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Apps Technology

Some Startling 2016 iOS App Stats

/ Insights      / Some Startling 2016 iOS App Stats

Some Startling 2016 iOS App Stats

We are approaching the end of the first quarter of 2016 and we thought we would reflect on that by sharing with you some incredible stats about the iOS apps in the apple store within the last 12 months.

As consumers, we are now spoilt for choice in the apple store, and the sheer scale of the platform is staggering, there are more than 1.5m apps in the Apple store (July 2015) and 725,000 that have a version native to iPads.

There were more than 100m IOS downloads last year with the most popular app of all time the Facebook app, closely followed by the Facebook messenger app, followed by YouTube, Instagram and Skype. The most popular day for app download purchases ever was the 1st of January this year when $144m was spent in the app store, users can be said to be app mad with each user averaging 80 apps per IOS device, with an average of $4.16 per app. However, not all apps that are uploaded and even downloaded have a successful life. In fact, nearly 1 in 5 apps that are downloaded are only used once.

Apple has worldwide appeal with IOS apps downloaded in huge numbers across the world. Last year, China overtook the USA for the number of app downloads and this is likely to continue as the Chinese market continues to develop rapidly. However, you should not take every review on its merits with 55% of app store reviews are thought to be fake.

The app store is also a huge job creator with estimates that more than half a million jobs have been created in the United States alone, primarily around the development and upkeep of apps within the platform.

Finally, a music fact, although not everyone wanted to have a free U2 album, more than 33m people did end up listening to it using itunes.

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology Webdesign

3 Ways A Responsive Website Increases Profit

/ Insights      / 3 Ways A Responsive Website Increases Profit

3 Ways A Responsive Website Increases Profit

Having a responsive website is a vital component of a modern marketing strategy, it should be the starting point before you start thinking about other digital marketing disciplines such as social media, email marketing or blogging.

This is because none of this matters if nobody can find your website, or when they do, they find it difficult to navigate or complete a purchase.

Responsive Website Increases Profits – Your Customers Are Mobile

Mobile internet connectivity means that customers could be accessing your website from anywhere at any time of day.

With more than 50% of web traffic online, it makes sense to have a website that is designed to be responsive to the different devices they use to access your website.

Responsive Website Increases Profits – Makes Your Site Easier to Use

Websites were originally designed for large computer screens, however, when people start using mobile phones and tablets to access the same sites the pictures, text and layout do not fit onto the smaller screens. Whereas a responsive website is designed to display the content of the website tailored to the size of the screen.

A responsive website increases profit by making it easier for your customers to access and engage with your website, this makes them more likely to take actions that result in sales directly or indirectly.

Responsive Website Increases Profits – Get Your Website Found

The use of mobile devices to access the internet has led to search engines such as Google to tailor their results to favour mobile friendly or mobile responsive websites to users searching using mobile devices. Therefore, having a mobile responsive website makes sure that your customers can find you when using a mobile device.

If you need help creating a responsive website that increases profits within your business, then contact our team at Aspiring Panda.

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology web Webdesign

Three Ways To Improve Your Website This Spring

/ Insights      / Three Ways To Improve Your Website This Spring

Three Ways To Improve Your Website This Spring

In the UK, as the weather starts to improve, spring is in the air, our thoughts come to how we can give our company a spring clean and keep things moving as we enter the second quarter of the year.

Here are three ways that you can clear the cobwebs out of your website this spring:

Check Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

If you have not developed your website recently then it may not be mobile friendly. This means that the design may not be responsive to the different kinds of devices that people may use to access your website.

With more than 50% of web searches now via a mobile device, it is important everyone that visits your site can get the most from it.

You can check your site is mobile friendly here

Check All Your Contact Information & Calls To Action

Making sure that the information is right on your site, is up to date and there are clear calls to action can be the difference between a site visit and a conversion.

If someone cannot quickly find the way to contact you or buy directly, they will get frustrated and leave, so make sure everything is clear and all the links work.

Write A Blog Post

Having recent and relevant information on your site is important from a search engine ranking perspective and the impression this creates with your customers.

It is an opportunity to showcase your knowledge of your industry and build trust with your audience, so even if it has been a while, now is the perfect time to get back into blogging within your business.

If you have any questions about your website and how to make the most from your web presence, contact the Aspiring Panda team.

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

Get Social Media Training At Our Harrow Office

/ Insights      / Get Social Media Training At Our Harrow Office

Get Social Media Training At Our Harrow Office

In May, Aspiring Panda will be hosting a nationally recognised social media expert to deliver training to local businesses on how to define their social media strategy.

The course will be run by Kristian Downer of DowSocial who we work closely with, on our digital marketing.

What is the course about?

Staying up to date and running a successful social media campaign is becoming increasingly challenging as social platforms change and evolve. Online audiences are bombarded daily with hundreds of messages and online content, making the task of measuring ROI (return on investment) rather challenging.

This social media training course is designed to be informative and interactive. The core focus of the course is on revealing new trends, understanding audience behaviours and social media principles that will enable you to create successful social media campaigns for lead generation and nurturing existing customer relationships.

Who should attend?

This training course is targeted at users of social media who want to achieve a greater understanding of how to implement and integrate social media to develop increased brand exposure, online reach and acquire new business.

Typical attendees are marketers, business owners, community managers, PR professionals, publishers and account managers.

What is the course outcome?

Following this training course, you will be able to:

  • Design a social media strategy plan
  • Choose the right social media platforms to use
  • Confidently use content and communication strategies that work
  • Adapt the language and tones to suit each social media platform
  • Integrate social media and offline marketing methods
  • Understand the methods and tools to generate new leads
  • Track and measure social media campaign success or failure

We look forward to seeing at you at this and future events at our office in Harrow.

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

Three Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business

/ Insights      / Three Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business

Three Ways Social Media Can Help Your Business

Social media is an increasingly important part of the marketing of small businesses across the UK. With more than 30m users of Facebook alone, it is getting harder and harder to ignore that your target audience is active on social media.

For business owners that are resisting moving their business onto social media it is likely that they are missing out on opportunities and risking getting passed over in favour of companies that are more proactive with their digital marketing.

If you are on the fence, here are three ways social media can help your business succeed:

Generate Referral Business From Existing Customers

Existing customers are often the most effective way of getting new business as they refer their friends and colleagues to your product or service. Social media is an incredibly powerful way of harnessing this and broadcasting the goodwill your existing customer base has for what you do.

Target & Advertise To Potential Customers

Social media is powerful for businesses, in part due to the data that the platforms create and store about their users. Harnessed effectively, this can be used to advertise your business to exactly the people you want to target.

This means that you spend less money on traditional less well directed advertising platforms such as print or radio advertising.

Customer Service

Whether you are on social media or not, your customers are talking about you both the good and the bad. If you are on social media then you have an opportunity to see what they are saying about you, reinforce the positive and fix the negative.

After all, there is no more powerful an advocate than someone who has a negative experience that is given excellent customer service.

If you are unsure how to get a strategy that works for your business contact the Aspiring Panda team.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Apps Marketing

Why Mobile Apps Are Still Relevant To Your Business

/ Insights      / Why Mobile Apps Are Still Relevant To Your Business

Why Mobile Apps Are Still Relevant To Your Business

Since their inception, the use of mobile apps for business has been evolving to reflect consumer trends and the opportunities created by advances in technology and connectivity. Apps have shifted in focus from pure ecommerce to support a number of different business processes.

With the emergence of the ‘Internet of Things’  the use of mobile apps within businesses large and small is likely to increase.

Whilst native iOS and Android apps have an important role to play, the development of web-apps is allowing businesses to harness the power of apps across the entire business without the costs of having to program an IOS and Android version of each app.

Track Business Processes

Mobile apps are increasingly allowing business owners to track and manage business processes.

This can be utilised by tracking the progress of projects, stock levels or employee/vehicle locations the information from which can be used to manage the business.

This data can be analysed and used to monitor performance, track employee performance and manage capacity. The key is finding the right data to measure and analyse within the business to make the most of the opportunities that mobile app technology creates.

eCommerce

Mobile apps are still relevant to e-Commerce, particularly when the app enhances the customer experience by making the buying process simpler.

We have seen apps such as Uber gain popularity by taking a long standing industry and disrupting the traditional buying behaviours of consumers. The key is to develop something that makes things as simple and as convenient as possible for the customer.

Done correctly, a mobile app can increase sales and customer loyalty by creating a new route to market that customers are drawn to.

How Does This Apply To My Business

A mobile app can be of huge benefit to a business whether it is managing business processes or in support of an e-commerce operation. However, it is important to identify how your business can utilise a mobile app to create sales or efficiencies to business processes before starting the process.

To find out how Aspiring Panda can help you in this process, give us a call today.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

How The Internet Of Things Is Changing How We Do Business

/ Insights      / How The Internet Of Things Is Changing How We Do Business

How The Internet Of Things Is Changing How We Do Business

One of the technology trends of the next decade will be the adoption of the Internet of Things (IOT) across the business landscape.

What Is The Internet of Things?

The internet of things is the name for the ability for everyday objects, devices and vehicles to collect data and transmit it via the internet. This allows for devices to be controlled and managed externally.

A Universal Example

Utilities are one area that the general public will see the IOT impact upon their lives in the next few years. Currently smart meters for electricity usage are being rolled out, which will allow companies to monitor and bill customer energy usage without having to enter the customer premises to carry out regular meter readings.

This is also being adapted to allow homeowners to control their heating remotely, this allows them to save money on their energy by having more control and ensuring that their house is warm when they go home by turning it on when they need it, rather than to a pre scheduled timeframe.

How Will This Affect Businesses?

The ability to use the principles of the IOT means that businesses can automate and manage processes that may have been previously difficult to track and monitor.

This can assist in the decision making process and allow businesses to have a tighter control of business processes and employee productivity.

At Aspiring Panda we have recently been working with and advising companies how to use the IOT in conjunction with IOS and Android apps to assist in previously difficult or dangerous monitoring tasks.

Helping companies understand the potential benefits of the IOT has underlined to us how this will be one of the most important tech developments of the next few weeks.

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

The Changing Face Of Customer Loyalty

/ Insights      / The Changing Face Of Customer Loyalty

The Changing Face Of Customer Loyalty

It is a well established business principle that retaining existing clients costs less than finding new ones. The internet has given consumers more choice than ever before, making it harder to retain customers through inertia alone.

In the current marketplace, data and convenience are king; consumers have all the information about your business and your competitors that they could need. Therefore it is crucial to get your business found, and once it is to maximise retention and revenues.

To achieve this, business owners need to find ways of keeping their business in the minds of their customers, in as user friendly and convenient a way as possible.

Technology & Customer Loyalty

One of the pioneers of customer loyalty technology was Tesco. The introduction of the clubcard allowed the company to tailor the offers it sent to the buying habits of individual customers.

This could be used to encourage them to come back, but also to spend more whilst in-store by incentivising certain purchases and creating urgency by putting expiration dates on reward vouchers.

The internet and mobile app technology has only increased the importance of communicating with customers. Firms now use email, text messages, and app push notifications to get their latest products, services and offers in front of their existing customers.

The effective use of these methods can allow businesses large and small to increase customer loyalty and revenues. The impact can be huge even for a one outlet shop. For example, if a cinema can use vouchers, emails, text or app messages to get the person to buy a £10 cinema ticket one more time a month than usual, this can have a substantial impact on income.

This will generate an additional £120 worth of revenue per person before any confectionary or drink sales. Getting your customers to come back and come back more often can be a huge and efficient way of increasing revenues without having to find new customers.

If every customer in this cinema came back just once more a month than before, then the revenue increase could be massive.

Maybe it is time for your business to see how technology can increase customer loyalty and revenues?

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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Technology

How Dry Cleaners Can Compete Using Technology

/ Insights      / How Dry Cleaners Can Compete Using Technology

How Dry Cleaners Can Compete Using Technology

The UK dry cleaning, and the cleaning services industry more widely, is worth more than £1bn per year, employing over 30,000 people within nearly 4,000 businesses.

An industry report shows that the last five years have been challenging, due to the economic downturn, lower household budgets, and lower demand. Although the number of establishments has declined an online opportunity has emerged.

Demand is starting to recover, however the opportunity lies in adapting to changing consumer habits to craft a customer service that is both cost effective and convenient to the client.

Using Technology To Compete

The internet may not have had a huge impact on the industry in the early stages of the dotcom boom. The last five years have seen a revolution in how consumers research and buy products.

By harnessing this as yet underused resource, dry cleaners can offer click and collect or delivery services to their customers at the press of a button. These kinds of services add convenience to the customer who can order, pay, and even get their clothes collected and returned without leaving their home.

By combining this with text/email marketing with app based push notifications, dry cleaners can maintain regular contact with their customer base, increase referrals, retention and the annual value of each customer.

Apps are popular with the younger generations, making dry cleaning more accessible than the traditional high street shop front, potentially creating an entirely new market for your services.

Creating A Laundry App

Creating a dry cleaning app can be done in many ways, from working with larger providers, to an independent presence. At Aspiring Panda we see the value in helping a business maintain its brand, particularly if it is a longstanding business that has reputation and merit. However, this does not mean that a dry cleaner needs to invest in a bespoke app.

At Aspiring Panda we have a product that we can customise to your business and integrate it seamlessly into an existing website. If a business does not have a site, then we can even create this for you.

If you would like to know more about how your dry cleaning business can compete using a mobile app, just give us a call.

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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web Webdesign

Three Small Business Website Trends For 2016

/ Insights      / Three Small Business Website Trends For 2016

Three Small Business Website Trends For 2016

One of the reasons for hiring a professional web design company is that the industry is constantly changing and evolving. Hiring a company that works on websites on a daily basis can help your business keep in touch with the latest developments and generate more revenue.

Last year was one of change in the web design industry, the big change was that building websites that were easy to read and interact with on mobile devices became critical.

A change in the way Google ranks websites in search means that from April 2015 sites that are not “Mobile Friendly” found themselves harder to find for their potential customers.

Here are three trends we think will impact small businesses in 2016.

A Focus On User Experience

For small businesses the website is no longer a poster for the bricks and mortar presence, instead the site needs to be easy to access and active. This means that it needs to engage users, providing convenience and ease of use, whilst compelling them to take an action.

Sites that do this well will convert more customers and see a greater return on all their online marketing including social media and paid advertising.

Increased Links Between The High Street and Online

With 86% of people using the internet whilst in shops to research products they are considering buying, retailers and service providers will need to make sure that their online and offline offerings are integrated to maximise the potential of both. Businesses need to think of them as the same thing as we move into 2016.

Renewed Focus On Driving Traffic & Retaining Data

With social media becoming more and more saturated, there will be an increased need to advertise on these platforms to reach your audience.

To ensure this is of benefit businesses will need to ensure that they put the right mechanisms in place to maximise the effectiveness of any traffic driven to their website and capture as much data for retargeting and email marketing campaigns.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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