Blog, Mobile Marketing strategies

5 Simple In-App Strategies to Retain Customers

Websites are powerful assets, but the way that people access websites and the internet is continually evolving. In the US, time spent on mobile digital media is much higher than on desktop at 51%, and this number continues to grow. The truth is, if you can't reach your audience through mobile you will get left behind by the competition. This is why apps matter! End users love personalized experiences and customizing your smartphone with the apps that matter to you is a great way of making sure you get the information and alerts you're interested in. Personally I'm grateful for airline apps that notify me when the cost of my tracked flight goes down so I can book my trips at reasonable prices!

No matter what business you're in, offering great apps for your customers is an opportunity not to be missed and a great way to keep them loyal. Here are five simple strategies you can use to achieve this:

1. Psychology matters, use it!

Creating a sense of urgency has been proven to encourage people to take action, because an emotional reaction replaces deliberate thought, making us act more impulsively. You can do this in your app by adding a countdown timer that counts down to the end of a time-limited deal or promotion, or even to an event or product launch, for example. This will drive your customers to take up the offer if it's only available for a certain period of time, or if you're counting down to a launch it'll drive excitement and encourage them to check back in when what they're looking for becomes available.

2. Show off your latest products and deals

With an app you're immediately more accessible; it only takes one tap of an icon for customers to interact with you. Once they've clicked that button you want to make sure that they like what they see so that they keep coming back. Use a beautiful gallery or slider to showcase your latest products images or videos. The great part is you could set up app notifications with a direct link to your image, so when a user clicks through they get to exactly where you want them to be. You can use it to highlight special promotions, new products, new menu items, monthly specials, the choice is yours! You can even add a text alternative to your images to optimize your search engine rankings if your app is also associated with a website.

3. Emphasize special offers and announcements

Using images is a great technique to get your customers engaged, but making sure they see your latest offers or announcements helps to keep them excited and interested in your business. Whether you want to give them a special discount or get them to sign up to your newsletter, you can do this directly from within your app using a popup. With various controls available, you can set the time delay before it appears or only show it to returning customers, for example, to reward them with a promotion for being a loyal customer. What's more, you can embed contact forms or other useful elements into the popup to capture exactly what you need and promote your best deals.

4. Encourage interaction

Customers enjoy being able to interact not only with your business, but also with each other. It fosters a sense of community and makes them feel like they're part of something bigger. By adding comments to your app your customers can leave their feedback, add star ratings and even vote. It's great for your business too because over 88% of online shoppers incorporate reviews into their purchase decisions. It also gives you valuable feedback so you can stay on top of what your customers are asking for and keep them coming back by responding to their needs.

5. Make it easy to contact your business

It's no secret that making sure customers can reach you if they need to is good practice in delivering good customer experiences and increasing satisfaction. You can do this in several ways, but adding a simple contact form your app is a great one. Forms can be used in different ways too, such as for event registration, polls or newsletter sign up. Allowing customers to easily share information with you, if they want to, not only reinforces their relationship with your business but also keeps them coming back. Retaining your customers should be part of a bigger strategy and is not something that can be achieved overnight. If you've created an app for your website, you've already taken the first step. Try these five tips and we're sure that you'll be delivering experiences that your customers will enjoy, appreciate and will help in keeping them loyal. This guest post was written by Emilie Murphy who manages Product Marketing at POWr. Headquartered in San Francisco, POWr's mission is to provide customizable, easy-to-use and affordable solutions to help small businesses grow. With over 50 website plugins available that are customizable, mobile-responsive and work on any platform, the possibilities are endless for your site!