Communication Evolution & Going Mobile: Take a Lesson from “Take Out”
By Paolina Milana, CMO, AppNRG
You want fries with that? Supersize me? Happy Meal, please. We’re all familiar with our favorite fast-food phrases, and when it comes to the communication evolution, “Take Out” and “To-Go” have taken on a whole new meaning. Public Relations, Corporate Communications, Marketing & Media Relations have all gone mobile – with several organizations from major public agencies to grassroots’ non-profits building custom mobile apps to engage with prospects and customers on-the-go.
Audiences today are mobile. We’re social. Less and less are we tied to our desks and our laptops. We not only talk on our iPhones and Androids, but they talk back to us, telling us where we are, helping us figure out where we want to go and how to get there, informing us about what most interests us, alerting us to special deals and notifications, and allowing us to take whatever we care about most with us wherever we go and whenever we want.
As communication continues to evolve, faster and faster, businesses need to think and act as if they’re the friendly face behind the drive-through window taking orders and serving up value in record-time to customers who come to them for what they want. Here are a few lessons we can learn from “Take Out.”
- Dollar-Value Meals: Fast. Easy. Fresh. Affordable. Give your customer what suits her tastes, what matters most to her. (This implies that you know who your customers are and what they like.) Use your mobile app to give your customer more bang for his buck. Just like the drive-thru value menu, offer your already-interested mobile user what he has indicated is relevant. Not the sale of something to eat. But the choice of whether or not he wants fries or apple slices. Mobile apps allow for individual tailoring of your offerings with your customers wants.
- A Starbuck’s on Every Corner. Mobile devices are portable, and always connected. With geo-tracking, a mobile devices owner is forever findable. And that’s one of the many major benefits of a mobile app. Your customer has already given you permission to connect with them, so meet them where they’re at. Physically. When your customer travels, go with him, and push an alert to his personal device to let him know you’re right around the corner.
- Vary your menu: Mobile website vs. custom mobile apps? Each one complements the other and not one can adequately take the place of the other, so vary your menu of offerings to feed your clients what’s right for them.
True engagement via mobile devices – the features, functions, capabilities – are themselves evolving, and we want to hear what you think about the needs, uses and effectiveness of mobile today and in the future. Share your thoughts about mobile lifestyles and audience engagement on-the-go by taking the AppNRG “10-minute, 10-question, 10-winners” survey. Doing so may just win you a free custom mobile app.
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