The cost and effort of maintaining an app is often underestimated and small organisations may not have the resources to drive organic traffic to the app. This means high investment, with little success in customer acquisition.

Instead of reinventing the wheel each time, brands should consider publishing their content on third-party apps that incorporate a social platform. This can provide much greater benefits, with less resource commitment.

Apps are resource hungry
With 800,000+ apps to choose from consumers expect the best. To achieve this quality involves a considerable investment both initially and in the longer term to keep up with enhancements in mobile software and hardware. All too often organisations are sold the concept of an app only to find that it becomes dated within a few months of launch.

A further complication is that there isn’t just one app store. In addition to the Apple App Store there is also Blackberry, GooglePlay, Nokia, Samsung and several Windows stores. For each, a different version of the app is required and then it will need updating at regular intervals to keep ahead of version changes and to add new features. It is rare for a developer to have skills across all these platforms so either different teams are required or you will be unable to support all your customers.

It is also important to maintain a presence in the App Store. Top ranking position is critical to drive user download. It is difficult for smaller organisations and public sector organisations to give the time to do this effectively.

There are more cost-efficient ways for brands, especially those of public sector organisations, to maintain a mobile presence.

Location, location, location
One particular consideration is how people use their smartphones to access information. New research from Neilson about shopping habits suggests that there are distinct differences between the way tablets and smartphones are used. Tablets are mainly used ‘at home’ for research and online purchases and rarely ‘on the go’, whereas Smartphone users use their mobiles to find local information and to compare the offering of retail outlets before and during their visit.

The majority of smartphone users are looking for opportunities within five miles of their location (57 per cent) and more than 1 out of 3 users are looking specifically for a phone number, address, directions or opening times.

This suggests that location-based information is particularly useful for mobile users and these details are time sensitive. They are interested in what is available now, near to where they are.

Don’t make work for customers
If the requirement is to publicise a service then a microsite highly optimised for the mobile may be more effective than an app. The barriers to accessing the site for the user are much lower as there is no requirement to download before starting to view your content. It is also more cost-effective to update, as there is less programming involved. The content is held within a shell and can be changed as required.

Another alternative to developing your own app is to supply content for a third party. This means that your organisation benefits from traffic created by other content providers who are targeting a similar market, without the time and cost required to set-up and maintain your own app.

‘T’app’ the adventure travel market
A good example of this type of next generation app is ViewRanger which is aimed at the outdoor activity market. Leisure and tourism is particularly receptive to digital marketing with experience tourism and adventure travel growing fast and estimated to be worth $263 billion in 2012.

Location-based information is vital to this audience and to its users the ViewRanger app is invaluable. It provides additional functionality to the smartphone, allowing it to be used as an off-road sat nav and sports computer. This means that ViewRanger is used on a regular basis with users sharing and comparing the routes they have taken.

Users also have access to a location relevant guidebook of information and tourist services, bringing over 400 tourism, outdoor equipment, clothing and publishing brands into frequent contact with a prime target audience.

Content is provided by the brands on either a free or paid-for basis. For example the AA and Walking World publish guided walks that users of ViewRanger can follow. There is a small charge to the consumer for each and this creates a good revenue stream with minimal effort from the brand.

Each publisher has its own branded page and users are able to affiliate themselves with brands. It is also possible for the publishing brand to have a dialogue with the consumer who is using their content. The organisation gets free access to a powerful publishing platform and instant delivery of their content to a wide range of smartphone, tablet, and web platforms.

The only investment required is a little time to load their content into the ViewRanger publishing tool. To provide additional value there is a set of free and easy to use tools to enable them to embed route maps into their own websites, and analytics tools to help them understand who is consuming their content.

High profile with a top ranking app
By providing content in this way brands benefit from the marketing activity of the app. ViewRanger for example is focused on maintaining a top-ranking position within the App stores, it is successfully listed in the top 20, has achieved #1 status in over 20 territories, and is seeing its app download volumes rise by 50% month on month at the moment. It would be impossible for an app created for membership organisation to sustain this profile.

The reach of these brands is further extended by benefiting from a community of outdoor enthusiasts that ViewRanger has nurtured. This international network of users creates their own content and sharing it both within the app and on social media. The app has facilities to connect with Facebook, twitter and Instagram etc. This is continually being enhanced to keep ahead of the trends.

Shoe-string budget won’t trip you up
Having access to a community of users also takes promotional opportunities to a new dimension, as it is possible for example for walking festivals run on a shoe string to target thousands of people with similar interests. A recent Scottish Borders festival published its walks on ViewRanger and this year they had people coming from Australia just for the festival.

Additionally endurance fundraisers have used the social media aspects of the app to keep supporters interacting with the challenge, by enabling them to follow their progress and receive updates by twitter and Facebook.

Just as content management systems have simplified the management of websites and put the marketing and comms teams in charge of the website (instead of the IT department),
so I anticipate there will be a move towards sharing content on publishing platforms such as ViewRanger.

This will allow brands to concentrate more on creating engaging content and innovative marketing and less on managing the next upgrade.

 

By Craig Wareham, co-founder of ViewRanger.

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