Understanding Apps in a Marketing Context

Understanding Apps in a Marketing Context

Marketing campaigns can be enhanced through the use of mobile apps, designed to run exclusively on smartphones and tablets.

Mobile Apps

A mobile application (or mobile app) is a software application designed to run smartphones, tablet computers, and other mobile devices. They are available through application distribution platforms, which are typically operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry App World. Some apps are free, while others have a minimal price. Usually, they are downloaded from the platform to a target device, such as an iPhone, BlackBerry, Android phone, or Windows Phone. Sometimes they can be downloaded to less mobile computers, such as laptops or desktops.

Mobile apps were originally offered for general productivity and information retrieval, including email, calendar, contacts, stock market, and weather information. However, public demand and the availability of developer tools drove rapid expansion into other categories, such as mobile games, factory automation, GPS and location-based services, banking, order-tracking, and ticket purchases. The explosion in number and variety of apps made discovery a challenge, which in turn led to the creation of a wide range of review, recommendation, and curation sources. These include blogs, magazines, and dedicated online app-discovery services. The popularity of mobile applications has continued to rise, as their usage has become increasingly prevalent across mobile phone users. A May 2012 comScore study reported that during the previous quarter, more mobile subscribers used apps than browsed the web on their devices: 51.1% vs. 49.8% respectively.

Smartphone Apps: Apps on smartphones such as this one can be used as marketing tools.

Apps and Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is possible through the creation of apps. Viral marketing refers to a marketing technique that uses pre-existing social networks and other technologies to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses. It can be delivered by word of mouth or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks. Viral marketing may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, ebooks, brandable software, images, text messages, email messages, or web pages.

When a celebrity Tweets about the latest and hottest nightclub (which can be viewed by all the followers on an app), many people will see this and re-tweet to their own followers. This creates a viral message. It’s a powerful marketing tool that requires very little effort. All it takes is one person to set the chain and the “virus” is able to spread. This can be replicated for many other products and services. Viral marketing is also possible through marketing on third party apps. Using existing apps with target audiences is a good way to get a message out, especially if the target audiences are the same. Alternatively, a company can create its own app to promote their own marketing campaigns. Certain features make apps more favorable, such as GPS and mobile coupons.