The world is on the cusp of major changes in mobile communications and marketing, heralded by the introduction of the iPhone and similar devices such as the Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre.
In March 2009, there were one million iPhone users in the UK, and with Apple expecting ongoing surges in sales, the iPhone is clearly an area ripe for exploitation by B2B marketers.
The big opportunity is in applications, or apps. Many are free, giving their developers an advantage in taking market share or establishing leadership in the mobile space, allied to the kudos of having their logos and company names on Apple’s App Store.
And Apple is not alone. Competitors like Nokia, Android, Blackberry and Palm Pre are also keen for apps to be developed for their platforms.
Before you jump on the bandwagon, here is a step-by-step best practice guide:
1. Be useful. Sure, people love having apps on their phone, but those apps in the B2B space should have practical uses. It’s not just about feel-good factor.
2. Be unique. Why get involved when there are already so many apps out there? The answer is that the market is far from saturated; it’s in its youth. Despite being on the first wave of apps, however, check to ensure that your idea has not already been thought of, and taken up by a competitor. If it has, you may want to modify it.
3. Be mindful of your brand. For this, you may need to call in some creative experts and developers for help with generating original ideas or to flesh out your own. For example, Facebook created an interface that ‘lives’ on the iPhone and pulls data from the web and displays it. Additionally, Facebook already has a ‘mobile view’, when online mobile users navigate to the social networking site via their handset. This is one of the most popular iPhone applications, even though it could be argued that there is no real need for it. Facebook has the right sort of users – those who want to keep up-to-date. Following the Facebook example, opening up extranets to iPhone apps is another route to take, to enable business partners etc. to access critical information while on the move.
4. Don’t do it for the sake of it.As described above, don’t feel obliged to develop an app. If there is no real practical need for one, the odds are against it being taken up by your customer base.
Defining the market is a key part of this step; considering you should already know who your target market is, this should be one of the easier parts of the project because the app is just another way of communicating with your market. The app will most likely appeal to a particular segment of your target market – you must consider those users’ needs during the conception stage. By doing this you might make your brand app more appealing – or engage product interaction through your app.
5. Collaboration is key. Once you have an idea for an app, you will need to address the fifth step in the project: collaboration – because the project success will hinge on interaction between teams, and, perhaps, individuals. This stage of the project will typically require the input of creative, development and marketing teams, who really do need to collaborate as seamlessly as possible.
You may wish to – or have to – outsource all or some of the development work. If you do, ensure the outsource team has the necessary people and personal skills to collaborate effectively and personably. Oh, and don’t forget Apple; collaboration with the creators of the iPhone will help ensure any marketing glitches are avoided, thus helping to ensure timescales are met.
6. Establish development costs. Setting a price, as with a timescale, can be tricky: it could be £1000 up to £50,000 depending on how you want the app to look and perform.
7. Communicate. App development timescales can be quite short. But development times will vary, according to the complexity of the function(s). The iPhone app developed by Sense Internet for Travelodge, the iBooker, for example, took only six weeks.
But several weeks can elapse between submitting an app for approval and Apple listing the app for downloading. In the case of the iBooker, collaboration included liaising closely with Apple to shorten these times to a minimum.When everything is in place, give the app a fanfare worthy of its contribution to the brand.
Above all, be sure not to get carried away with ill-conceived ideas, but do bear in mind that an iPhone app is a good idea if you feel your brand has a practical use for one.