If I were a book publisher in country X where 95% of the population speak/read language X, just because I can publish the next great story in Hardcover, with a catchy cover, Fancy illustration, as an ebook or now as an iBook, why would I publish said book in language Y that say only 5% of people can read? You wouldn't would you?
Why would you make and sell a product that limits your target market share to 5% of the addressable market?
This is the question I often mention to businesses that invest heavily in building a smart phone client App for their customers to use. If you invest in an iPhone App for the UK market then you reach a maximum 5% addressable market. So then what? Invest more to build an Android App? a Blackberry App? a Windows Mobile App? a Symbian App? where does it stop?
On top of that if you have published your iPhone App to the AppStore, along with the other 150,000 apps, you will then need to market/advertise/promote heavily to get your customers to notice it, want it and actually make the effort to download it.
Don't get me wrong, these Apps are often very effective in their goals, even if the lifespan of the common app is temporary.
So....what other angles are available for businesses to expand their reach to their customers? How about the mobile web?
A recent 2009 UK survey painted a bleak picture for mobile web access, with 31% saying they have never accessed the internet from their smart phone.
So given the already small market size for smart phones in the UK and globally and the slower-than-expected take up of mobile web access, and even less device specific apps that can be downloaded, what else is there to do?
SMS? MMS? Email? IVR? WAP? QRcodes? MsTags? Augmented Reality? Instant Messaging? YouTube? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn?
Well, there are Pros & Cons of each and every approach listed here. Not everyone is going to agree on the best approach. Why? Because everyone has their own preference. When communicating with friends, everyone has their preferred tool/technology for effective/efficient communication.
But wouldn't it be great if businesses (especially SMEs who don't know\want to understand all the technologies) could utilise all possible channels available to their customers on their mobile phones, so their customers can choose their channel/tool of preference to communicate with you?
SpotiD's approach to solving this challenge, is to offer a simple web based system so that SMEs can manage their own marketing messages, incentives, coupons, news, offers, surveys, feedback requests, call-to-action offers etc etc and let our Patent Pending Multi-Channel Auto-Responder worry about interacting with any/all consumers across all the channels available, so that consumers are free to choose, and businesses don't have to worry. Simple.
We are exiting beta very soon with a new look website and some great commercial partnerships to announce.
Stay tuned.
From your phone, download a reader for QR Codes at url.spotid.me/qk. or Ms Tags from url.spotid.me/nk. Once installed, take a photo of the sample images below to get a sample Spot Response. Click image for larger version.
