3M USD donations till now. We are also handling DTCM (Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing) three mobile apps on our platform, where we have proceeded more than get 3,8 M transaction. And there are more.

We can always give you a hand when it comes to boosting your mobile app revenue, ask for it

Here is for all of those who ever wondered about how to referral mobile app users. After going all the way long of applying a massive mobile app marketing plan for acquiring, engaging, retaining and gaining money out of your app, you will need to take one more final step. It’s the 5th and last pillar of the AARRR Model, app referral.

Learn how to plan for Mobile App Virality in your mobile app marketing strategy.

II- Referral: Do users tell others? (Mobile App Virality)

Do users share your app? Do they spread the word? Do they recommend it to their family and friends? That is what Mobile app virality (aka app referral) means, it’s to turn your users to your app advocates where they do marketing and advertising for your app by themselves.

The ultimate goals for mobile app marketing plans are not only to generate revenue, but also to go viral and to be on the top of the most demanded apps. And to achieve so, there are three types of AppVirality strategies that you will need to explore.

1- Infectious Mobile app marketing virality

The infectious strategy depends on pushing your app users to invite their network to try/download/share the app. It mainly depends on rewarding users for doing so.
Example: Dropbox referral email campaigns that drove them user growth rate up to 3900% over 15 months!

When using Infectious App Virality strategy, you will need to pay attention to the following tips:

Continually use incentive programs:
No matter to what industry you belong, our role model regarding perfectly pitched incentive programs will always be Uber! This app arose using the power of referrals.
Through getting a free ride every time a friend download the app, they managed to generate huge user growth rates and unstoppable ongoing referrals.

Go for double-sided incentive referral systems:
Don’t monopolize the reward. Instead of making it related only to your app, you can collaborate with another app or website in a double-sided incentive referral system, and the benefits would double.

2- Demonstration app virality

When using this strategy, you will depend on how much users do really like your app. There will be no rewards or incentives for them to share your app content, it just happens when you gain your users’ trust, and they are happy enough to share. All that you have to do is to motivate them with some sincere push notifications and so.

And here are you some tricks to manipulate their unconsciousness to share:

Evoke their emotions:
“Whether you’re selling soda, car insurance, or a presidential candidate, evoking emotion increases word-of-mouth.” Stated Jonah Berger in his findings of how things go viral and motivate users to share.

Produce content and features that make them feel good or happy about themselves.
Example: snapchat and Instagram did when they gave people the opportunity to use filters that make their photos look way better than usual.
Socialize your content:
Make your app content interesting enough to be shared on your users’ social media accounts. You need to know what people prefer to share.
Hint: people like to share achievements, things they are proud to reach and happy to own. They also like to brag stuff they bought. Try something like “in love with your new original watch? Share it with your Facebook friends now!”
Produce content with value:
Users tend to share valuable information with their related friends. Whether it’s an article for your reading app or it’s a new sale for your eCommerce app products, make sure that it’s tempting enough for users to tell others about.

3- Word-of-Mouth AppVirality:

“92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising.” Stated Forbes in its article about the powers of word of mouth marketing.

Mobile app virality depends on being the most effective marketing tool just like any other business virality does.

This app referral strategy is similar to the demonstration, but it is not limited to sharing the app content on social media platforms. Word-of-Mouth mobile app virality includes a press release, face to face recommendations and any mean of networking where apps are mentioned.

To make sure that your app is easy to be spread by word of mouth, you need to pay attention to the following:

Watch your brand spelling: your app needs to spell easily and smoothly. It also needs to be short and sweet so that people can remember and memorize
Be careful with how you describe your app: when someone as your users about your app, they will unconsciously repeat what you wrote about yourself. That’s why you need to write your app description and ads very thoroughly.
Double check that you are utilizing the three E’s: Engage, Equip and Empower.
These are the three pillars of the word of mouth marketing strategy.
– Make your users feel that you are not a mere app, you are a humanized and can engage with them through social media, customer service, etc.
– Give them something to talk about, whether it’s a unique service or cool features.
– Give them power, let them suggest and decide some new stuff and make it happen for them.

Tools that will assist you when using any of the above mobile app marketing virality strategies:

AppVirality: “World’s #1 referral marketing software that helps you design, manage, and optimize successful customer referral campaigns.”

Appgain.io: “boost your app virality through the most effective deep linking and push notifications tools.”

Referral saas quatch: “referral program software that pushes promo codes and other incentives for your mobile app.”

And with that, we finally conclude our detailed guide on how you could acquire, retain, boost your users and have all the insights for how you could boost your app, and also how to be a successful Digital marketer, we hope that our guide was helpful to you and we would like to invite you to try our platform.

if you missed part 1 you could check it here, and part 2 here

Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.

Mobile App Marketing Strategies – How To Acquire, Engage and Retain Users? – Part 2

To acquire, engage and retain users, you need to know the rules of the game. And to win the triumph of this game, you will need to take each phase of it by storm! What we are tackling here is the steps you need to follow. Previously in part 1, we addressed step no.1 “Know more about the game” where we enlighten your path with some real-time statistics about mobile consumer behaviors, mobile experience and install attribution. Then we tackled step No.2 “Understand your user journey” where we introduced the AARRR model and its benefits for your mobile marketing process. Now moving to step no.3

Step 3: Utilizing the AARRR Model in your mobile app marketing plan

I- Acquisition

– How do users find your app? (your app discovery)

Having more than 1.2 million apps in app stores, your mobile app acquisition process is not such an easy task to accomplish. After double-checking on your users’ persona and segmentation, and making sure that you are targeting the exact right audience to your app, you need to start researching where exactly to hunt these audiences. And the question here is “From where can you start?” The answer is right in this insight

These are the most active mobile users’ acquisition strategies and channels. After thoroughly checking it, you need to do the following:

Determine which channels of these you are using the most
Determine how common/successful it is according to the graph
Check out your app acquisition insights (aka mobile attribution) from each channel and document all the findings
Compare between the insights of each channel you analyze and determine which ones work for you the most

After doing this exercise, you will definitely find out that the most effective channels/strategies on your list is one of these: social media, video ads and ASO. These three are the top channels to acquire audience, but do we know how to approach them correctly? Let’s see…

– Social Media

Social Media is ranked as No.1 channel on the “most effective channels” list for a reason; it’s a magical channel if you just used it right! Evolution of social media throughout the years is impressing. Nowadays it is marketers’ no.1 channel to reach and acquire the broadest possible base of audiences, and to network with them as well!

So here are you some Do and Don’ts when you start setting your social media strategies:

The Dos

Create a worth spreading app content: Wants your mobile app go viral? Then listen to this. The fastest and most effective way to spread your latest news/updates about your app is to get people to share it. The easiest way for people to share these news/updates is to find them right there on their timeline. So create that shareable and engaging app content and let your audiences do the rest! It can be a written post, a GIF or a video
Interact: think of social media platforms as your online PR. Reply to your audience’s’ comment or engage them through a game that is related to your app, and most importantly, act like a human being, not like a robot! Collaborate with influencers: Social media influencers are talking marketing by storm, forget the old school strategy of focusing all of your budgets on paid ads, save some to the right influencer who is in the same field of your app and collaborate to advertise for your mobile app.
Hashtags: watch the most used hashtags closely on each platform you are using post regularly on those platforms. Choose what is suitable for you and use them wisely.

As for the Don’ts, this chart says it all:

Here are you some tools that can assist you:

Socedo: “Automate Social Media Lead Generation Machine”

Hashtagify: “Find and Analyze Top hashtags.”

Hootsuite: “Manage Multiple Networks and Measure your campaign results.”

Edgar: “Social Media Scheduling Tool That Manages Itself”

Crowdfire: “Grows your audience and build up the brand

That’s where can you start from regarding social media mobile marketing. Follow appgain.io step-by-step guide to acquiring. Engage and retain users – part 3 to explore the rest of the channels.

want help in mastering the phases? use our platform to ease things up for you and help you get more customers! start your 45 days of free trial now!

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Mobile App Marketing Guide – How To Acquire, Engage and Retain Users? – Part 1

Mobile apps are not a “set-and-forget” thing, you don’t just create it, and that’s it! Building the app is your start line; it’s when you start the game.

The real case here is to go through all the challenges you face until you reach the finish line successfully, and then go to the next level and so on.
Accordingly, we are providing you with what you need to win this mobile app marketing challenging game;

“Appgain.io step-by-step guidelines in Mobile App Marketing and how to acquire, engage and retain app users.”

Throughout this guide you are going to learn more about mobile app user journey, how you can trigger them in each phase of this journey, and how to successfully pass each phase till you reach the triumph!

To see how you can boost your acquisition with Appgain, visit our acquisition for mobile apps page.

Step 1: Know more about the game

Before taking any step forward in the game, you need to study its related facts and figures first. So here we go. Researchers found that “Four out of five smartphone users check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up, and 44% admit to sleeping with their phones beside their bed.” Huge huh? And the ugly truth is that users don’t even spend this time equally between different apps. A mobile app user has an average of 26 apps, but s/he uses only 5 of them for 80% of the time!

These insights will tell you more about that:

an insight on app categories share and average time spent in each

While you have a dominant top 10 apps of all times

When you try to introduce a new app, these are your chances

But knowing what your users expected will help in a million

using these facts and figures, you can now map most of the challenges you may face and get prepared.

Time to learn how to win them all!
Moving to step No.2

Step 2: Understand your user journey

To win users’ attention and to stand out despite all of the above challenges, you need to know your users’ lifecycle starting from the minute they hold their digital device and start navigation.
Growth framework “AARRR” is your best enlightenment model for that aspect. Invented by Dave McClure back in 2007, AARRR was and still that simple and clear way which well-illustrated how exactly your users move from a phase to another and get you one step closer to the understanding of their behavior. AARRR states that mobile app users go through 5 stages; acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral, as shown in the diagram:

Your task now is to master every single phase of these; to understand how to encounter each one, to know the best strategies to be used, and to discover the suitable tools to analyze and manage your strategy… Let’s dig deeper!

want help in mastering the phases? use our platform to ease things up for you and help you get more customers! start your free trial now!

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