There are plenty of different strategies you can use to boost your eCommerce sales. You can improve your checkout process, engage more on social media, make use of an influencer marketing campaign, invest in content marketing, and much more. However, one often-overlooked strategy is creating your own mobile app.
Almost half of all web traffic now occurs through mobile devices. To give your customers the best experience on their mobile phones, you can provide them with a custom mobile app that interacts seamlessly with your eCommerce brand. To get started with this strategy, below are the steps you can use to increase your eCommerce sales with the help of a mobile app.
Decide on Your Goals
The first thing you’ll want to do is decide on your goals for the mobile app. Yes, you want to increase your sales totals, but implementing a mobile app can achieve a lot more. You should take the time to write down specific goals for your mobile app before you begin, as this will help you with the creation process.
For example, maybe you want your mobile app to help increase your social media engagement. In this case, you’d want to create a mobile app that displays your latest social media posts. You could also add a feature that makes it easy for customers to share your products or their purchases via their own social media channels.
Write down a few goals, trying to be as specific as you can. Rather than writing “increase sales”, try something more concrete like “increase sales by 15%”. By being specific with your goals, you’ll be able to tell when you meet them or when you need to make improvements.
Create a knowledge base
Another common goal is integrating an app with a knowledge base management system. A knowledge base is essentially an online library that provides more information about your products.
By integrating it with your new app, customers can easily get answers to their questions, which will help them feel more secure about their purchase. In fact, having a knowledge base can help your customer support team take a lot of the load off their shoulders, making them more efficient in their work. This will in turn amp up customer satisfaction, helping you generate more sales in the end.
Design the App
Once you know what you want your app to accomplish, it’s then time to start designing your mobile app. During this phase, you just want to come up with some rough ideas for what your app will look like. Think about the color schemes you want to use, potential layouts, and the features you want to include. Create some sketches that you can use during the creation process to help guide you.
It’s also much easier to add features to an app from the beginning, rather than adding them in later. Therefore, you should try to think big right from the start. You can always remove features as you go along if they are too complicated or pushing you past your budget.
Choose How to Create the App
Now comes the time to actually develop the mobile app. To do this, you have two primary options – either attempt to do it yourself or hire someone else. If you already have experience with app development, or someone on your team does, then you’re likely good to go. If not, you can use an app maker tool, which helps people develop apps from scratch without prior experience. An app maker allows you to save money on the cost of hiring a developer and you can create the app just the way you want it.
Your other option is to hire someone. You can either hire a company that specializes in eCommerce app development or hire an independent contractor or freelancer. Which one you pick will largely depend on the number of features you want your app to have and your available budget. Spend some time contacting different developers and talk to them about what you’re looking for. Ask them for a cost estimate, then use this, along with their portfolio and previous customer reviews, to help you make your decision.
Test and Improve
After you have a working version of your app, you don’t want to just release it to the public right away. You’ll want to spend some time testing it out and looking for ways to improve it. Start by testing it out yourself, trying to use every different feature you included. Then give it out to some of your employees or friends and family. Ask them to use it in any way they can think of, looking for any issues or areas that could be better.
If you want to receive even more feedback, you can release the app to a select group of customers as well. Either way, once you’ve gathered a decent amount of feedback about your app, spend time making improvements. Make sure you remove any errors or fix any issues that people report. When you release this app to everyone you want it to be as perfect as possible so you’re better off spending the time now to get it right.
Start Marketing Your App
Finally, when your app is ready for your customers, you need to let them know about it. You’ll want a separate marketing strategy in place to promote the launch of your new app. There are a few easy ways you can do this, such as:
- Sending out a message to your email list subscribers
- Posting about it regularly on your social media channels
- Creating a popup or other message on your website with a link to download
- Starting an advertising campaign on sites like Google, Facebook, or Twitter
Choose marketing strategies that play to your existing strengths. For example, if you have a large social media following, posting about it on social media makes the most sense. It’s also a good idea to mention your mobile app to anyone who completes a purchase through your site, as these are the people most likely to download and use your app in the future.
Increasing Your Sales Thanks to a Mobile App
If you developed a strong mobile app, and you marketed it well, you should start to see an increase in your eCommerce sales before long. A good mobile app gives your audience a convenient way to interact with you, one that they can return to over and over again. Hopefully, this guide was able to get you started and you’ll be well on your way towards increasing your eCommerce sales with your new mobile app.
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