Tag: business app

You can make your life easier with a few taps and swipes. Smartphones, dynamic technological developments and apps allow you to do that and much more. Mobile apps were primarily used for messaging service, but their roles have evolved and diversified. You do have an app for almost everything – financial services, beauty and grooming, photo editing, social media, news, buying stuff, learning and what not? Aren’t you reading this blog on your phone? That’s convenience, and it’s hard to avoid falling for it. 

It is why you need an app, whether you have your business or want to improve your brand value. 

Mobile apps – A star agent transforming business across the world 

Smartphones were communication devices. It didn’t just jazz up interaction over long distances but have been transforming business and other areas as well. Mobile apps are dynamic, and it’s growing fast as a business tool. 

Immediate communication with customers

Communication is the key to a long-term relationship. It holds true for customer relationships as well. A mobile app enables your customers to reach you within a fraction of a second in real-time. Often it gets difficult to squeeze out time to visit a store. Apps make shopping easier for customers. It gets more manageable for you to update customers on the latest launch, offers and campaigns through the app. 

Enhance customer engagement

Apps ensure convenient shopping. Besides its captivating designs, it has smart interactive features which engage users. Smartphones enable uninterrupted interpersonal communication, which favours engagement. The more a customer interacts with your brand, the more they get influenced. It creates a spontaneous likeness for the brand – its products or services, resulting in repetitive sales. 

Attach value to what you offer

I might have mentioned before that often, we cannot provide exclusive products or services. It is humanly impossible, but you can either modify them or add value to them. The latter idea would be more relevant because the market is crowded, and every brand is vying for attention. Selling through an app shows your brand in good light and fetches customers from all over the globe. It also attracts more eyeballs and adds value to the products and services that you offer. 

Get heard

You must have come across people who are great speakers, but they cannot always influence people. As a brand, you need to be very assertive and not react to everything. Mobile apps are an effective tool for brand communication too. You can use ‘push notifications’ for this purpose. It allows app admins to popup messages on the app when a user is using it. 

Sell or serve with an edge

Selling through an app makes a difference when customers have always bought products from the store. The same holds true for services. Customers have always walked up to the utility provider and hired a service. However, when you offer your services through an app, they can choose their services from their comfort zones. It’s highly satisfying. Interestingly, often they tend to buy more than they intended to. 

Direct selling platform

Direct selling is profitable. Intermediaries in business push up the price and often create distractions. However, with a business app, you can avoid that. If you are a small businessman or businesswoman, selling handmade items, it is perfect. You produce and sell your stuff on your business app; the buyer contacts you and gets it. You get the price you want, and the buyer buys at a fair price. 

Influence customers on social media platforms

Apps are linked to different social media platforms that make the customer experience sharable. These platforms have emerged as highly influential mediums of communication. When you have your business app, you can use it for your brand’s maximum benefit. When your customers share their experience, it informs their social network. It organically promotes your products or service. It does that without any additional cost! When you want to amplify the results, then you can engage social media marketing experts too. 

Instant feedback

Customers can send their feedback to the app itself within seconds. Such feedbacks are a great way to increase your brand credibility; of course, when they are positive. If you get negative feedback, even then, it helps you in improvising your brand. Securing feedback is an essential part of your business too, and a business app gets it done for you without any additional effort or resource. 

Quick customer service

Often customers have queries and may even have complaints. They can reach you and get their purpose sorted through the app. Usually, group chat links are created for sending messages, customer groups. However, this is an unorganized way of managing customers. On the other hand, apps enable customers to check it when they want and not bother them with frequent group messages.

Obtain authentic customer data

When customers start using your app, they would need to provide you with a few basic details. That basic information gives you an insight into their demography. Customer data is the key to creating compelling brand strategies for increasing sales, brand awareness and brand sustainability. Data is the new oil. People pay vast amounts for securing accurate customer data while a business app gets it for you without extra charges. 

Five popular social messaging apps for your business

A messaging app doesn’t just enable you to send a message but boost business as well. Instant messaging has opened up new scopes of business and channels of marketing. You can connect with your target audience better through a messaging platform. It’s dynamic and influences customer choice more effectively. Not just 5, there are more than 8 popular social messaging apps for your business. I will walk you through five of the most popular messaging apps that can be a tool for your business. 

WhatsApp:

It is one of the best instant messaging apps that revolutionized communication. Currently, it has more than 1.5 billion users. Using WhatsApp gave you the raw joy of instant messaging. Even though you write, texting and messaging aren’t the same. Texting refers to sending a message to phone numbers using the mobile service provider. When you send message through WhatsApp or any other popular messaging app, it uses the internet. It may include video call or voice calls, and other multimedia features are generally absent in text messaging. 

WhatsApp’s ‘story’ feature is an exciting way to engage an audience and send your message to them without saying much. It creates a unique visual appeal impressing your followers. 

Kik:

Younger people are experimental with their choices and end up being good consumers. It’s great if they are your target audience, too, because Kik is most suitable for young users. This social messaging app doesn’t need your phone numbers; instead, it facilitates communication with individual user names. 

Besides texts, you can use GIFs, emojis, stickers and short video in your messages. It adds to the fun factor, and it’s pretty easy to use. 

Often we assume salaried or people who earn are valued for their purchasing power. However, buying decisions are not made like this now. Children and young adults too, take part in the process and follow what they like. So make sure to use this app to your utmost advantage. 

Skype:

It is a viral video calling app. Besides video chat and calling, users can send messages, photographs, short videos and other files. You can also use the group chat and group messages utility on Skype for connecting with several people at the same time. 

Interestingly, as businesses started to diversify, the setup grew liberal with multiple variants. Meetings were no longer restricted to boardrooms and within specific premises. Online conferences soon became standard. Skype thus emerged as a popular tool for carrying on professional communication on a friendly and secured platform. You can also get the paid business version of Skype with special features suitable for your business. However, this is useful only when you have enough monthly active users. 

Snapchat:

Visuals are compelling in creating an impression and sustaining it for a longer time. Snapchat rose to popularity because of the unique feature of sending photos and videos to your contacts. It is not a typical chatting app or a messaging app but an app with a difference. 

A user sends photos and videos to another user; it creates a thread. When the other user forwards it to another user, the thread passes from one to the other. This way it spreads to the entire Snapchat network. However, no one of the photographs, or videos, or messages remain forever. They disappear soon unless you save it. It’s a kind of ‘no strings attached’ communication that encouraged users to interact. 

As a brand, you can use captivating visuals – photos, videos, or GIFs for engaging the audience with your content. 

Viber:

Audience engagement is crucial and extremely important when you want to create a sustainable brand. Viber is a very popular social messaging app for sending messages, photos, GIFs, stickers, and even for making voice calls. It gives a complete virtual experience to its users. Besides communication between individuals, it even allows group communication.  

Having your brand on this platform can add an advantage to its immense popularity and a pool of young potential customers. It also assures you effective customer engagement at a micro-level. 

Creating a successful business is neither rocket science nor a matter of luck. It is purely the outcome of a strategically planned venture, complemented with suitable business tools. And, of course, right timing! So, I have just elaborated on five of the most popular social messaging apps. Any of them can be a valued tool for an entrepreneur. If you have a business idea in mind, take time out to plan it well, decide your target audience and choose the most popular messaging app for your venture.