Retailers Use Welcome Offers to Increase App Downloads
Written by: Sue LeClaire
Whether you do it yourself or hire a third party development group, mobile apps require an extraordinary amount of resources to design and develop – a mobile app that will engage a retailer’s most loyal customers. Once the app is launched, the focus turns to enticing customers to download the mobile app and driving app engagement. As alluded to in two recent reports, in-app mobile coupons and mobile soccer can provide the right incentive to grow both the app audience and monthly active user engagement.
According to a recent Inmar report, 65% of consumers want stores to deliver coupons for products that they normally buy and 38% wish all coupons were digital. In addition, Nielsen found (Tech-Or-Treat: Consumers Are Sweet on Mobile Apps) that 30% of consumers download a mobile app while shopping, presumably to access an offer. Clearly, there is an opportunity for retailer’s to address their customer’s wishes by delivering mobile coupons and mobile offers to the retailer’s mobile app.
Drive App Downloads
Our retailer customers have found delivering a generous mobile coupon is a great way to both incent and thank their customers for downloading the mobile app. Since the mobile coupon or offer is used as an incentive to download the retailer’s app, we highly recommend that the welcome offer is a rich mobile coupon ($10 off your next purchase of $50).
An advantage of using CodeBroker’s mobile engagement platform is its unique security model – supporting the ability to deliver generous single-use coupons. Single-use guarantees the retailer’s customers will receive only one welcome offer for downloading the app. If the customer deletes the app and reinstalls it, they receive the same welcome offer that was delivered to them the first time they downloaded the app. Once the customer redeems the mobile coupon, it automatically expires and cannot be used a second time.
Inherent in the use of single-use mobile coupons and offers is the ability to manage offer accessibility and coupon liability by the retailer. Without the necessary controls, rich mobile coupons could seriously impact a retailer’s bottom line. Implementing true single-use coupons will mitigate mobile offer liability concerns.
Another benefit of single-use coupons is the ability to track the entire path-to-purchase. A comprehensive picture – through the implementation of single-use coupons and attribution assignment (capturing the original point of engagement), retailers are able to better understand the complete path to acquisition from offer presentation through redemption. Retailers can incorporate their learning’s into future campaigns delivering an improved customer experience.
In addition to delivering single-use welcome offers, retailers can enhance the mobile app experience through the use of rolling expiration dates. For example, if Gil downloads the mobile app on Tuesday, his mobile welcome coupon will expire two weeks from Tuesday. If Maryann downloads the app on Thursday, her mobile offer expires two weeks from Thursday. As the expiration date nears, the retailer can deliver a reminder message that the coupon is about to expire. The combination of a generous mobile welcome coupon and rolling expiration dates with reminder messages drives new customers to retail locations quickly.
Grow Monthly Active User Engagement
Delivering mobile coupons to the app on a regular basis encourages a retailer’s customers to check-in frequently to the mobile app in search of the latest deals. Many CodeBroker retailer customers send PUSH notifications to escalate mobile app engagement. Alerting consumers when new offers or capabilities are available keeps customers continually checking back to the mobile app. In addition, retailers can deliver alerts notifying consumers when an offer is about to expire creating a sense of urgency.
Retailers continue to collect data regarding their customer’s purchase behavior by delivering one-time-use mobile offers. Because a retailer knows who is purchasing which merchandise and when, the retailer can deliver personalized mobile offers enhancing customer engagement. For example, a customer who has recently purchased paint supplies may be pleasantly surprised when she receives a mobile coupon for 10% off of a rug purchase.
Welcome offers are a great way to incent customers to download a retailer’s mobile app as well as improve app engagement. Using one-time-use mobile coupons to deliver rich welcome offers, track the complete path-to-purchase, and enhance the in-app customer experience lets a retailer rise above the noise.