The role of the Enterprise app – Internal company communication

For a lot of businesses, especially those that have a significant proportion of their staff working remotely, the development of a mobile solution that enables secure and confidential communication through mobile transmission is an increasingly interesting prospect. Other factors come into play here as well. Including the improvement in the UK’s mobile infrastructure, chief amongst these being the UK roll out of 4G. The lead telecoms partner at Deloitte comments:

“Although the UK was the eighteenth country in EU28 to launch 4G, it has enjoyed one of the most enthusiastic take-ups for the service in the region.”

This allows for more connectivity by remote workers and more mobile engagement in the cities where connections are typically faster and more widespread. Forrester’s 2013 Workforce Adoption Trends report explains that 37 per cent of employees are now working from multiple locations and 82 per cent of these workers are using mobile apps when they do so.

This shows no sign of abating - in fact quite the opposite - with a predicted 350 million employees set to use smartphones by 2016. The importance of ‘Enterprise’ apps cannot be undervalued: as well as aiding great productivity gains there will be significantly reduced overheads.

A recent survey from Symantec suggests that:

“73% of businesses rated increased efficiency as the key benefit of mobile computing.”

– a trend that will only increase as more enterprise-specific applications are launched on all mobile platforms, especially catered for tablet users.

A recent survey by Appcelerator suggests that the majority of companies still see mobile app development as part and parcel of their software development work generally - or even as part of their general IT department - and not as a standalone entity. However as mobile apps become more important many enterprises will go so far as to create a prominent new role in the organisation, a Chief Mobile Officer, a mobile champion whose responsibilities encompass everything from legacy integration,API creation, security, front end design and analytics employee feedback.

This, of course, opens up potential IT security issues, not only with already under- resourced IT security teams struggling to keep up with rapidly changing scope and scale issues, but also with loss of data and information. The real advantage lies in successfully integrating solutions and approaches and ensuring that the architecture remains flexible enough to deal with the continual shift in security requirements.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) allows for great control in enabling data loss prevention, through remotely wiping and locking devices as well as limiting application access and device configuration management. Many enterprises are turning to large players such as AirWatch, recently acquired by VMWare, to enable remote control and management of mobile devices to ensure compliance with software licensing, to increase security and to enable further mobility for smartphone and tablet devices.

Using Mobile Application Management (MAM) solutions allows for a separation of personal and corporate apps. The enterprise also gains from having a veto over installation of apps they perceive as a threat to security or inappropriate. There is no correct answer at this time; experimentation and feedback are required to find what is right for any specific organisation.

Jonathan Boakes, commercial director of leading mobile innovation agency Apptivation, had this to say on the subject:

“We see an emergence of Enterprise Stores where companies can distribute apps to employees safely and securely as well as through their current distribution networks and communication channels. Pre-approved applications – both internally developed as well as publically available, are pre-approved for employees to download and install on their devices. This allows the enterprise to have increased confidence that the devices are being kept securely, limit the risk of employees using incompatible applications, while also managing software costs through providing a selection of applications to download.”

– Jonathan Boakes

Enterprise apps are leading the charge of an emerging app economy: initially Fortune 500 companies were the first to deploy apps with 93% having already done so. (Rosenberg) However, as Deloitte mention in their 2014 TMT predictions, with the entry price for connected data devices falling, they expect to see mobile apps becoming more prevalent across the enterprise spectrum.

Deloitte talks about field workers undertaking tasks such as car rental check-in inspections, delivering packages, inspecting motorways or taking orders – all recorded and reported back via mobile devices to a central intelligent storage system which can process the information and quickly send out actions depending on the results. This evolution means that as more varied and disparate types of businesses start to depend on enterprise apps the continued development, management and support of apps will become only more important.

Case study: How an enterprise app can succeed without being in an app store

This case study is proof that enterprises can and should phase in their mobile plans, gaining buy-in and feedback from their staff along the roadmap. Apptivation recently worked with a strategic outsourcing company whose business issue was based around communication with their 75,000 staff, many of whom work remotely. A requirement was to encourage staff to log onto a responsive design portal that allows access to pay slips, corporate news, employee benefits and eventually compulsory e-learning.

Initially there had been a very low take-up, Apptivation advised that since significant investment had been recently been made on the portal, a phased approach should be taken. A simple solution was to develop a Browser app (Brapp) that would effectively give users an icon on their phones that would act as a window into the portal. Once this was coupled with effective push notifications the communications team was able to segment different groups of employees and target them with relevant news. These deep links provided a way to communicate with staff. Apptivation developed the solution across the iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows phone platforms, and this acted as a starting point in order to see how employees interact with this technology.

As this is the first step in this company’s mobile journey, the App was distributed via internal communications supported by Apptivation. The next steps will be to create a fully native mobile experience for the employees and to leverage a content management server so that the mobile experience can be fully immersive without having to rely on a web view hidden within the native mobile application.

The native/unique advantages of an app over a mobile web site

What’s the Difference Between a Mobile Website and an App?

Before you can evaluate the benefits of a mobile website vs. an app it’s important to understand the key differences between the two. Both apps and mobile websites are accessed on handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets. A mobile website is similar to any other website in that it consists of browser-based HTML pages that are linked together and accessed over the Internet, for mobile typically Wi-Fi or 3G or 4G networks. The obvious characteristic that distinguishes a mobile website from a standard website is the fact that it is designed for the smaller handheld display and touch-screen interface.

Like any website, mobile websites can display text content, data, images and video. They can also access mobile-specific features such as click-to-call (to dial a phone number) or location-based mapping. Apps are actual applications that are downloaded and installed on your mobile device, rather than being rendered within a browser. Users visit device-specific portals such as Apple’s App Store, The Google Play store, or Blackberry App World in order to find and download apps for a given operating system.

The app may pull content and data from the Internet, in similar fashion to a website, or it may download the content so that it can be accessed without an Internet connection. A native mobile application can leverage the fundamental features of a mobile handset and can deliver a slicker user experience. Native apps are well suited to delivering engaging content and functionality that employees want or need to regularly access. Apps also generally tend to focus around a specific functionality. They have convenience, speed and ease of use.

The main benefit of developing a mobile app versus a responsively designed mobile website is that by developing a mobile app in native code, you can embrace the native features or the hardware of the phone.

For example, most smartphones have built in accelerometers, cameras, GPS and gyroscopes. This can be leveraged to create a more engaging, secure user experience whereas a mobile website is limited to what it can access and achieve with the same mobile platform. Secondly, while a mobile-friendly website will always require an Internet connection, with an app this is not always the case. Many apps can store data locally on the phone, and you can continue interacting with them even when no connections are available.

Apps as CRM tools

I will go on to talk, in the next chapter, about how you can best promote your app to ensure that you acquire the maximum number of users and that the quality of those users is of a sufficient quality to ensure that they will provide you with the return on investment or level of in-app engagement that you are looking for. But, before I go on to tell you how to acquire customers I want to focus on a crucial benefit of having an application and one that is often overlooked: that is the usefulness of applications as CRM tools. The opportunity for a business to make more out of the customer base that they have by engaging with them through a new channel is one that has been seized upon by businesses across all sectors.

The Mobile House has worked with many gambling companies that have recognised mobile app usage as a way of capitalising on the ‘always on’ nature of customers’ relationship with their mobile phone. Companies such as these will acquire new customers via mobile whenever they can. But for them, it is sometimes even more important to try and turn a player that might normally bet twice a week via desktop into one that bets a third time through their mobile app. This popularity of a service such as ‘in play’ is perfectly suited to mobile and has become an increasingly important part of the gambling industry. One of the most popular ways to drive CRM through mobile apps is the push notification. The ability to send opted-in messages to remind users of upcoming events or special offers can produce an extremely high level of customer engagement. As we can see in the graph below, the most popular reason for consumers to opt in to a mobile CRM communication is to be rewarded in some way.

As people become more experienced in how companies are using mobile apps so they become more demanding and less patient of those companies that are not using the tactic in a constructive and helpful way. The ability to send push notifications updating customers on the progress of their orders or to inform them of the status of their loyalty account will soon become the minimum expected level of customer service. Those companies that do not provide that minimum standard will lose out, and it is their competitors that will gain.

Once again, the example I will give of how a company has used push notifications in a constructive and profitable way concerns a gambling operator. During the Euro 2012 football championships this particular operator established which team their app customers supported and then sent them a push notification promoting an exclusive offer half an hour before that country played. So England fans received an offer relating to the upcoming England game, Irish fans would receive an offer for the next Ireland game and so on. By engaging with customers at the right time and in the right way the operator saw some very strong results.

The integration of a push notification SDK (software development kit) can be included in any app build or at the time of an app update. There are many reliable and relevant third party push notification solutions on the market and we at The Mobile House believe that the power of the push should be an essential part of any B2B or B2C application.

Promoting your app - App store optimisation (ASO)

For an app publisher well-versed in the ways of online SEO and PPC the world of the app stores can seem like an unmeasurable and impossible to influence environment. Like a modern day version of the 19th century Gold Rush, everyone knows that there is plenty of money in there, they know that they need to be there, but not too many know how to get their hands on the cash once they get there.

App publishers are spending vast amounts of money acquiring customers through mobile advertising but are they paying enough attention as to how their app is discovered through app store search. The art of app store optimisation (ASO) is not as well-known as online search marketing, however, it can be done and companies that are doing it well are seeing some really strong results.

So, what is the secret?

Let’s start with iOS. It is well known that Apple like to keep what goes on within their app store as much of a mystery as possible. The constant changes that the tech giant makes to its chart ranking algorithm, for example, mean that an app promotion strategy that led to a high chart ranking one week will not necessarily work in the same way when attempted again. But knowing how the iTunes search functionality works and optimising your app submission and app download page to take advantage of that knowledge will stand you and your app in very good stead.

Only three things are covered by the iTunes search algorithm:

1. Your app name

This is the front line of your app store optimisation strategy. You should ask yourself whether your app name is working as hard as it can. In most cases it won’t be. Consider moving a key term into your app name. It is true that in a sector that has recognised branded apps within it most searches will be brand-specific. But what about the ones that are not? You know what your most successful search terms are on Google. Spend some time putting them into the iTunes search function and see where your app ranks. Every app would benefit from the inclusion of a relevant keyword or two in their app title.

2. Publisher name

This is a difficult one to influence as Apple do not allow you just to throw a random publisher name in to promote a keyword or two. But that is not to say that it can’t be used strategically.

3.Keywords

You have the opportunity to submit a list of keywords along with your app. You only have 100 characters to play with and if you get it wrong you won’t be able to rectify it until the next update. No pressure then. The good news is that there are online tools and ASO specialist agencies such as The Mobile House available to help you. The leading ASO tools in the market are, in our opinion at least, Searchman, Mobile Dev HQ and Sensor Tower. The way they work is as follows: They give insight as to how your app is performing for a particular search term. So, for example, if you have a bingo app then you can see how you rate for the search term bingo. If you are not ranking as well as you would like then you can study the apps that are performing well for this term and see if there is any tactic you might be able to ‘borrow’ from them. The tools will also run a report on the apps of your competitors. As none of these tools have the capacity to know for certain exactly what your competitors’ keywords are, they pull out the most likely and relevant keywords from your clients app description and search for those. Not 100% accurate, but in our experience usually about 80%-85%.

In terms of priority, keywords are the least important factor of the three that are searchable. Bear this in mind when it comes to submitting your list. Any word that is in the app name does not need to be repeated in the keyword list. It won’t add to your discoverability and it will invariably take up precious keyword character capacity

So what is the app description all about?

The biggest misconception regarding iTunes search is that it is all about the app description. It is not. As outlined above the algorithm doesn’t even cover the app description text. That is not to say that it doesn’t have a role in the process. The best ASO plans or the most expertly formulated mobile advertising strategy will only ever drive people to your iTunes app page. Pushing them into the all-important download itself is as much a part of ASO as keyword optimisation. I categorise everything on the app store page that isn’t searchable broadly as UX.

That would include the following:

App icon – Is the icon as strong as it can be? Have you run A/B tests through small scale cost-per-click mobile advertising campaigns for example?

Screenshots – Do your screenshots accurately depict the user journey that somebody will go through? Does it have a screenshot showing a completed sale/game or whatever the app’s core functionality is?

App description – As you don’t need to worry about cramming your app description full of SEO- friendly keywords you are free to sell the benefits of the app itself. The amount of space you have before the app description is truncated by the MORE button is small. As the majority of users will not read ‘below the fold’ use the space that you have wisely and sell the app!

Ratings and reviews – The importance of these cannot be overestimated. Ratings are becoming increasingly important in influencing chart position and a low rating is the biggest obstacle to turning an app page visitor into a downloader.

As for the Google Play app store, the way that apps are discovered through app store search is almost the complete opposite of everything I have described above. As you would expect, the Google Play search algorithm bears a lot of resemblance to the online Google search algorithm. It is significantly more sophisticated than its Apple counterpart and as such can rank apps in order of relevance to the search faster and more accurately.

In a complete role reversal of how Apple ASO works, in the Google Play store the app description is everything. The open nature of the Android platform means that app publishers can make constant changes to their app download page. Whether that is the content of the app description, the chosen screenshots or even the inclusion of a video to demonstrate the app in action. This final feature is not yet universally available through iTunes.

Obviously, compared to the work that can be done online, and indeed in the Google Play app store, the level of influence possible in the iTunes store is limited but the crucial point is that it can be influenced. Are you doing all you can? The Mobile House delivers more app store optimisation projects than any other agency in the UK. Please get in touch for a free audit of your app’s current discoverability

Mobile advertising

Now that your app is completely optimised for app store search and your app download page is fine-tuned to perfection you can approach the subject of mobile advertising and especially app acquisition advertising with confidence. I will go onto to talk about the need for a reliable and transparent tracking solution in the next chapter. A lot of the mobile advertising strategies I will go on to talk about now can work with or without the integration of such a solution. However, if a tracking solution is integrated, the amount of campaign data and information you will get will be significantly greater.

Mobile display is, after search, the most popular and widely-used of all mobile advertising options. Mobile display typically takes the form of small banners that feature either in-app or on a mobile website. Typically these ads will have been placed there by a mobile advertising network such as Millennial Media, Greystripe, Apple’s own iAd network or any of the many other players in the space. These banner ads are typically bought on a CPC (cost-per-click) basis and usually cost between 8p -12p per click and typically lead to an app download page or a mobile website. As well as the standard banner options advertisers can utilise interstitials and/or expandable ads as well as increasingly innovative rich media options. With well over 300 buying points at the last time of counting, the mobile advertising ecosystem can be a bewildering place. This is where the role of a mobile specialist advertising agency comes in.

SMS or text message advertising has gained a largely negative reputation over the last few years, mainly due to the fact that it has been the marketing method of choice for irresponsible companies using non opted-in lists of numbers in order to promote their services. As a result, many brands are very reluctant to consider using it as part of their marketing mix. However, when managed and carried out responsibly, an SMS campaign can offer advertisers a chance to send messages that are relevant and timely. WEVE is a joint venture between all the leading mobile phone operators in the UK: Vodafone, Telefonica (O2) and EE. Together they make up 80% of UK mobile customers. WEVE has a list of opted-in mobile customers in excess of 20 million.

Within that vast database it is possible to segment audiences based on a number of reasonably basic criteria such as: What are they interested in? Where do they live? How old are they?

Then the segmentation starts to get very interesting. As the data is gathered from the mobile operators themselves it is possible to identify people on a much more precise basis. For example, campaigns can be sent based on people’s geographical location at a particular moment in time. This technique is called geo-fencing and could work in the following way:

An online- only retailer could target shopping centres and ensure that anybody who fits their target demographic profile is served a message encouraging them to download their app at the point where, it is reasonable to assume, they are actually in the process of shopping, potentially at a competitor’s store.

As provision of free wifi in public places becomes more widespread, so do the opportunities for smart agencies and brands to connect with customers on a hyper-local level. As a way of reaching customers that are about to get on a plane by sponsoring free wifi provision in airports, or during the all-important downtime that people enjoy in coffee shops or bars, mobile wifi will become an increasingly effective tactic.

Another popular, if somewhat controversial, app acquisition strategy is that of incentivised downloads. This is when a user is in some way rewarded for downloading an app. The most popular example of this is the scenario whereby a user has downloaded a free game, is allowed to play the game for a limited amount of time and then is prompted to carry out a further action in order to unlock the rest of the game content. Most regularly this action will be a payment but on many occasions this action could be the downloading of a separate application. Basically, the player is being rewarded for downloading the new app by being given complete access to the app that he or she downloaded originally. There are pros and cons to this method. The advantages are that a large amount of downloads can be generated quickly for a comparatively low cost. The disadvantages include the fact that the users will, on the whole, not be of the best quality.

The only reason they downloaded this new app in the first place was so they could carry on playing their game for free. Another significant disadvantage to this method of driving downloads is the fact that Apple are completely against it. Apple’s aim is that the app store reflects the best, most useful and relevant apps that are available in that category at that time. Companies can storm to the top of the app chart via incentivised downloads with no guarantee that their app is of a good quality. The way that Apple have tried to counter this issue is to downgrade the importance of app download volume when they come to calculate their app rankings. More on that in the next chapter.

The App Store Charts

It is widely accepted that the higher up the app chart your app is the better. That is true in a lot of cases but certainly not all. The closer to the top of the app chart you are, the more you will benefit from what are known as ‘organic’ downloads. These are downloads that your app will pick up from people browsing the app store.

In almost all cases these downloads will end up being as useful, and very often more useful, than downloads that you are able to generate through any of the marketing strategies outlined above. The nature of how app charts and app store search results are displayed on mobile devices becomes a very important factor here as well. The graph below shows the relative importance of search results and app chart ranking by device. Because on an iPhone app chart rankings and search results are displayed one at a time on the screen and the user has to swipe the screen to bring up the next result, then high chart and search rankings are enormously important. Searchman estimates that an app’s discoverability actually drops by 10% every time a user is forced to swipe their iPhone in order to find their app.

Due to the nature of how search results are displayed on Google Play devices the drop off in discoverability is less severe. On an Android device there are six search results per screen meaning that if your app ranks at number 6 in an app chart it will still appear on the first page of results rather than being five swipes away as it is on an iPhone. I have worked with some companies whose whole app marketing strategy consists of ensuring that their app maintains a specific chart ranking. These companies, usually but not always in the games sector, will have a clear idea of how much an organic download is worth to them and how many organic downloads a specific chart position will produce. They will then calculate how much they would need to spend to maintain their target chart position, and gain the combination of organic and ‘bought’ downloads that they need to provide return on their advertising investment and profit for the app.

For other companies the quality of the download will far outweigh the quantity. For those companies a high chart position and low overall cost per download figure is not as important as ensuring that the downloads they do attain are profitable. To gain the level of detail and insight required to ascertain how valuable and useful downloads are involves some form of in-app tracking or attribution software.

How are the app charts calculated?

This is one of the secrets that Apple will never divulge but the amount of work that The Mobile House carries out in app promotion has enabled us to work out the answer to that question, to a certain extent, ourselves.

An app’s chart position is decided by a combination of the following factors:

Download volume: The number of times an app has been downloaded not just on that particular day but in the days running up to it. This is done to limit the amount of success that an app can have if it spends all of its marketing budget in an intense, one day burst of incentivised download advertising.

Usage: Again as a counter-attack to the incentivised download users the algorithm takes into account how often the app is opened and ultimately used. This means that apps that are downloaded and immediately deleted will suffer.

Reputation: The reputation of an app is determined by a combination of the app’s download history and user rating. If the app has been driving downloads consistently for a period of time and has been receiving largely positive ratings then the chart position will benefit. The weighting that Apple gives to these different factors is constantly in flux. A mobile specialist agency such as The Mobile House helps businesses understand the app charts and can help you navigate your way to the top of the charts, if that is your goal.

Tracking customer behaviour through apps

There are many good quality products available that can provide you with detailed information as to what is going on within your app. Products such as Flurry and Fuseboxx make user or player behaviour completely transparent to the publisher. Those solutions allow you to identify key conversion points within the app and enable you to monitor in-app monetisation in a clear and useful manner. As with most things in the world of mobile apps, games publishers have been the pioneers in pushing the boundaries of in-app analytics technology. As in-app monetisation becomes the only reliable method of revenue generation for games publishers, then getting transparent data regarding players’ in-app behaviour is essential. This info enables publishers to ascertain information such as when they should be asking players that have downloaded their app for free to put their hands in their pockets for the first time.

This information also opens up other chances to monetise for the publishers. Maybe they know that it takes an average of four app opens before a player carries out an in-app purchase for the first time? Then smart publishers might consider sending push notifications after three app opens to incentivise the players to come back and play again, safe in the knowledge that the data they have gathered suggests that the fourth visit is statistically more likely to yield revenue than any of the others. So, now that we have established how you can monitor how your customers use your app once it has been downloaded, the next challenge is how to track where those downloads have come from in the first place. Being able to effectively track where your customers have come from is essential for any accountable acquisition strategy. Put simply, if you don’t know where your downloads have come from, how will you know where to find your new players?

As the head of a mobile advertising agency, it is my job to talk to marketing directors at companies across all sectors. From gambling to retail to travel one of the biggest objections to allocating budget to mobile advertising is the feeling that it would be too difficult to effectively gather any data at the end of the campaign as to whether it had been a success or not. My answer to anybody that has this objection is that such an attribution model is freely available. In fact there are several solutions that can help you to run mobile advertising campaigns with confidence.

All of the major independent app tracking solutions work via an SDK (software development kit) - a single piece of code that is inserted into the application at the time of app submission or update. This is an easy process and will not result in any delays in app loading time. The way it worked before the advent of universal SDKs was that each mobile advertising network that was used for advertising would need their own SDK added into the client’s application. This would often lead to a situation in which a publisher would have to install several different SDKs into their app in order to track where downloads had come from. These universal SDKs have negated the need for such a cumbersome and labour-intensive process.

The main players in the world of app tracking solutions are AD-X Tracking, Mobile App Tracking (from a US based company called Has Offers), Kochava, AdEven and Appsflyer. Although the different solutions vary, they all exist to perform the same function: to help advertisers understand the value of mobile media spend by source. Steven Chard, Director of Business Development at AD-X Tracking describes the way his solution works as follows:

“AD-X is a tech layer designed specifically for mobile applications. By integrating the AD-X universal SDK, installs will be attributed on a last-click basis and clients can define what events post-install are most important to them, i.e. registration, sale, sale value etc.Ultimately AD-X can facilitate optimisation across 400+ networks globally. Our clients benefit from understanding the true value of their media channels in terms of retention, ROI, lifetime value and how to actively re-engage lapsed users through re-targeting. AD-X was first to market with mobile tracking and remains the most sophisticated, accurate and cost effective tracking platform on the market.”

– Steven Chard

So not only can tracking give you visibility as to where a download has come from it can also follow that user past the point of download and into the application itself. The benefits here are various. If you have advertising running with networks A and B you may see that network A delivers a greater volume of downloads than network B. But with the additional visibility gained from an app tracking solution it may become clear on further analysis that the customers gained through network B are much more likely to deposit and play. This obviously allows the operator to start making informed decisions on where to put their advertising spend on the more valuable metrics of in app activity rather than merely download quantity.

I asked Steven Chard about the potential issue of security. Because a solution such as AD-X collects player data from within the application, aren’t operators worried about that valuable information being seen by a third party? His reply:

“This is not something operators need to worry about, with a solution such as AD-X, clients are in complete control of their data. They make the decision to post back to network for optimisation or not to. AD-X acts as the data processor, our clients pull the levers. AD-X stores data on secure servers and data transfer is dictated entirely by our clients.”

– Steven Chard

As well as the obvious benefits for acquisition, tracking can also be used to help with reactivation. As the data from in-app activity is gathered, operators can look for certain trends. What is the average number of games/bets that a customer has before they become dormant (or even worse, before they delete your app)? A smart operator can look for trends in the data and try to prevent this drop-off by sending an offer via push notification or with an offer specific to the game/sport that the customer seems to be most interested in. App tracking may not be the sexiest part of the mobile marketing ecosystem but in many ways it could be the most important.

Conclusion

The world of the mobile app offers the chance for a brand to connect with customers and to acquire new ones on a level that has rarely been seen before. The opportunities for innovation and engagement are limited only by the restrictions of the devices on which they run. And as Apple in particular continue to develop their operating system to incorporate even more features, the chance for brands to enhance their relationship with customers old and new via an icon on their smartphone or tablet desktop will continue to excite.