3 amazing tools mobile marketers should not ignore

Hi guys, 
Today, I will introduce you some mobile marketing tips about 3 marketing tools that are recommended by a lot of marketers. They help you communicate better with your customers and make it easy for you to manage your business.

1. MailChimp

Email marketing is one of the most popular ways to stay in touch with customers, and there are now many tools that can help you mobile-enable these programs.

For example, MailChimp has added a number of mobile features that allow you to view your email campaign stats, see who is tweeting about you and manage your lists and subscribers from your mobile device. MailChimp also offers mobile-friendly templates for your newsletters, so your campaign will look good when users read it on their mobile devices. It is a useful tool and you can get it to your  mobile marketing tips

MailChimp customers can now also take advantage of services such as Chimpadeedoo, which gives customers the ability to sign up for your newsletter via an iPad. Customers visiting your store, restaurant or trade show can sign up on the spot. One company, Monkey Joe’s Parties & Play in North Carolina, was able to grow its subscriber list from 250 to 10,000 users using this app.

MailChimp offers a free plan (2,000 subscribers and up to 12,000 emails per month) that includes all of these mobile-friendly features and more.

2. Swipely

Mobile functionality can also make it easy for customers to join your loyalty program. For example, payments company Swipely now offers a simple “text to join” mobile loyalty program that works seamlessly with the credit or debit card consumers already have in their wallet, as opposed to having them manage (and often lose!) paper cards, punch cards or key chain plastic cards.

A popular organic restaurant with multiple locations in the Bay Area is using Swipely to run its mobile loyalty program, promoting it with signs in their restaurants that invite customers to join the program with one simple text message. In one month, they saw that 60% of the customers that hit their mobile signup page submitted their credit card to join the rewards program. In January alone, hundreds of customers signed up, which means that the restaurant can now market to those customers via email.

Swipely’s loyalty program is free for existing customers.

3. TextUs.Biz

Mobile functionality can also make it easy for customers to join your loyalty program. For example, payments company Swipely now offers a simple “text to join” mobile loyalty program that works seamlessly with the credit or debit card consumers already have in their wallet, as opposed to having them manage (and often lose!) paper cards, punch cards or key chain plastic cards.

A popular organic restaurant with multiple locations in the Bay Area is using Swipely to run its mobile loyalty program, promoting it with signs in their restaurants that invite customers to join the program with one simple text message. In one month, they saw that 60% of the customers that hit their mobile signup page submitted their credit card to join the rewards program. In January alone, hundreds of customers signed up, which means that the restaurant can now market to those customers via email.

Swipely’s loyalty program is free for existing customers.

TextUs.Biz is free for the first 100 messages, which includes web and iPad access. For small businesses sending more than 100 messages a month, the “basic” cost is $24/month for 1,500 messages, the “premium” is $44/month for 5,000 messages and “pro” is $74/month for 10,000 messages.

These are three tools I would like to recommend you in this post. Let’s try and experience it with your store! Don’t hesitate to share with me your feeling, guys !
Get more mobile marketing tips, go to MobileShoppingApps blog !

[Magento Plugin] Store Locator

DESCRIPTION

With 72% customers using mobile devices to locate a store (Latitude report, 2012), store locator/store finder definitely is one of the most important feature on any mobile shopping app.

Store Locator is a plugin of SimiCart. After building a Magento mobile app with SimiCart, you can empower your app with Store Locator. Your customer will be able to locate where the nearest store is, search for stores, get directions or see the store’s information.

SCREENSHOT

[Show slideshow]

DOWNLOAD PLUGIN
Get more mobile marketing tips, go to MobileShoppingApps blog !

Guide to design and build a mobile app

Hi guys, 

We all know that mobile apps are extremely popular now, so many store-owners have a strong desire to take advantage of them as a tool to support their business. 

However, do you know that it takes 18 weeks to design and build a mobile app, which is the result when the research firm AYTM surveyed 100 mobile designers to discover how long they expected it would take to build core front- and backend components of an Android or iOS app. 

To see more about what they do in these 18 weeks, let’s look at the picture below:

Now we will move to the most important part of this article, 12-step process to design and build a mobile app: 

1. Set your goal

Having a great idea is the starting point into every new project. Before you go straight into detailing though, you must clearly define the purpose and mission of your mobile app. What is it going to do? What is its core appeal? What concrete problem is it going to solve, or what part of life is it going to make better?

Defining a clear goal for the app is also going to help you get there faster.

2. Draw your first draft

By developing sketches you are laying the foundation for your future interface. In this step you visually conceptualize the main features and the approximate layout and structure of your application.

Having a first rough sketch of your app helps everyone on your team understand the mission. These sketches should be used as reference for the next phase of the project.

3. Research

This research has four main purposes:

1. Find out whether there are other apps doing the same thing
2. Find design inspiration for your app
3. Find information on the technical requirements for your app
4. Find out how you can market and monetize your app

While you may think that you have a revolutionary idea, you may get your hopes crushed very quickly. There are more than 1 million apps for Android and iOS, so building something that hasn’t been done before is nearly impossible. Nonetheless you must not get discouraged by those who may playing in the same arena. It is imperative that you focus on your own project and your user acquisition. Learn from the key features and mistakes of your competitors, and drop all other thoughts about them.

Two other important points are marketing and monetization. Now that you have confirmed the feasibility of your app, you should think about your strategy of getting it out onto the market. Determine your niche — know exactly how you can reach your target user and how you need to approach him to make him see the value and use the app.

Another important consideration is figuring out how your app is going to generate money. Will you charge your user to download it? Or will you offer the app for free but run ads on it? This model would require a large user base, so think about that as well.

4. Create a Wireframe and Storyboard

In this phase your ideas and features fuse into a clearer picture. Wireframing is the process of creating a mockup or prototype of your app. You can find a number of prototyping tools online. The most popular ones are Balsamiq, Moqups, and HotGloo, which allows you to not only drag and drop all your placeholders and representative graphics into place, but also add button functionality so that you can click through your app in review mode.

While you are working on your wireframes you should also create a storyboard for your app. The idea is to build a roadmap that will help you understand the connection between each screen and how the user can navigate through your app.

5. Define the Back End of Your Mobile App

Your wireframes and storyboard now become the foundation of your back-end structure. Draw a sketch of your servers, APIs, and data diagrams. This will be a helpful reference for the developer, and as more people join the project you will have a (mostly) self-explanatory diagram for them to study.

Modify your wireframes and storyboard according to technical limitations, if there are any.

6. Test Your Prototype

Revert to your wireframes and ask friends, family, colleagues, and experts to help you review your prototype. Grant them access to the wireframe and have them give your app a test run. Ask them for their honest feedback and to identify flaws and dead-end links. If possible, invite them to your studio and have them try out the prototype in front of you. Monitor how they use the app, taking note of their actions and adapting your UI/UX to them.

7. Build the Back End of Your App

Now that your app has been defined pretty clearly, it is time to get started on the back end of your system. Your developer will have to set up servers, databases, APIs, and storage solutions.

Another important thing on your to-do list at this stage is signing up for developer accounts at the app marketplaces you are developing for. Getting your account approved may take several days (depending on the platform) and shouldn’t be left to the last minute.

8. Design the App “Skins”

“Skins” are what designers/developers call the individual screens needed for the app. Your designer’s job is now to come up with high-resolution versions of what were previously your wireframes.

In this step it is crucial to include all comments from your prototype testers (see step 6). After all, you are trying to build an app your target audience is actually going to use, therefore their feedback should guide you toward to the perfect UI-User Interface.

9. Test Again (Yes, Again)

Once your designer has completed the design skins, you’re up for another round of testing. Don’t think that you are all set with what you’ve done so far. For the first time you have your actual app concept completely in place, all the graphics inserted, and all text as it should be. Which means you can finally test your app in the way it will really look and feel.

To test your app, two great testing apps come to mind: Solidify and Framer. These apps allow you to import your app designs and add links where needed to test the flow from screen to screen.

Don’t confuse this stage with Step 6 (wireframing). At first it was about creating the basic look and feel of the app. Here you’ve implemented the actual design and made it clickable.

10. Revise and Continue to Build

Once you’ve given your design a test drive and collected more feedback from future users, you should use these new ideas to polish your app idea. You can still ask your designer to change the layout, and you can still tell your developer to change something on the back end.

11. Refine Each Detail

As you continue to build you will want to have a constant look at your new app. On Android, for example, it is easy to install your app file on a device to test its functionality in a live environment. iOS is different. There you will require a platform like TestFlight to download and test your app as it proceeds.

This step is the last step in the app development process. You can monitor your app all the way until your product is complete.

12. Release Time!

App marketplaces have very different policies when it comes to publishing a new app. Android, for example, does not review newly submitted apps right away. They’ll pass by at some point and check it out but you are able to instantly add your app to Google Play.

iOS, once again, is different here. Apple reserves the right to review and approve your app before it can go live. There is no set timeframe for this, but you can expect at least a week before you hear back from them.

To overcome this hold there is something else you can do: submit your app to PreApps. As you can probably guess from its name, PreApps is an app marketplace that gives developers the opportunity to reach early adopters (a.k.a. “lead users” — people who like to be first at trying out new inventions) and receive some of the very earliest feedback on your masterpiece.

From the process above you see the complexity and time requirement of building an app, but if your requirement is simple, just an app for your store, you may consider SimiCart – a Magento Mobile App builder with white label. With SimiCart you can create your own app without technical skills.
Get more Mobile Marketing Tips, go to MobileShoppingApps blog ! 

4 facts of a mobile marketing plan

Hey guys,

That seems a long time since the last time I posted an article in Mobile Marketing Tips about responsive design. Today, let’s back to it with an article about 4 facts of a mobile marketing plan. 

To make it easy for you to follow, I will firstly present some statistics and then give some advice for mobile marketer. 

Are you ready? Here we go!

1. Email Optimization For Mobile Is A Must

Stat: On mobile phones, email drove 26.7% of e-commerce sales in 2013, and tablet generated 23.1% — compared to only 20.9% on desktop.

Advice For Marketers: Despite the challenges of displaying email correctly on mobile devices and deep-linking into mobile apps, email has emerged has a dominant response channel within the mobile ecosystem. Investing in ways to make it even easier for users to read and engage with email content on mobile devices is likely to pay off.

2. Get Used To Being Direct

Stat: Direct traffic (including app visits) is the most significant source of sales for mobile phone, with a third (32.9%) of sales coming from shoppers converting directly. In contrast, organic search drove 16% of phone sales compared to 23.5% of desktop sales.

Advice For Marketers: With many mobile users bypassing search and going straight to the source (especially on phones, where mobile apps are available), it’s crucial to ensure that all landing pages are optimized for mobile web — and that the checkout process is entirely frictionless across all device types.

3. Keep An Eye On SEM

Stat: While SEM has taken the tablet world by storm, driving a whopping 24.8% of e-commerce conversions in 2013, the paid search channel is still largely under-penetrated on mobile phone — driving only 13.3% of conversions, compared to 18% for desktop.

Advice For Marketers: The relatively small share of sales coming from SEM on mobile phone reflects some of the inherent challenges of the device format — a smaller screen means a smaller number of ads displayed for any given search — which may in turn deter retailers from utilizing this ad channel on mobile phones. But if tablet is any indication, there’s plenty of growth opportunity left for mobile SEM. And with relatively low CPCs on mobile phone relative to desktop, forward-looking marketers will be exploring how they want to take advantage of this channel in the coming quarters.

4. Remember That Social Is Still A Small Piece Of The Order Pie

Stat: While social on mobile phone accounts for a greater share of orders than on desktop or tablet, overall the share of sales for the social channel is still quite low across the board: 0.6% for mobile phone, compared to 0.3% for desktop and 0.2% for tablet.

Advice For Marketers: Despite the fact that most social activity takes place on mobile devices (according to recent stats published in The Wall Street Journal, 68% of Facebook time and 86% of Twitter time is spent on mobile), social media — earned, owned and paid alike — still accounts for a small share of mobile orders. Mobile marketers looking to get the most out of their social budgets should keep in mind that the channel still functions largely as an upper-funnel touchpoint generating awareness and engagement rather than as a direct response vehicle — and choose the metrics to track and optimize against accordingly.

That’s 4 amazing facts of a mobile marketing plan you should pay attention to, hope that is’s useful for you.
Get more mobile commerce tips, go to MobileShoppingApps blog !