2013 Year in Review: Five Key Mobile Mentality Posts

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2013 was a year of incredible growth, not just for Apptive, but for the mobile ecosystem as a whole. 2014 is set to continue the trend as advanced mobile strategy sets the divide for ecommerce merchants worldwide.

In order to make sure you get 2014 kicked off on the right foot, we curated some of the most useful posts from the Apptive blog up to this point. Check these out to get caught up on mobile strategy for the new year!

Think Mobile, Act Local

Have a physical presence but want to engage with your users on mobile devices? This post will give you insight into a mobile customer’s mindset and strategies to effectively engage them.

Infographic: Email Marketing vs. Facebook Page vs. Mobile App

How do you market to an online audience? This infographic will give you a quick (and dare we say, attractive?) visual guide to three primary methods of digital marketing.

The Smartphone Impulse

Impulse buying has a bad rep. This blog post will show you how to trigger impulse purchases the right way in order to increase customer satisfaction as quickly as you increase your sales.

How to Match App Design to iOS7

2013 also marked the release of Apple’s most significant update of their iOS operating system. This post will help you match the style of your app to the iOS7 standard.

Infographic: M-commerce and You!

Mobile ecommerce is the most rapidly growing trend for online store owners. This infographic will give you a good idea of the current state of m-commerce and how to use it for your online store.

We appreciate all of our readers and hope that these posts have proved and will continue to prove helpful. Check back often for more insights in 2014 and beyond!

The Smartphone Impulse

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Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat: impulse buying has sort of become a dirty term. It needn’t be. That is because impulse buying, a neutral term, is often associated with feelings of regret when an unplanned purchase tends to not live up to the value that was immediately associated with it upon purchase. We also tend to think of negative impulse purchases with far more clarity than positive ones. That time you bought an awesome bracelet on the fly and wore it for a full summer? Positive buy. The time you bought an animal shaped hat at a theme-park and relegated it to the back of your closet a week later? Not so much.

Interestingly, it seems that impulse purchases in physical retail stores are actually down in recent years. While it would be nice to think that we are just getting more careful as consumers overall, some have posited that in reality the reason for this decrease is due to a phenomena known as “mobile blinders.” This refers to those situations where consumers pay attention to their smartphones rather than the tasty treats and knick-knacks that surround them when they aren’t in an active buy mode.

However, while smartphones are decreasing the number of physical impulse purchases, they may actually be increasing impulse purchases overall. According to a study conducted by PayPal, smartphones lead to something that I’ll describe as an intelligent impulse purchase. Essentially, rather than simply buying an object on the fly, a smartphone enables a user to go through the desire > research > purchase cycle in minutes rather than hours or days. That way, a user is both more likely to buy a product that find interesting while simultaneously increasing the likelihood that they will be satisfied with the purchase overall.

So what does this mean for small business or ecommerce owners with a mobile app? With creative messaging and communication channels, you have the ability to directly target products to customers with a high likelihood that they will buy on the spot. It also means that cultivating both an engaged and happy customer base (they will likely try and see what others have said about your stuff, after all) will provide exponential returns.

If you own an app already, what is your strategy for triggering the impulse buy? If you don’t how would you use it to make that happen?