Why and How Consumer Brands Should Be Thinking About Mobile Apps

We recently spoke with Jeremy Lockhorn, the director of emerging media and video innovation at Razorfish, about best practices for approaching mobile app development and the importance of thinking about apps as part of a larger mobile marketing ecosystem. Here’s a snippet from the full interview available on eMarketer Total Access.

eMarketer: Why would a brand need a mobile app?

Jeremy Lockhorn: Having an app is kind of the ultimate in pull marketing. We’re talking about probably the most intimate device in consumers’ lives. It’s always on. They carry it with them. When consumers put a branded app on their phone, they’re inviting you into an ongoing conversation and to have a presence on a device that’s so intimate. That’s one of the things that makes it attractive for any brand, whether you’re talking about a branded app or a sponsorship of an existing application. It’s a great way to stay connected with the audience and to carry on a longer conversation.

eMarketer: What are some of the most compelling functions a consumer products marketer might consider building into a mobile app?

Mr. Lockhorn: It depends on what the product is and who the audience is. If you think about how people are using their phones besides the obvious, for communcation, I think it falls into two buckets—tools and utilities, and time-killers and entertainment. Between those two buckets, there are lots of different ways that consumer products companies can deliver a valuable experience.

In the snack world, you’ll see a lot of branded games or sponsorships of existing games. There is also sponsorship of video apps. On the utility side, you plug into the audience, figure out what they need and create utilities to help them manage aspects of their lives that relate to the products. Utilities might include recipes, shopping lists, product and store locators, night life guides for adult beverage brands, snow reports, connections to charities or causes.

eMarketer: How should consumer brands think about incorporating social media into their apps?

Mr. Lockhorn: They can use Facebook Connect. Their apps can enable people to vote on and rate things, comment and tweet. The brand is enabling the dialogue and empowering consumers to participate in that dialogue.

For a mobile app that’s a game, one approach could be to have people post the scores they’re getting as a Facebook status. You can imagine a leaderboard that would encourage competition, bragging rights and encourage repeat plays.

eMarketer: There are so many apps out there. What can marketers do to ensure they’re promoting their app properly?

Mr. Lockhorn: Brands need to think strategically about what functionality they’re going to build into the app and try to do something that no other app is currently doing or that it’s not doing well. One of the mistakes brands make is developing an app, throwing it in the app store and hoping it goes viral. If you’re not going to set aside a promotional budget there’s little point in building it. The budget should be somewhere between three and five times the cost of building the app.

eMarketer: Marketers need to create apps that are so compelling people want to use them repeatedly.

Mr. Lockhorn: Yes. The right way to solve the repeat visit issue is to develop something of value. Marketers shouldn’t just post an app to the store and think that the development is done. You need to have a longer-term strategy. You should continue to develop after the initial launch. Monitor usage behavior. Updating the app once a quarter is a good benchmark but it depends on the functions and the feedback. You need to have people use the app repeatedly and spend time with it.

eMarketer: What kind of promotional strategy do you suggest?

Mr. Lockhorn: I would have keyword search, online display media, mobile display, textlink advertising across mobile networks. You can be very strategic about how you flight the promotional campaign. You can pulse it—which involves trying to drive a large amount of downloads in a short amount of time. That pushes your app up the popularity list and it can get more passalong if it’s in the top 10—for a few days. It’s geting harder and harder to do that.

We’ve always looked at the broader mobile marketing ecosystem as the connective tissue between marketing and media channels. It can bridge the gap between print and in-store purchase, or a TV ad and an in-store purchase. The same thing applies when we think of apps. It’s just part of the ecosystem. If you’ve got relevant media in market, it can’t hurt to tag that media with a call to action around your mobile application.

When you’re planning an app it’s important to take a step back and look at the mobile ecoysstem and craft a strategy not only as to how your brand will play on the app, but across the ecosystem. That ecoystem includes branded apps, application sponsorships of a third-party app, mobile display, mobile search, SMS, SMS in CRM programs or activation through rewards and loyalty programs. Marketers also need to think about Bluetooth delivery and mobile couponing. The app itself is just the tip of the spear.

The full version of this interview is available here, to eMarketer Total Access subscribers only. Every day they have access to new interviews with digital marketing leaders and trendsetting entrepreneurs.

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