There’s An App For That!

I can remember when I first heard the comment, “there’s an app for that.” I found it screamingly funny because, in actual fact, it seemed as if there actually WERE an app for almost everything under the sun. There’s an app that measures how high you can throw your phone.. There’s an app that will call you so you can have a “fake conversation” that will get you out of an uncomfortable situation. There’s an app that will test your patience. There’s an app that will find your car for you.

But most apps seem to have been created by big companies with big budgets or tech startups with a knack for digital experimentation and an odd sense of humour. When apps started hitting my awareness in a big way, it initially never occurred to me that I would get one for my business – it just didn’t seem to be within the realm of possibility. I did make a half-hearted effort to look into the idea three or four years ago, and I had a couple of conversations with some web developers who were thrilled at the idea of creating an app for me. The problem was, with a ticket price of upwards of $50,000, it just wasn’t within my snack bracket.

The one thing we can count on, though, is the fact that times change. Fast forward a few years and we’re thrilled to announce that the Crossman Communications business app is now live and launched. It’s called the Conscious Communicator, and we’re excited about the idea that we can communicate with our clients and business contacts through this state-of-the-art vehicle.

Here are some interesting and important facts about apps:

• people spend, on average, more than three hours a day accessing information on their phones
• 80-90% of the time people spend on their mobile phones and tablets is spent in apps not web browsers
• mobile apps return higher engagement rates than any other platform
• mobile phones and apps are the fastest-growing technological platform out there today

When I first heard these statistics it became clear to me that I was missing out on valuable connection time with my clients and potential clients. And right away I realized I wanted to be, metaphorically speaking, like Wayne Gretzky and “skate to where the puck was going,” rather than aim at where that metaphorical business puck already was.

The more I delved into the topic, the more I learned. I already knew that open rates with traditional email marketing campaigns typically range from 15% to 20%. An average email campaign will generate a click-through rate of.5% to 2.5%

Mobile Apps, on the other hand, can expose our message to 60-80% of our app audience and they generate click-through rates of between 15% and 40%.

This seemed like a no-brainer to me, and I approached my friends at App Brothers Design to create an app for Crossman Communications. Our company offers two very different types of service: we have a set of services in the area of content marketing, and we have a set of services around book coaching and book editing. We needed a mobile app that would fulfill the needs of all of our clients, and we didn’t want two separate apps in order to do that. The team at App Bros had come up with a beautiful app concept that was working well with other businesses and that’s the model we invested in. It allows us to segregate our services, provide a platform for my writing course, and serve as a communication tool with clients.

When I heard the price, I couldn’t believe my luck. You can download our new app, the Conscious Communicator, and see what you think!

We were so pleased with our new app that we decided to start offering app development and app content creation and management services ourselves. Stay tuned for more information on that service in an upcoming blog, or shoot us an email now and avoid the rush!