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3 Apps Stats That Will Focus Businesses On App Development

/ Insights      / 3 Apps Stats That Will Focus Businesses On App Development

3 Apps Stats That Will Focus Businesses On App Development

The smartphone has made mobile applications a vital retail, content and enterprise platform for entertainment, education and work.

This is transforming the way we interact with the world creating opportunities for businesses to find new ways to reach customers and make processes more efficient.

To highlight the value of mobile apps we unearthed three recent statistics from Adobe

1) Mobile users spend 90% of their time in apps compared to mobile web
This stat from Flurry shows that mobile users prefer apps to the mobile web. This is often because apps are designed specifically for mobile rather than websites, making them easier to navigate.

If users are on apps rather than the web then this may be what your business needs to hold the attention of its audience.

2) 26% of installed apps are only used once
Although mobile users may spend most of their times in apps, that does not mean that they will use your app. App developers are under pressure to make their apps engaging so that they will be used again and again. The key is giving the user a reason to use the app.

Of those who stop using an app, some said they would use it again if offered a discount (30%), whilst others said new or exclusive content could have the same effect (24%)

3) 51% of companies measure user engagement and return on investment
Nearly half or companies do not measure the engagement or ROI from an app, suggesting that there is a lack of a coherent strategy from many companies.

Knowing what you want to achieve and what success looks like a important part of an app development strategy. This statistic shows that many companies are unaware of whether their app is a success or what success would look like.
Before investing in an app businesses are more likely to see a positive impact on their business if they have a strategy in place and a way of measuring its success.

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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

5 Quick Small Business Website Tips

/ Insights      / 5 Quick Small Business Website Tips

5 Quick Small Business Website Tips

A website is a huge opportunity for small businesses to attract new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers.

We have put together a set of five quick tips that will help small business owners get the most from their website.

Tip 1 – Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

We have repeatedly spoken on this blog about the importance of your website by those using mobile devices.

This is especially critical for businesses that operate within a small local area as appearing in local mobile results means people can find you on the move when they may need your product/service urgently.

Tip 2 – Add A Blog

Google loves websites that have lots of fresh and relevant content, publishing a blog post once a fortnight will ensure that when Google looks at your site it can connect what you are saying to what your customers need.

Tip 3 – Make Your Contact Information Easy To Find

If people visit your website and want to find out more but cannot find a way to get in contact with you easily then they will leave and find a competitor.

We recommend you have your business phone number on every page.

Tip 4 – Make Your Site Visually Appealing

Images can help explain what you offer to customers and make your site more visually appealing. The more appealing your website to the eye the more likely people are to stay and assimilate the information on your page. This tip goes hand in hand with easy to use navigation so people can find what they need straight away.

Tip 5 – Promote Your Blog Posts More Than Once

Only promoting a good quality informative blog post is a wasted opportunity, use social media to repackage the content repeatedly to ensure

If you would like to know more about what your business needs to keep up with modern consumers and changes to the way online marketing works give us a call on 020 8861 0115

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

Why The Way You Market Your Business Online Is Continuously Evolving

/ Insights      / Why The Way You Market Your Business Online Is Continuously Evolving

Why The Way You Market Your Business Online Is Continuously Evolving

Many of the small businesses we speak to about web design and digital marketing are looking for a simple one off solution or strategy that will last for set period that can then be refreshed.

This approach is designed to give the small business owner the opportunity to reap the benefits of digital marketing without having to invest time and money on a regular basis. With the need to balance budgets and focus on the core aspects of the business this is understandable.

Unfortunately, the rapid advances in technology and the way in which the titans of digital marketing such as Google and Facebook work mean that it is virtually impossible to fully futureproof your business.

These companies regularly change the metrics they use to determine the way they rank small businesses within their platforms.

This means that in order to maximise the value of your website and social media efforts, the way you market your business online must be reviewed regularly and evolve with changes.

The Value Of Content & Having An Active Website

These companies reward organisations that are regularly creating new content and adding it to their website and social media channels. This means that small businesses that succeed using digital marketing need to have a strategy that involves the regular creation and publication of content.

This is why at Aspiring Panda we encourage our customers to understand the concept of an active website. A site that is easily updateable and aspects that update regularly such as social media feeds and blogs.

We wrote a full blog about active and passive websites last year that explores the differences and why it is important.

If you would like to know more about what your business needs to keep up with modern consumers and changes to the way online marketing works give us a call on 020 8861 0115

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

Fun or Useful Apps Created By Our Team

/ Insights      / Fun or Useful Apps Created By Our Team

Fun or Useful Apps Created By Our Team

At Aspiring Panda, we build enterprise apps that empower business owners to take control of their business and its day to day processes.

We have also in the past as part of our development and passion developed a range of recreational apps to help solve problems or entertain the public. Some of these help just a few people whereas others have been downloaded tens of thousands of times.

Here are just a few that we have created, if you want to see some of our development work in action then here is a small sample of those available on the IOS App Store

Snapscare

This fun app was created to entertain users around Halloween and allow users to scare their friends who are part of the selfie generation.

The app captures the fun that can be saved for posterity.

See the app – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snapscare/id915328975?mt=8

Funjabi Punjabi

This app was developed as a fun way for users to learn and develop their Punjabi language skills. The app is designed to help adults and children to practice speaking and reading Punjabi actively. It can also be used by Punjabi speakers to learn English.

See the app – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/funjabi-punjabi-lite/id972621583?mt=8

Festival Calendar

Designed to bring all the major holiday’s in one place, this app helps you keep on track of festivities around the world.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/festival-calendar-lite/id990902323?mt=8

MyMedimate

MyMedimate is a simple and innovative medical app that helps to organise and manage medicine for yourself or your loved ones, giving you peace of mind.

When anyone falls ill, it can be a stressful time for all concerned. MyMedimate helps to manage and remind you which medication to administer safely and at what time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mymedimate/id878627239?mt=8

Snapshare

SnapShare allows you to capture and share your memories with your family and friends. Keep in touch with loved ones no matter where they are in the world.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snapshare-lite/id409972682?mt=8

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

Does Your Business Need An App?

/ Insights      / Does Your Business Need An App?

Does Your Business Need An App?

At Aspiring Panda we network with businesses locally and one of the first questions we get asked when we tell local business owners what we do is “does my business need an app?”

In our experience the answer is yes, however this is a difficult question to answer on the spot as without knowing more details about the company, it’s customers and it’s processes it is impossible to give accurate guidance on the value of an app.

Businesses can use apps in a number of different ways from a sales tool to an internal process tool that helps improve efficiency.

Understanding Your Business

So before answering this question we turn detective and ask questions about the business to find out what challenges it faces and how interactive software packaged within an app can be applied.

Questions will focus around the demographics and behaviours of customers including how they find the product or service the business provides and whether purchases are one off or repeat.

If customers buy or book regularly it could be that an app could increase loyalty or make it easier for regular customers to book at their convenience.

If you have a project based business or one operating business to business it may be that an app can help automate or manage processes. This could be by improving the tracking of projects, to apps that allow information to be recorded and stored centrally.

Finding the Right Fit For Your Business

Understanding the role that technology can play in your business and how it can increase sales and/or reduce costs and make processes more efficient is vital to deciding whether an app is right for your business.

If you are unsure of how to integrate technology within your business, or whether an app would be right for you, give the Aspiring Panda team a call.

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

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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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

How Apps Can Transform Traditional Local Service Providers

/ Insights      / How Apps Can Transform Traditional Local Service Providers

How Apps Can Transform Traditional Local Service Providers

In the last couple of years we have seen apps become an important part of the business landscape beyond gimmicks and marketing extensions.

We have seen true market disruption take place in industries that have existed for decades fuelled by apps and the way they act as a portal to interact, communicate and serve customers.

Whilst not every business can develop an app and simply become “the next Uber” overnight there are opportunities for small businesses to integrate mobile app technologies into their product offering.

These apps can be used to enhance service industry businesses such as taxi firms, takeaways and laundrettes. Here are a few ways a mobile app could transform a local company providing a service.

Offer New Products and Services

The development of a mobile app can allow a service provider to expand into new territories or even launch entirely new products. A good example of this could be a laundrette that uses a mobile app to launch a collection and delivery service to customers.

All of this could be managed within the app creating opportunities for the small business and convenience for the customer.

Gain Competitive Advantage & Enhance The Customer Experience

This kind of convenience allows small businesses to differentiate themselves from their competition.

By providing a high quality and convenient service offering via a mobile app the business can keep its customers happy and ahead of the competition.

Build Customer Loyalty & Maximise Revenue Earned Per Customer

 By offering a more convenient service an app can increase customer loyalty, an app on their phone can help keep you on their mind. Combined with push notifications that flash up from your app on their mobile device small businesses can increase the amount of orders received per customer by providing timely reminders and special offers about the service being offered.

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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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Development Technology web

A Guide to Mobile Responsive websites

/ Insights      / A Guide to Mobile Responsive websites

A Guide to Mobile Responsive websites

In the last five years the way in which we search the internet has changed. Internet traffic has moved from the desktop to the mobile device. This is powerful for consumers and retailers and contributed to a huge change in the way Google ranks websites.

This year Google changed the way it treats websites that are not designed to display correctly using smart phones and tablet devices. From the 23rd of April 2015 Google changed the algorithm that ranks search engines depending on whether a website is “mobile friendly”

This change is due to the change in internet searches, with more than 50% of web searches now made on mobile devices rather than on a desktop PC. This change means businesses need to ensure their website is mobile responsive or risk a decrease in visits to their sites.

Many Businesses Are Still Not Up To Date

However through our networking and the projects we have been working on it is clear that there are still a large number of businesses that have not updated their site to be mobile responsive.

Even six months after the changes were introduced we still meet businesses that have websites that are currently unresponsive.

How To Check If Your Website Is Out Of Date

To see if your website is mobile responsive or not you can visit the Google website and take the mobile friendly test.

If Google says that your website is not mobile friendly, then it is not too late to update your site, however we recommend that you make the changes as soon as possible to ensure that you do not miss out on mobile search tracking.

If you are unsure what these changes mean for your business or would like to speak to a digital marketing expert then give the Aspiring Panda team a call.

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 Technology

10 Statistics That Show the Power of Apps

/ Insights      / 10 Statistics That Show the Power of Apps

10 Statistics That Show the Power of Apps

The rise of the smartphone has been largely powered by the influence that mobile apps are now having on the ways in which we work and play. There are apps for every purpose, from games across the spectrum of fun to apps with a hard hitting business application.

Mobile apps are going from strength-to-strength in 2015, with their applications growing from both a business and personal perspective.

To highlight the power of mobile apps we have combed the web for the latest statistics around the growth of mobile apps and related industries:

These stats show that the appetite for mobile apps is rising as the world becomes more and more digitally and mobile focused. Although the solution for every business may not be to build an app, businesses should be giving serious thought to the role that apps could play in their business.

Apps and mobile technology are not just the domain of large companies: to compete, businesses of all sizes should be looking at how mobile apps can solve problems within their business. Be that how to generate more customers, retain old ones or improve the customer experience.

Wherever your business is heading, make sure you consider the role an app could play in your business.

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.

/ Related Content