The best app is worthless, if nobody knows about it...

2010-04-19 / Museum of Natural History Vienna, Burgring 7, 1010 Wien

Review
Announcement

MoMo #6: Vulcanic MoMo

Even the sixth MobileMonday Austria event was affected by the Icelandic volcano. The insecure travel situation made it necessary to try out new ways of delivering a key-note - remotely. Kjell Fischer (apprupt) joined the evening via video chat from Hamburg - a novelty in MobileMondays history. Martin-Hannes Giesswein from somain.org helped out spontaneously and presented in front of 180 participants results from a brand new survey carried out in Austria on mobile internet and app usage. And Georg Koch from Herold Business Data GmbH shared his valuable lessons learned from launching an iPhone app.

The lesson we learned? Mobility is important. But flexibility is just even more so. ;-)

Apple behind OVI?

"41% of the users who have already downloaded apps, got the app directly from the brand or the originator of the app such as ÖBB, Herold or facebook", says Martin-Hannes Giesswein in his presentation, citing from an App survey which has been carried out recently in Austria.
This is surprising, because most of us would believe that apps are mainly downloaded from an application store. Customers download more often from mobile a network operator (29%) than any application store. And even more surprising: More people claim to download from Nokia's OVI store (28 %) than from Apple's app store (21%). A fact that Martin-Hannes Giesswein explains with the broad audience of the survey.

Most downloaded free App in October 2009: Herold

Georg Koch from Herold Business Data GmbH confirmed the results of the survey by sharing experiences Herold made with apps and app marketing: The secret is a combination of a good product, getting featured in an AppStore and well planned marketing in own as well as bought media channels. Herold clearly focused on leading potential users from their mobile optimized site to the AppStore rather than spending marketing budgets on "appvertising". Still, advertising and marketing costs outnumber development cost around four times, according to Koch.
So where did the advertising budget go to? It has been invested mainly into classic channels such as billboards, branded taxi cabs, newspapers ads and online banners to ensure a tight integration into the marketing strategy.
The result? 71.000 downloads in six months, which means that one third of the traffic on herold.at on mobile has already been replaced by the iPhone app!
Considering the number of iPhones (approx. 250.000) in Austria, this is pretty remarkable.
Versions for BlackBerry and Nokia devices will follow soon, whereas the development for Android is a mid-term goal in 2010, Georg Koch claims.

Mobile pays off: 5 times more effective

For companies who are ranked top in Herold search results, the mobile channel pays off even more: Customers listed first are being contacted statistically five times more often than the second one in the listing. "This is something very specific we observe within the mobile channel only, we do not see this in online", says Koch.

A call to Agencies

Apps are not only an effective tool for companies like Herold. This is why Martin-Hannes Giesswein calls on agencies who already have year long relationship with brands: "Take apps as marketing tool just as you use TV, banner and print advertising."
If companies are currently wondering what to develop, here comes a wish-list: 23 % of all people who participated in the survey say, that they would want more apps from transportation companies about schedules and delivery time. Second most industry they would like to see cool apps from is the media industry (TV guide, iPTV).

So dear brands and agencies, we are excited to see which great apps come next!

PS: Take part in a new survey initiated by somain.org and MobileMonday Austria about mobile apps: www.somain.org/MM

The best app is worthless, if nobody knows about it...

Sempora Consulting says that 80 % of all decision makers plan to get started in the mobile web business in the next two years. 80 Percent! If we think of the already existing number of apps in app stores, it might get even more crowded there. So the vital question that needs to be asked right now is: Does it make sense for my marketing to have an application at all? And if yes: How do I approach this topic and how do I stay on top with as many downloads and users as possible?

Join our next MobileMonday on April 19^th, back in our home base, the Museum of Natural History in Vienna and learn how to use an App for your Marketing, but also how to market your App! As guests, we are welcoming two experts from Germany, who will share their App (for) Marketing insights and experience.

Kjell Fischer - CEO, apprupt
Björn Wendler - Senior Sales Manager, madvertise
Georg Koch - Director Product Management Internet Herold

Some might ask the question why the MoMo guys choose to talk about apps over and over again? It's very simple, as our last event on March 5 took place in Hagenberg not all of our regulars were able to join us at this fabulous happening. The discussions and speakers were very interesting and on April 19^th we want to give our Vienna community the chance to be a vital part of this as well.

You’ll better get started, before your competition does ;-), so save your seat here: XING.

See you there!

Entrance is free. However, registration is required. After exploring the details of App Marketing we will comfortably end the evening with drinks & light-snacks.