7 Mobile Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid

Get mobile marketing wrong and you can do far more damage to your brand than the worst email or marketing campaign imaginable. When using SMS, be sure to avoid these seven deadly sins in order to ensure maximum impact from your campaign.

1.       Forgetting a call to action

Don’t forget to tell the customers what they have to do next, and remember to include relevant contact details. 75% of people prefer to receive offers over any other form of call to action. Be sure to add either

·         A reply option

·         Address to visit

·         Website to visit

·         Coupon to present in the store and

·         A number to call

2.       Forgetting to test and check

In the haste to send a message, don’t forget to test and check it for errors first. Think you are a customer receiving the message.

·         Does it make sense?

·         Are the details correct?

·         How could it be improved?

Remember to check the text, contact details, web addresses, spelling and grammar and phone numbers.

3.       No Option to Unsubscribe

By omitting an unsubscribe option, you are not only infuriating your clients, you are also breaking the law. Unsubscribe options include a link to a preference centre, a link to automatically unsubscribe, allow replies of ‘stop’ or ‘unsubscribe’. Also, include a number to call.

4.       Treat everyone the same

With mobile you can segment your customers into far smaller and precise categories, allowing you to give your customers services that they want.

5.       Overloading customers

By their very nature, bulk SMS’s are intrusive. So don’t overload customers by sending them lots of text messages all at once. The rules to follow are:

·         Don’t repeat a message exactly

·         Don’t  include a call to action that has been completed

·         Make sure you wait to-3 weeks before sending more texts

6.       Focussing only on selling

Add value to what you do, rather than just relying on sales. Alternate message types by using local information relevant to the recipient, useful information about your niche and interesting videos relevant to your niche.

7.       Developing a pointless app

Unless your app is providing something or genuinely useful to the customer, then it’s really not worth going through the pain, cost and distraction of developing something that most users will ignore.

If you can avoid these, then you can assume that you are well inside the safe zone.

5 Things to Remember When You Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

Browsing the web via mobiles is no longer the future. It is already the norm among millions of mobile users in the west and is seeing massive growth in Asia as well. With India standing second in the world in terms of the number of active mobile users in the world, the trend is only expected to swing further upward. With Google’s latest update, mobile friendliness has become a must for all websites. So, how do website owners make their websites mobile friendly?

In this article we give you five ways by which you can make your business website mobile-friendly:

1. Make sure your developer is clear on the objective

You need your website to be mobile-friendly and your developer or the development team needs to be very clear on this. This means that the website should incorporate smaller layouts and designs according to it. For this, the web developer needs to have the experience that it takes to actually see through the development process. Look for sample website that the developer has built, go through them in detail, and proceed further only if you and your team are fully convinced as to the competence of the developer concerned. 

2. Keep it simple

It’s not the time of animations and flash anymore. They are past. With customers keen to look at an app for only as much as a few seconds, you need to eschew long text and the like. Use images wherever possible, and if you need to explain something to the customer, do it through videos. Focus on the smaller but important stuff like highlighting your company logo and contact information so that the user may contact you when needed.

3. Use short forms with drop-down menus

Short forms and drop-down menus are the order of the day. They not only make the job easier for the user, they are also more attractive. Try using a long form and see how difficult it is if you have doubts. Cut the text and have radio buttons instead.

4. Focus on finger-friendly navigation

Mobile usage happens on the go. When you design your app remember that users are going to use the app when they are going out for a stroll, waiting for their train or having their lunch. So your app needs to be easy on the fingers and thumbs of the users. Make sure you have large buttons for form submission. Eschew longer menus as well.

5. Give each page a quick call to action

This is important from the usability point of view. You need to give your customers the option of taking quick actions like signing up for a subscription or downloading an eBook. Don't include call to action that are complicated.

How You Can Ensure Mobile Security in Your Organization?

A majority of IT firms today allow Bring your own device (BYOD) due to the consumerization of IT in the modern workplace. That the mobile phone has become a can’t-do-without in today’s life is a reality that cannot be ignored. When employees are given the choice of using their own consumer-based devices in the workplace, it is imperative to counter theft and move towards ensuring security and control. Recent surveys underscore the seriousness of the problem data pointing out that four out of 10 businesses being affected by a security breach.

Well, Mobile security actually begins with protecting the actual mobile device. Today, a plethora of apps exist to prevent data theft on case a mobile has been stolen. It is also possible to track down the device with iPhone’s having special apps to track them.  But what do businesses actually do when faced with security issues?

1. Maintain and control security settings in one central location. It is important to never rely on devices that allow the user to make security decisions. It would also help if organizations require enforceable access control on all mobile devices i.e. users should not be able to disable the access control that IT has put in place.

2. Always use two-step authentication for devices and apps where possible. This makes it necessary to provide both a password and additional information such as a code sent to an email address in case the device is lost or stolen.

3. Have regular Consultations with various departments such as finance, HR and legal departments about their needs. This is because your mobile device policy doesn’t affect just the IT department.

4. Establishing cloud-based servers or URL filters for websites that are either blocked by the company or known to be malicious. This precaution will help to protect the endpoint by not allowing an employee to visit websites that could compromise security.

5. Frame a policy for mobile devices depending on your requirements and the company’s exposure to risk. Although BYOD has now more or less become the norm, it does pose a higher risk than policies such as choose your own device (CYOD) and corporate-owned, personally enabled (COPE) which may be more appropriate.

Custom Android Development is the Future!

Since it was first introduced in 2008, Google Android development has been going places. Though primarily designed for touch-screen mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets its use is not confined merely to them. Android is increasingly being used for other high-end applications such as digicams, game consoles, cars, televisions, watches, and other electronic equipments.

For this reason, custom Android application development services have gained high prominence the world over. Android because of the secure environment that it provides has risen rapidly to become a convenient development platform for mobile devices. Added to that, it also has the openness and complete support environment of Google. This is what makes Android a complete mobile operating system.

Custom Android application development services now covers a vast spectrum of categories such as multimedia, travel, Internet, ecommerce, games and other areas. The market for Android apps is steadily rising because of the increasing popularity of Android smart phones and the ease of use of Android apps.

Since Android is an open-source OS, it is opening up several possibilities for third party developers keen on exploiting the open-source nature of Android and taking Android development a step further. Thus, the prospects for Android development are now potentially infinite as more and more unique Android apps are being created every day. Android comes with a large collection of libraries to extend an application's potential. The Android Software Development Kit also provides developers several ways of creating unique and interactive apps for Android enthusiasts around the world.

Android takes the possibility of custom development much further than any other mobile OS. Written in Java and C++, Android comes packaged as a group of programs especially for mobile devices. Android offers great possibilities in the form of features like multi-touch, multitasking, accessibility, portability, streaming media support, web browser and voice based features, Java support and storage.

There are several companies that offer customized Android applications. But it is your duty to ensure that they are secure, robust and scalable. These characteristics can only be ensured by developers who have the talent and experience to deliver these. Above all, the development team you choose should also conform to your budget! Have you found the right Android development partner yet?

Mobile App Development- What You Need To Get Right?

Looking back at the days when mobile phones were primarily a device to make calls, it almost seems like they were stone-age. But now, with the mobile phone or rather the Smartphone having intruded every part of our lives, and means of communication like emails, browsing, banking, payment software, gaming and ecommerce, business too has been forced to go the mobile way. There are a number of different elements that combine to make a successful mobile app. But, if you want all of these under one umbrella, then you have to outsource your mobile development to a trusted and experienced partner.

But before that you need to be sure of the purpose of your mobile application and the platform that you’re going to choose along with your target audience and your budget. So, let’s look at these factors closely:

1. Platform

You’re creating an application for a particular platform and you can’t make one application cannot run on different platforms as each mobile application is different in itself. For example, an iOS app can’t run on Android just as an Android application cannot run on Windows. Hence, it is important to choose the right platform for your mobile app development.

2. Customer base

When you want to outsource your development to a company say in India, you need to first determine your target customer base. This is important because this determines to what extent your application will be received or used by the customers. This in turn, would help you figure out the design and development for your mobile software.

3. Pricing and time

Now, we come to the costing and time of release of your product. You need to know that getting your product right is not the only thing that matters. It is how you get it right that’s most important. In other words, you need to a thorough research into your competitors’ apps in the same category and see where you can beat them. This is crucial to differentiating your app.

5 Tools That Simplify Mobile App Design for You

Design of the app is crucial to ensuring its performance in the market. A good design ensures that users continuously use the app, not just visit it once and move on. The main aim of your app design should be to create a better user experience. At each stage of design and development, you must ask yourself, how is it going to benefit my customer? And if what you’re going to do doesn't, then better be done with it. This is how you identify what stays and what gets out. So, without further ado, let us look at the 5 tools that simplify mobile app design for you.

Android App Patterns – This website offers a wide range of impressive designs, exclusively designed for Android. It has in total 31 categories that contain more than 16,000 screen shots of attractively designed and functional apps.

Pttrns – Offering more than 3K iPad and iPhone user interface patterns, this site is akin to a curated library. The popularity of this site can be attested to by the fact that it’s got over two million views till date. The website is already quite popular among users and has over 2 million page views per month. When designing your app, this provides one of the best platforms to get a design inspiration. The designs of this can be adapted for android apps too.

Unsplash – Photographs form an important feature of every app irrespective of its type. Unsplash is a great resource wherein you can find good quality stock photographs free of cost. You can avail these high-resolution photographs, free of copyrights, use it for app and its associated micro site. In addition, for iPhone app marketing also, adding catchy graphics and photographs is of great value.

 iOS Fonts – This resource features a collection of iOS fonts with above 260 faces for iPad and iPhone. Here, you can have the visual of all of the available fonts and gives you the ability to enter text and view result in preview box how it overall appears.

App Icon Template – Yet another good resource to create exciting designs, App icon template lets you create app icons for just about any version of iOS. It is a free Photoshop tool that has built-in textures, colors and gradients with easy to export actions that delivers a smoother output. Having an appealing app icon along with an impressive design, plays a great role in iPhone app marketing as well.

If you seek a development partner who can create mobile apps for your company with the tools like these, then reach us at openwavecomp.com – 212.209.1537!

8 Tips to Make a Mobile-Friendly Website!

A mobile-friendly website is not something to be decided upon today. Post Google’s search ranking update, it has become imperative for everyone to have a mobile-friendly website. But for those of you who have not begun it yet, there is still time left as Google’s is only a real-time dynamic update which means you can recover any lost traffic provided your website becomes mobile-friendly soon.

Making a mobile-from website is not as complex as it is made out to be. In fact, the key is in keeping it simple. Simplifying content and streamlining the design process are key to getting your strategy right. Here’s what you should remember while designing a proper mobile website.

1) Keep things simple. It is important not to use too much content on your website as it puts off users. Whenever you want to detail an issue to the user, use a video. It always clicks.

2) Choose the foremost information to include: direct means of communication (e.g. phone numbers, click-to-call function, online booking); main information about services; locations on a map. Long bios and other texts of secondary importance should be left solely for a desktop website. Include only the things your visitors are most likely to look for.

3) Users need to access the pages they need as quickly as possible, and with minimum actions. Enable easy navigation. This means users must have sufficient space so that they don't click the wrong icons or buttons.

4) Do not ask your users for too much text input. They don't like it. Not one bit.

5) Reduce the number of pages without stuffing in lot of information in one page. Ensure that your design allows your users to tap and swipe around your website easily. Also avoid excessive use of images, popup and Flash.

6) Liberally use your company logo and colours in your website. Making good use of images is an essential component of a good mobile-optimized site.

7) Keep in sight a link to the desktop website. Many visitors may want to proceed there for the information that is left out in the mobile version.

8) Check how your website works on a number of mobile devices: Smartphone’s and tablets running various platforms. Screen size is important when you’re dealing with mobiles.

These are just some of the things that you need to keep in mind as you go along. But once you get these basics right, you can rest assured your development strategy is on the right path.

Benefits of Payment Channel Diversification for Mobile Banking

Technology has developed greatly in the last two years and it is mobile that has led from the front.  Advances in technology, especially in regards to devices, computers and other forms of modern communication have seen great strides and advances in the last couple of years. Modern technology now allows mobile phone owners and users the ability to access the internet, shop and undertake many other activities that were unheard of just a couple of years back.

One of the most recent developments is the use of mobile banking and the ability to make mobile payments. Mobile banking is the process of performing banking activities from the comfort of the home or office by using a compatible mobile phone. This means that by using a mobile phone, a customer can access their bank account, check their account balance, transfer money to other accounts, make payments and be alerted whenever money is deposited or withdrawn from their account. This is a huge development that introduces convenience to bank customers. The customers are saved the time and effort of having to travel to the bank or ATM machine to perform any simple transaction.

The ability to make mobile payments basically implies that a shopper or customer at any establishment can use their mobile phone to make payments for any goods, products or services they have bought. There are certain applications that enable users of hand-held devices to have money on their mobile phones which they can use to purchase goods and products, make payment for services, pay bills or even send cash to their friends or family.

There are plenty of benefits and applications of these two banking systems. When using mobile payments, a customer can safely spend their money without the added risk of carrying physical cash on them. This reduces the risks of theft or loss. Payments using mobile phones are fast, safe and secure. They can be safely used to purchase and make payments online at any time, with no need for a cashier. The technology used in mobile money systems is quite advanced and has ensured that very little opportunity exists for breaches of the system.

Mobile banking has found applications in many different areas. In developing countries, remote areas that have little or no access to amenities can undertake mobile phone banking services. This ensures these residents have an opportunity to enjoy regular banking services without the need to go hundreds of miles in search of a physical bank.

How Your Mobile Website Development Should Work?

Mobile development has altered the course of technology, innovation and communication. But behind every successful app, Smartphone, and mobile website is a lot of strategising and nerve-wracking effort. Only a combination of hard-nosed designers, developers and testers along with business analysts can ensure that an efficient and different mobile app is created. This is a complicated process that involves workflows that vary from organization to organization. In this article, we look at some of the basics that your organization should stick to in order to ensure your mobile development is efficient.

1. Inspect the website

You, as the developer should make a careful study of the website’s design and content. Knowledge of the business objective, brand value and service orientation with additional plugins to be integrated would help you redesign the website if necessary. To accommodate mobile users, the major changes necessary are layout of the website and its content framework arrangement.

2. Consult with the client

Post the initial analysis, programmers would typically get back to the client and work out the preferences for the mobile website. Here you must remember that mobile devices are not like desktops. So you need to highlight the areas you want to market first, like the logo or the company’s tagline or its speciality. You need to ask the client if he wants a new image or only the featured content from the mobile website.

3. Design and execution

This is where it gets really technical and the real nitty-gritty work starts. Depending on the demands of the client, the time taken to develop the site can be anywhere between two to four days. But this really depends on the layers of programming the site requires. If the site involves complicated functionality, it would obviously take longer. Some of it also depends on the time taken for the testing of the website.

4. Final product

Once approved, you can test the mobile site live. The final product is the live mobile website. Its effectiveness can be easily monitored by the client. It is the amount of traffic it generates! Further monitoring is not necessary unless the client has asked for CMS etc.

5 Mistakes You Should Avoid In App Development

Creating engaging and innovative apps is an article. It’s also a systematic and steady process that involves ingenuity, perseverance, attention to detail and above all, the zest to achieve. That was about what you needed. But what should you avoid? What are the common pitfalls that developers encounter when they set out to develop mobile apps? And how can you avoid them? That’s what we’ll be looking at in this article.

Mistake #1 Not focusing on end users 

Mobile apps must be building keeping user experience firmly in mind. You must never once take your eyes off it. You may have put a lot of work into building your app but all of it will go down the drain if the end user doesn't find your app engaging. At every stage of development ask yourself, how is this going to benefit the user?

Mistake #2 Not using existing Smartphone functionalities

Don't develop an app just because you want to see a profit. You must come up with an idea that is new and offers some value to the end users. Innovation is very much appreciated by the new mobile users and you should give precedence to this when you develop your app.

Mistake #3 Not understanding the difference between development environment and real world.

An app may work in the lab, but need not do so in the real environment. Mobile app development is typically done in a simulated environment and even tests are carried out on emulators. So, you may not be fully aware of the problems that an end user might encounter. So, do extensive research before your app goes live.

Mistake #4 Ignoring scalability and integration issues

Your apps must be scalable and ‘integrable’. By ‘integrable’ we mean your app should require very few tweaks post release. Your app should be loadable on different devices running the same operating system and users must not feel that the app is actually behaving differently in another device. The mobile app development company should be able to ensure that the app remains usable even after multiple operating system upgrades.

Mistake #5 Not knowing how to limit app features

Extensive mobile apps are good, but there are thousands of feature rich apps that are untouched mainly because they are too complex to comprehend for end users. The mobile phone app development should have a single focus for every single app and adding a few customization options is acceptable. However, pushing it too far will only bore the end users because they won't recognize the purpose of the app.

4 Things You Should Integrate With Your Mobile Payment App

Most mobile apps today are made with a good UI and functionality. But what assumes greater important with growing customer demand is the features that have been integrated along with it. This could well be said to determine even the success or failure of the app. For example, users of Starbucks would know that it is not just a mobile payment app. Combined with a loyalty program, debit note and store locator among many other features integrated into it, it is no wonder that it continues to perform much to the chagrin of its competitors.

Experts would tell you that you should think carefully about how your mobile payment app would fit in your overall enterprise mobility program. This is in contrast to the unplanned approach that many organizations take. In this article, we look at four things that you should be looking at integrating with your mobile payment app.

1. Integrating rewards programs

A survey by Compete shows that no less than 30 percent business firms who sold their products electronically integrated loyalty apps with their enterprise apps. This is not only a money saver, but a great time saver too.

2. Tracking financial records

One common feature among mobile payment apps is that the payment is reflected in the financial statement immediately. A survey conducted by Accenture shows that 60 percent of users would pay through a mobile payment app if they kept track of receipts.

3. Focus on UX

A casual reading of the reviews of an app would tell you that it is the UX that most often brings you negative reviews. Set the toughest parameters to ensure UX issues are chaffed out well before the app reaches production. This is extremely important as once the app is out there, no amount of post-facto correction will set right the damage done by a bad review.

4. Security

This goes without saying. Security is paramount not only for payment apps, but also for the rest (in fact, the entire enterprise mobility program), as users today are extra careful about data theft and privacy issues. Since mobile apps access corporate service servers all the time, safety of the confidential data stored in the server is important.

5 Great Android Apps to Make Money While Shopping

Shopping can either be a truly joyful experience or an extremely harrowing one based on whether you are truly shopping with the right tools. On the app front, Android apps help you save money and increase your efficiency in shopping. These Android apps make shopping a really new experience based on their power and functionality. In this article, we take a look at 5 great Android apps that make your shopping experience a truly memorable one.

 SnapTell

If you ever wanted to know more about something you saw on the rack, just use SnapTell to scan the barcode and you’ll get all the information you possibly needed. Information like how the price compares with other distributors can be done in seconds. This app could be a big time money-saver for you if you take the time to use it.

Key Ring Reward Cards

This app is very handy if you want to consolidate all your clutter in your purse while making sure you don't lose valuable loyalty cards. You just need to take a snapshot of the barcode of your reward card and enter a little basic information about the store and voila! You’re ready to use your phone as your reward card at that store in the future.

Our Groceries

This is the perfect app for the happy family of Android phone users. You can purchase items as easily as you can remove them on this app. This is a must have app to have for the new-age hyper busy, hyper tech families that are looking at efficiency.

OI Shopping list

OI Shopping list, much like the Our Groceries app, is for the singleton folks. Not that a family wouldn’t benefit from the app, but just that it’s got more features and it's not a perfect fit like the other app is for families that need a simple solution to keep up on their latest shopping needs. That being said, this app is a powerful workhorse and can really end up saving you countless hours and some decent cash at year's end.

eBay

This official app brings eBay to your Android phone. It might look a bit odd, but this UI is better than the actual website on my computer. It actually gives you an idea that this Android app was developed correctly and really hits the mark. That is, if you're an eBay fan; if you're not, apologies!

Mistakes to Avoid in Mobile App Development

If you had a killer idea and wanted to make it actionable, you would be developing a mobile app to implement it. That’s the easiest way to ensure that you’re idea is visible, taken note of, and most importantly, put to use by millions. What you require is a clear plan, good strategy, proper programming structure and user friendly implementation. But there are pitfalls even for the trained. We look at some of them in this article.

1. Be very clear about your platform

Android, iOS, Windows....reading them back and forth? Well, just look at who you want to target. If it’s the global market that you’re targeting, android must be your choice. If you are looking at a US centric market, you could go for iOS. Either way, avoid ambiguity on the platform front. If you intend to launch it on both the platforms, know that your engineering costs will double accordingly.

2. Mobile is NOT web experience downsized

A majority of website owners do not focus on developing a mobile application that is optimized for all mobile platforms. All that they do is rely on responsive website features or consider that mobile app development should be done with just few necessary elements and features of a website.

3. Don’t confuse the Designer for the Developer

Whatever it is that the designer creates; it will have to go through a developer. It is important the design follows the functionality since we often find that apps where design dictates functionality inevitable fail.
For example, if your app has been planned to include a search box, but the designer might envision one with a type-ahead search that generates live results as the user types. This is a nice add-on, but could mean significant undertaking for the developer.

4. Avoid overlooking User experience

Say Apple and ask people what comes to their mind first. The reply would be its elegance/user experience. So, it’s important to know that a mobile user is more demanding and intuitive when it comes to UX. This is borne by the fact that 26% of the are opened only to be never used again and 48% are opened less than 10 times. Make sure you test your app with Craigslist or better find early beta testers.

5. The app won’t sell by itself


When your app goes live, thousands of competitors are going to look at it and use it. If you do not have a well planned strategy to increase visibility, you are only increase the risk of your app disappearing into oblivion.

Top 5 Tools for Cross-Platform App Development

You must be aware of Google’s latest update on mobile-friendly websites. This has got companies in a rush to ensure that their websites are tailored to mobile devices. But developing mobile-friendly websites alone would not do. It is important to ensure that your apps are cross-platform as well. What are the cross-platform applications that help you design such websites? There are many, but with each operating system having its own features and functionalities, to design an app that delivers optimum performance on all of these is indeed a tricky task. So, this article does you the favour of listing out the best cross platform mobile application out there:

1. RhoMobile – This is an open source framework that is ruby-based. It helps you build native apps that run on iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, RIM, and Symbian devices.
With RhoMobile, you need to write code just once for all major operating systems. RhoMobile makes use of all your Smartphone’s features and builds the perfect cross-platform application.

2. Appcelerator – This is used to design applications for mobiles, tablets, and desktops. To create applications with Appcelerator, simple programming languages like HTML, PHP, JavaScript and Python would do.

3. PhoneGap – This FOSS framework allows developers to create applications for the iPad, iTouch, iPhone, Android, Palm, BlackBerry, and Symbian mobile devices. Using HTML and JavaScript, PhoneGap lets you gain access to hardware features of a mobile device like camera, GPS data etc.

4. WidgetPad – WidgetPad allows you to create Smartphone applications using standard programming languages like HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. It is typically used to create apps for WebOS, iOS, and android. Project management, source code editing, collaboration, distribution, debugging, and versioning become easy with WidgetPad.

5. MoSync – Another FOSS framework, MoSync uses JavaScript, PHP, Ruby and Python for cross platform mobile app development. MoSync probably supports the largest number of operating systems including Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Moblin. Support for iOS is provided through MoSync 2.4.

6. Whoop – Though Whoop cannot be featured among the top tools used for cross platform app development, it is nevertheless quite an interesting framework. Even a developer who is not trained in the app development would be able to use Whoop to publish cross platform apps. Actually, Whoop is the ‘tool for non developers'.


The Whoop Creative Studio uses the WYSIWYG editor to allow dragging & dropping of mobile app elements while designing applications for Windows Mobile, Android, BlackBerry, RIM, and iOS.