With the invention of computers and the boon of the Internet, digitization has picked up steam globally. Be it maintaining the database of students at school, recording the merchandise of the neighborhood grocery shop, keeping accounts in a multinational bank or giving life to a dream of the Prime Minister of the seventh largest country in the world, through the initiative “Digital India”. An aeon that sees such widespread implications of computation makes it an imperative for all businesses, of all scales, to give a virtual life to all the thriving concepts of the trade. Let’s take a few examples to get a deeper insight into the idea.
Suppose you’re on your legwork amidst a bustling market, for the thumb-ring you are looking forward to wear or your next party, or the mobile cover you want to gift your brother on his birthday, or may be the card to gift your girlfriend on hers. You finally lay your hand on one but the price is too high. You start to flaunt your expertise in bargaining, but manage to set up a deal at just 40 bucks more than your budget. You are about to leave when the seemingly vulnerable guy at the stall, packs your item and closes the deal at twenty bucks lesser and you’re happy to walk back home, having sacrificed the e-rickshaw fare. Step into the digital world, and all the altercations are reduced to a discount coupon offer that pops up on the notification bar of your smartphone. Also, these days you don’t really need a window of yonder shopping mall or showroom to enjoy your window shopping. All it takes is to browse through the app of the brand you choose to wear. And that’s exactly how we convert real life abstracts and entities into virtual ones.
A very pertinent question here would be: How can an application make the customers get to your product? Well if not gluey, it can definitely act as sticky clay. A mobile app is indeed like unmoulded clay. You can do what you want with it; you can make it stylish, user-friendly, functional, shocking, or informative. But what you really want to do is create an app that has features your customers will love, while at the same time it should well branded and beautifully designed. The more often you can get customers involved with your app, the sooner they will be inclined to buy your product and/or service. A thumb rule states that it takes approximately 20 times for a potential customer/client to come across your brand for your product/service to get truly noticed. In advertising this is called the “effective frequency”.
Now, why would a newcomer adopt such a comparatively exotic and new strategy in gameplay, turning down the more full-proof classical ones? The answer is: To any educated business professional, a mobile application is the first choice to bag an extensive outreach. Statistics show that the average middle-ager spends more than two hours a day on his or her mobile device. Further, it is important to note that promotional email messages receive about a 5% read rate while ‘Push’ notifications are read by a whopping 97% people.
But with the availability and widespread exploitation of this resource, the competition has become too tough, and this is where customer-friendliness comes in as a wildcard. And, why not? Clientele is the greatest resource after all. Thereby, isn’t it quite obvious that something that could keep the customers satisfied is good fodder to your business? No matter what scale your business is rated as, your customers need a way to reach you. Implementing a messaging (or help desk) feature within your app can really make a difference in the way you communicate with your customers. OpenTable, for example, built its entire business model around this principle. Instead of calling a restaurant for a table, you can book it with less than five clicks on their platform. For the generation that types faster than it speaks, it is quite imperative that more customers would prefer to approach you via text to over the phone. Giving facilities like attending to login problems, complaints, payment, inquiry generation, delivery of goods and many more issues would prove immensely helpful for mid-scale and small scale industries, who don’t yet have a dominant brand name. You can solve their query over the phone or through a computer network. If your customer has any confusion or question, then he will ask you and you should be polite and responsible to solve their issues. After all, goodwill is the greatest asset that a company has!
Next comes the turn to address the question associated to the impact of the weapon on education: Are they are a boon or a curse to individuals mid-way through their education? It is classically proven that anything that contains educational value, gains acclamation quite easily as the parents don’t hinder their children from using them, and neither does the older generation discard them as futile. And when you have such a plus-point to your credit, it will surely help your business prosper. In this tech-savvy era, the trendy and cool apps rule over the boring study and exams, and students without any doubt, love the apps. However, when we combine the two, the outcome is trendy as well as a powerful source of effective learning. The mobile apps are the most interactive and constructive way to attract the students towards studies and enhance their productivity. These mobile applications have brought about some crucial changes in the education industry, as most of the institutions, tutorial centers, and individual educators are getting in touch with the app developers, to get the mobile apps for imparting knowledge, and this is because the educational apps offer a lot of benefits. It provides a platform for interactive learning. Gone are the days of “reading” between the lines to prepare for the exams. Thanks to the apps, the black and white pages have got some great animate and colourful visualization. Moreover, it’s no longer about sticking to the long and fixed study hours under the table lamps. You can complete your lessons on the go and that, you can do any time in 24/7. Also, remember the reprimand from the good old days, for forgetting to carry the text books at school? Well, all of them are now just a touch away. Besides, just the concepts and analysis of texts, they guarantee entertainment as well by engaging the curious minds in various mind games and brain teasers. Just the perfect kind of avocation parents would like for their children to find interest in. Apps also enable individually-focussed learning. While a teacher in a class has to take charge of the entire strength, an app provides more of a one-to-one interaction. Furthermore, parents would be able to monitor and supervise their child’s progress and guide them likewise. There would be no worries about the changing syllabi too as the app keeps installing updates.
And all these provide a huge potential for a financial windfall to the businesses knitted to education. They are just another marvellous example of how digitization and virtualization of real-life concepts can make a business thrive.
The last challenging question a business enthusiast could ask is “How far can mobile apps see me through in my venture?” Mobile apps stretch the domains of business territories. Digital marketing era is booming in the world and through this you can advertise your website or products on the internet. You can brand your products or promote your business through social media networks. You can also market your products or website by using SEO and SMO techniques. You can tie up with some companies that could promote your business and post free add and submit your website to another website to give external linking and internal linking to get more traffic on your business website.
But, is technology disloyal? No, not at all. Anything that is handled with prudence gives returns in the long run. And the best part is, when you offer your business a gratuity like a mobile app, the market has a return gift in store for you. With all the noise out there — roadside banners, billboards, flashing signs, newspaper ads, flyers, coupons, websites, website banners, Facebook ads, and email marketing — brands slowly lose their impact on customers because of the immense amount of advertising surrounding us all. It’s time to go back to making a true and sincere connection with the customers, and making them a loyal lover of the product and/or service rather than the glow signs. A mobile app is definitely not going to save a business, but it can be a way of staying closer to the customers, and being just a “fingertip” away at all times.
A mobile app is going to be a standard component of any business in the future and the choice one would make today is going set the foundation for the future of his business. The wait is only until one decides to take the first step forward towards digitization.