Apps: The Day After Tomorrow

Apps: The Day After Tomorrow
By Brian Cauble of Appsolute Genius

These days, you can barely watch TV, browse the web, or talk with a friend without Apps being brought up. It’s an extremely popular topic with Apple, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Motorola, Samsung, and many more advertising them every day. We’ve found many businesses and marketers struggling with whether now is the right time to add Apps to their marketing mix. Even when businesses do decide to build an App, they often are unsure where to start, what it costs, and what’s involved.

So Holly Grenvicz and I teamed up to discuss this topic at this month’s DIG! Werkshop and my company, Appsolute Genius, both believe this is just one tool for companies, and it needs to make sense for a business based on it’s goals. With that in mind, we tried to help attendees understand where to get started and what they need to know when they consider building an App.

This is an ever-shifting market with market share among the major players (Apple, Google, RIM, and Windows) constantly changing. Android has currently taken the lead in market share with at 29% compared to 27% for Apple. Many experts such as Gartner believe Android will get as much as 49% of the market share eventually. You have to keep this in perspective. This market is 2 1/2 years old and temperamental (Note from Holly: Sounds about right for that age!), and all predictions have a high likelihood of being wrong. What we do know is that this is an enormous market with nearly half a billion smartphones on the market already. Guess what, it’s not slowing down anytime soon. It’s actually accelerating!

Just when we thought we had this thing pinned down a little bit, tablets showed up. The iPad has been a huge commercial success, and Android and Blackberry are trying to ramp up to catch up. Apple alone is predicting between $18 and 25 million in tablet sales this year. Even more importantly, the tablet is changing consumer behavior and allowing marketers to be even more creative!

What we always do when discussing creating an App for a company is to take a step back. We need to understand business goals first and foremost. We ask companies and brands to tell us their goals such as increased market share, differentiation from competition, maximizing referrals, etc. We also ask how they make money and who their ideal customer is. Why do we do this? Because an App is a tool to help the business grow, not a checklist item to get done. Then, we move on to what we call the five W’s: who, where, when, why, and what.

• Who (will use the app)? Is the user a mom with small children or a fisherman? What is the age of the user?
• Where (will they use the app)? This refers to the physical location. Will they use the App in a store, in a car, or at home?
• When (will they use the App)? This is how often and what times of the day, week, or month.
• Why (will they use the App)? This refers to the users’ motivation for using the App. Will it entertain them, inform them, or simplify their life in some way?
• What (will they do in the App)? This is used once you’ve answer the first 4 questions. Your ideas for an App need to match with the answers from the first 4 questions!
After discussing goals and the five W’s, we lay out the process for developing an App. We explain how to develop a short (2-3) page specification, mockups for the App, and App design. We discuss the importance of using a great mobile designer and sketching out your idea with tools like Balsamiq or Mockflow. Once design is finished, we move to development, testing, and submission of your App. Rather than bog you down here, check out the full App building process!

Holly and I also discussed the potential business models (how you can make money!) and the different types of Apps, which are laid out well in the slides. Some attendees were probably hopeful that we could tell them a magical number for the cost of developing an App. Unfortunately, cost and timeline depend on the complexity of the project! Finally, we discussed 11 trends for 2011 including the growth of tablets, using your phone as a credit card (near field communications), and how security will become more important! It was a whirlwind of information, and I enjoyed every minute of it!