Mobile Trackers Infiltrate the Food Court as Firms Fight for More Shopper Data

adage.com

Beacon Networks and Partners Are Expanding and Becoming More Complex

That Lord and Taylor app will not only remind shoppers of a deal in the men's shoe department; it might help retailers find out which entrance consumers used to get into the mall or what route they took to the Cinnabon.

Lots of companies have been experimenting with mobile tracking beacons to determine where shoppers go and what they do in their stores. Now, through a proliferation of third-party technologies and partnerships among retailers, shopping centers and mobile tracking firms, they have access to more data than ever about what consumers did before they got there.

Mobiquity is among those at the forefront of the trend. The tech firm owns and operates beacons -- small devices that pick up on signals from mobile phones -- in 240 malls owned by Simon Property Group. The company expects to expand its presence to 290 malls by July as a result of signing with shopping center owner Macerich to become its exclusive common area beacon provider earlier this month.

While marketers have had insight into where people roamed outside of stores through geo-fencing technologies, recently they've been able to tap into more precise location data via beacons dotting the shopping landscape in food courts or other areas not associated with a specific retailer.

The promise is for retailers to better understand their customers' behavior before and after they enter their stores and to communicate with them even when they're on the other side of the mall. For example, a retailer that works with Mobiquity would be able to anticipate that a shopper who has come to the mall on Tuesdays via the southwest entrance just might do the same thing again.

"That's the information they crave," said Dean Julia, co-CEO of Mobiquity Technologies. "The amount of metadata that we have, we can tell the time and location for the shopper who has a participating app."

Those apps are the keys to the system. The company's beacons only recognize signals from phones that have applications featuring its software development kit or SDK. That would include the Lord and Taylor app, or non-store-specific apps such as the Simon Mobile app, or ShopAdvisor for example. Mobiquity gathers the Apple Identifier for Advertisers or the Android Ad Identifier codes from devices with apps featuring its SDK. "If you do not have our SDK in your phone we do not get any data from you," said Mr. Julia.

Its partner apps -- and most others for that matter -- require people to allow phone location tracking before downloading them. However, whether consumers who download apps that connect with these more extensive tracking systems are truly cognizant of the extent to which their movements outside stores are being tracked is a question retailers and their partners will have to address as such technologies proliferate.

"Macerich's goal is to use the beacon platform to enhance the overall guest experience with timely and relevant messaging about our amenities, such as our text-based concierge service, ... same-day package delivery service, retail promotions, and gift card purchasing," said Petra Maruca, VP of business development for Macerich. Ms. Maruca declined to discuss details of the transaction with Mobiquity.

Swirl is another Mobiquity partner, and its own strategic shift represents the rapidly evolving and increasingly labyrinthine world of mobile tracking. Formerly a consumer-aimed shopping app that counted several retailers with Swirl's beacons installed in their stores, Swirl now focuses on embedding its technology into other retail apps such as RetailMeNot. RetailMeNot also has partnered with GGP malls to test beacons and other marketing technologies.

Swirl's relationship with Mobiquity helps it pair data showing that someone looked at a handbag in a partner's store with information about the shopper outside the store. "Otherwise we don't really know anything about you when you're in the common area," said Hilmi Ozguc, founder and CEO of Swirl.

Swirl manages campaigns for retailers and shopping app publishers who push out targeted offers to people who have downloaded their apps. It also runs a retail app ad exchange that uses mobile beacon data to deliver messages from product brands while shoppers browse in specific stores selling their wares. For instance, someone in the cosmetics section of a department store might get a push notification on her phone from a makeup brand. The company works with Mobiquity to access data showing where the people who have downloaded apps in its network are when they're in common areas of malls.

IBM is now on board, too. The firm will help Mobiquity push its beacon services to potential clients and assist the mobile tech company in campaign analytics and integration with retailers.

According to Swirl, its retail partners own the data it manages on their behalf. Yet, Mobiquity makes a point of stressing that it owns the data it gathers. The company allows a retail partner to see the information gathered on people who have downloaded its app, but does not reveal information about one store's shoppers to another store, for example. "We do not cross pollinate," said Mr. Julia. The information can be viewed in real-time through a reporting platform.

What does Mobiquity want to do with all that data? "We hope to monetize it," said Mr. Julia, noting the Garden City, N.Y., firm stores its data in dedicated servers and in the cloud and has a team in Barcelona managing that process.

He continued, "We've spoken to numerous ad networks and they all seem to think that adding that piece of data is extremely valuable and they would be able to upsell on CPM pricing."

What is the Most Cost-Effective Method of App Marketing?

go-mashmobile.com

The cost of acquiring a loyal app user has risen as the market has become more and more competitive, so for anyone wishing to make their app stand out, without a huge budget, what is the most cost-effective form of marketing?

Related: Measuring User Engagement for Mobile Apps

A recent report by Fiksu showed that, for the first time, the cost of acquiring a loyal app users passed $3 this year, showing a year-on-year increase of 113%. Google has recently integrated app listings into its search results, changing the playing field and adding an SEO element to ASO.

We spoke to some experts in the field of ASO, marketing and apps to find out what they feel is the most cost-effective form of app marketing.

Mickey Katz, COO of Go Commando App
“A product with a great value proposition for its users tied with relevant and provoking social content is our most cost effective way to promote.”

Ali Soroka, Country Manager at GoodBarber
“Display attractive yet non intrusive app banners on the mobile friendly version of your website to drive app installs.”

Fernando Ballester, Business Development at Yeeply
“Store searches rank first when it comes to user acquisition channels so this is a big reason to pay attention to your ASO strategy. Analyze titles and descriptions of your competition, the ones with top positions and the ones ranking below too so you can understand which keywords work and don’t.”

Janna Badalian, Marketing Director at MobileSmith
“The way people will find your mobile app is the same way they will find anything else – on Google. Optimize your app for search. Your app should show up #1 when it’s highly relevant to your audience – when they are searching for a similar product or service (not necessarily mobile). Perhaps they weren’t thinking of apps when this necessity arose? Let them now think of yours. Ensure your app is relevant. Make it available for both iOS and Android. Optimize your app description to clearly reflect its value proposition. Design a stunning icon. Put your best screenshots forward. Invest in an AdWords campaign. Utilize social media channels/campaigns to spread the word. Offer discounts for social sharing. Most importantly – watch out for user reviews and fix any bugs that are reported!”

Oleg Korneitchouk, Senior Affiliate Manager at AdGate Media
“One of the most cost-effective methods of app promotion is incentivized CPI promotion – which lower your costs to $1 per install. Here, publishers promote the app on their website and offer an incentive to their visitors to download & install the app.”

Miné Salkin, Director of Digital Media & PR at Type 2 Designs, Inc.
“One of the most effective ways we market apps is by directly reaching out to the customers and users who were most likely to become loyal app users. When we launched our professional networking application, it was featured by the Working Women of Tampa Bay Conference, directly getting access to the thousands of potential users who would not only use the app but would truly benefit from it in that networking setting. Similarly, our social app Symafour was picked up by local university students because we set up a tent, handed out t-shirts and other promotional items when they downloaded the app. Guerrilla marketing is often the most cost effective way to market many products, especially mobile applications.”

Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail
“The most cost effective way we’ve found by far is to drive users virally, since it drives people to download our apps for free. The key is to figure out your users can touch others in a way that makes them want to use and download your app.”

Sarah Cornwell, Director of Marketing at appbackr
“If it’s a game with IAP or paid, ad networks are the best option (and its scalable). Once the developer establishes LTV, he can price his ads accordingly. If it’s not a game, promotion through built email list and partnerships as well as ad networks is the best option.”

3 Insanely Effective Ways to Promote Your Mobile App Through Existing Audiences

business2community.com

It’s fairly clear that the world has gone mobile. As I walk down the street in NYC, I have to duck and dodge every few minutes to avoid running into someone with their head down, nose in their phone.

No wonder mobile apps have become some prevalent. While I still contest that many (if not most) businesses don’t actually need to create an app (but rather just create a mobile-optimized website), many apps are the business onto themselves. And like any business, they need to implement a marketing strategy – or strategies – to succeed.

One extremely powerful method for marketing a business – be it a service or a produce (or an app) – is to tap into existing audiences. Here are three ways to do just that….

Search Engine Optimization

SEO isn’t appropriate for all apps. Mobile game apps, for example, probably aren’t going to benefit much from focusing a lot of effort on search engine optimization. Although mobile game designers can try to rank for terms like “best mobile games” or “best iPhone game,” the competition is likely too stiff, and the initial efforts are better spent elsewhere.

For apps in a specific niche, like events apps for example, search engine optimization can go a long way by helping you tap into existing demand.

Bar World, for example, is a nightlife and events app that is currently focusing on the San Diego area. Topic pages focusing on events and nightlife for that specific city are helping the app slowly move up in the search engines for keywords that their ideal customers may be searching for.

The key here is to figure out who your user base is, what they might be looking for, and how to get in front of them at the moment that they are looking for it. This can be very powerful.

Reddit Advertising

This is something I am personally currently experimenting with, but I can definitely see a ton of potential here.

Reddit has a huge community, they are all relatively young, and digitally active. In other words, the perfect pool of potential users for a mobile app.

There are also countless subreddits on any topic you can imagine. That means that there is a ready-made community that you can target with your advertising.

If a subscription beef jerky business can be successful with Reddit ads, chances are you can find a way to utilize these ads for your mobile app.

But the best part is…the ads are ridiculously cheap. Especially when you compare the cost to the likes of Facebook or Google ads.

Go Offline

It might seem strange to go offline to market a product that is digital. But that is exactly the strategy that dating app Tinder used to gain traction.

Rather than focusing solely on digital advertising and promotion, founders wooed college students into using the app. This did several things…

It injected an initial user base, which is critical for an app focused on social interaction. But it also injected the right type of user base – a user base that has influence. This helped spread the app outside of the organizations to which the app was initially pitched.

Find a community of target users offline and get in front of them. After all, while the product maybe digital, your customers are still real, physical people.

Science & Technology Looking ahead: Smartphones and their place in the Internet of Things

dnaindia.com

Smartphones will soon command all of your connected devices, but it's been proven time and again how vulnerable they can be. Our best bet for a safer connected ecosystem might lie in our ability to create better machine-to-machine data transfer technology.

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Two decades ago, Indians discovered the magic of wireless telephony, with the introduction of mobile phones and the Internet. Today, smartphones have practically become an extension of our lives. The humble mobile phone, once restricted to calls or text messages, has transformed our lives in its smart avatar. We rely on our smartphones for connectivity, productivity and various other infotainment needs. Managing a business, working on the move, shopping, healthcare – our smartphones enable us to achieve all this and much more, remotely, and in an efficient manner. 

In today’s fast-paced world, we are living in the age of multi-screens and connected devices. It’s not wrong to say that millennials spend more time with their devices than with other people. Every day, we go through a series of interactions with multiple digital devices, enabling us to connect, learn, buy, compare, search, navigate, and manage almost every aspect of our lives. While each device plays an important role in our numerous daily activities, their true potential can be unleashed only when they can connect with other devices. This multi-device interaction sets the foundation of a connected ecosystem.

An array of innovations across the technology landscape has converged to make smart, connected products technically and economically feasible. After the internet, smartphone and app revolution, we are today at a tipping point with the Internet of Things (IoT), which simply means a world of internet-enabled wireless connected devices. We are headed towards a future where billions of everyday devices will soon be connected to the Internet. Smartphones, fitness trackers, and smart home appliances have already ushered in the connected ecosystem—all connected and beaming tons of data home. We are already witnessing plans and discussions on smart cities and model smart homes. 

We are fortunate to witness the beginning of an era which was only a distant dream until a few years ago. Imagine a world where your fitness tracker could indicate blood pressure levels, your car could recommend routes based on traffic predictions from navigation apps, and your refrigerator could share nutrition value of food items or their freshness quotient. Some of this is already happening around us. With IoT, we can turn daily use accessories like watches, shoes, home appliances, and daily commute mechanisms like cars and trains, into powerful connected mobile computing endpoints with incremental benefits. We are just a click away from controlling our household appliances, cars, finances or work life from the ease of our smartphone or any other wearable device. This marks the beginning of new opportunities for consumers, brands and the connectivity industry at large.

IoT might seem like the latest technology fad to many however, in reality, the market opportunity is humongous. According to IT research firm Gartner, IoT will include 26 billion units installed by 2020, and by that time IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenue exceeding US $300 billion, mostly in services. According to technology company Cisco, as many as 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. To put that in perspective, that’s nine devices for every one of the eight billion people expected to be on the planet. Companies like BlackBerry with QNX and Project Ion will have unique advantages to provide the technological building blocks, applications and services needed to deliver on the vision of IoT.

As the IoT market matures, all the sensor-enabled connected devices need to be communicated with and controlled, and smartphones—due to their widespread proliferation and ease of use—are the best possible device for human interface and interaction with these connected devices. Smartphones combined with machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies are set to play a crucial role in the era of a connected ecosystem and IoT. Being a mobile-first country and the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, India is best positioned to usher in the IoT movement with the help of smartphones and mobility devices in the hands of the common man. The possibilities are limitless, however, we will need to be wary of the related security and privacy concerns. The unprecedented increase in the number of connected devices will pose immense security threats, along with other challenges in terms of data management and analytics. It is critical to have a standardized control system in place to avoid hacking or data theft attempts. With massive amounts of machine data generated by the millions of sensors put into service, selecting the right M2M analytic applications will be key to make sense of the vast amount of data.

This is just the beginning of a new connected world – and we should prepare ourselves for the exciting ride ahead.

10 Useful and Entertaining Digital Marketing Stats From the Last Week

adweek.com

Live-streaming has become a hot space to watch this year.

Last week entailed another round of intriguing data points released by marketers, and we've collected the 10 most interesting and fun stats for your perusal. Check 'em out:

1. You want to know how big the "unboxing" craze is getting on YouTube? Take Evan of EvanTubeHD, a cherubic tyke whose ability to unwrap new toys and play with them might be described as hypnotic. Evan has 1.5 million YouTube subscribers. Though the idea of kids selling to other children via online video is under increased scrutiny.

2. UberFacts proprietor Kris Sanchez claims he is making $500,000 a year selling sponsorships through his Twitter account, which has 10.8 million followers. There's nothing trivial about that kind of following or money.

3. Kellogg has found success with Pandora ads, particularly with mobile promos. Like so many digital marketing triumphs nowadays, it was all about the data. For Pop-Tarts, the CPG giant compared Pandora's log-in information with Nielsen Catalina Solutions' sales data from retailers and found that the ads reached 4 million homes. From there, it broke down sales data for people who were exposed to the ad. The average person who saw the ad spent $4.09 at a store compared to $3.81 of the control group, meaning that Kellogg's Pandora ads increased incremental sales by 7 percent.

4. As of Friday, Periscope users have shared their live streams on Twitter 1.5 million times since the app became popular in March, according to Nuvi. We'll have more exclusive data from the social data vendor on live streaming this week.

5. YouTube has rolled out a new shopping button for pre-roll ads with a couple of test partners. Per Google, home goods merchant Wayfair has been getting three times the digital revenue compared to previous YouTube campaigns, while the cosmetics retailer Sephora saw more than an 80 percent jump in brand consideration and a 54 percent lift in ad recall.

6. Since Airbnb became available in Cuba on April 2, nearly 500 new hosts have joined and created listings. The Caribbean country is now more popular on the home-sharing site than Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro.

7. Mondelez plans to convert all its digital media in 25 countries into shoppable ads with "buy now" buttons to drive sales through retailers like Walmart and Amazon.

8. K-Swiss is the latest brand to fall in love with Kik's audience. The mobile app's users who have seen the sneaker's video ads—which offer rewards for views—so far reported 25 times higher brand awareness for the sneaker company. And 55 percent of viewers signaled intent to purchase the brand's gear, according to the companies.

9. President Barack Obama personally joined Twitter on May 18 with the handle @POTUS, and he had 2.3 million followers before the weekend hit. That number is now up to 2.44 million.

10. Four dollars. That's how much you can save by purchasing electronic music star Zedd's new album on Tinder ($3.99) instead of on iTunes ($7.99). Will mobile date-gifting become a thing?

WhatsApp infographic reveals interesting facts about the messaging app

phonearena.com

Did you know that messaging app WhatsApp has spent a total of $0 on marketing? The fifth most downloaded app on Android, the company has just 55 employees. WhatsApp is available in 32 languages for the iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry platforms, and 30 billion messages are sent and received by WhatsApp every day. The app had 800 million users as of last month, and messages from WhatsApp were used as evidence in 40% of Italian divorces!

A new infographic about WhatsApp shows more information about the messaging app than you probably thought existed. For example, 8% of U.S. teens aged 14 through 17 use WhatsApp daily. Do you remember when the app was removed from the App Store over four days in January 2012 for reasons that were never disclosed?

To make this infographic easier for you to read, we cut it up into small pieces in the slideshow south of this paragraph. Whether you're a WhatsApp member or not, you should find the information quite interesting as it relates to mobile devices. With 1 million new members registering for the service every day, you might find yourself a devoted WhatsApp user in the near future.

WhatsApp infographic reveaks everything about the messaging app

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The Seven Critical Steps to Marketing Your Education App

gamesandlearning.org

If you build it, there is no guarantee they will come. In fact, in the App Store or Google Play there is no guarantee they will ever even see it.

With the current educational app market as competitive as it is it is crucial to have an outstanding product and a clear marketing strategy. The following are a few critical steps you can take to give your app the best chance of finding success:

1. Make a plan

If you are creating a marketing strategy for an educational app, you probably have a clear goal in mind. If you don’t, create one. Make sure it is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (marketing folks call this SMART for short). Creating a detailed timeline will help you stay on top of your objectives and track down your progress. It is worth to put together an editorial calendar to mark important dates and note down creative marketing ideas.

2. Inform the influencers

Before sending out press releases, app authors should create a list of influential tech writers and authoritative industry bloggers, and get in touch with them as soon as the press kit and other launch marketing materials are ready.

With the use of pre-launch marketing campaign, app authors can effectively reach out to a number of potential customers. Twitter will be the perfect platform to spread the word about the app, as it is a top social media site for tech enthusiasts.

3. Make creative use of social media

Social media marketing is currently the most powerful tool for fostering relationships with the customers and raising international brand awareness. Social networking sites are perfect places to get vocal about innovative scholastic products, because a vast majority of potential users have an active social media presence already. For marketing reasons, the authors should try to establish a comprehensive online image way before the app launch and subtly advertise their product on social media profiles by, for example, offering a free trial period or an exclusive sneak peek into the making of the app.

4. Explore different options

App authors should bear in mind that each social networking site attracts different audiences and promotes various levels of interaction with the followers. Picture-oriented sites like Pinterest and Instagram are great for sharing screenshots and appealing marketing visuals. Facebook, on the other hand, facilitates more active engagement with the fans. And finally, Twitter proves irreplaceable for sending out concise updates and offering promo codes. Check out the infographic created by SumAll to choose the most suitable hours for posting on different channels and optimizing chances at reaching a wider audience.

5. Don’t skimp on freebies

Everyone likes to receive something for free once in a while. In order to get more followers and, consequently, more potential customers, you can promise and prepare special discounts, which will be available only on the day of the release. App authors should not forget to advertise them in different media, both online and offline. If done properly, this strategy will successfully drive app downloads and assure a number of reviews early on.

6. Improve ratings

With App Store Optimization the authors can create a product page that will stand out from the competitive app store environment. In order to optimize download ratings, it is crucial to give the product a catchy name and an appealing logo. After that, a skilled copywriter should compose a detailed description, full of potential search words. At the bottom of the app page, the creators can enclose contact details to increase credibility. Google Play and iTunes stores allow links to commercial websites and tech support.

7. After the launch

Marketing an educational app doesn’t end with its launch. After that, there is still plenty of work to do. Once the initial hype is over, it is important to rethink and adjust the marketing strategy to reach new clients. It is a good idea to invest in paid advertising to enlarge the scope of effective promotion.

Even following all these steps may not equal overnight, spectacular success, but they are a way to think about the launch of an app as more than just posting to an app store and hoping.

Good luck!

Why Johnnie Walker joined the Internet of Things

cio.com

With the help of printed electronics and an Internet of Things smart product platform, beverage giant Diageo is equipping its Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky with smart bottles.

British beverage company Diageo is the largest producer of spirits in the world and owner of some of the world's most storied brands, including Crown Royal, Smirnoff, Ketel One, Gordon's, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker. Tradition is a byword at Diageo, but so is innovation.

"A lot of our brands are 300 or 400 years old, or even older than that," says Venky Balakrishnan Iyer, global vice president, Digital Innovation, Diageo. "There's a lot of craft and tradition that goes into creating our products. What we're trying to do here is take the latest innovations and see how we can take something that's special already and make it a richer consumer experience."

Johnnie Walker is a case in point. Nearly 200 years ago, John "Johnnie" Walker started selling his Walker's Kilmarnock Whisky in his grocer's shop. And 150 years ago, his son Alexander started selling Walker's Old Highland, the company first blended Scotch whisky. Johnnie Walker is now the most widely distributed brand of blended Scotch in the world, with annual sales in excess of 130 million bottles.

Johnnie Walk Blue gets smarter

The brand and its iconic square bottle — first introduced in 1870 — is well-known nearly everywhere. But it may be time for that bottle, or more specifically its label, to change with the times. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this past March, Diageo and partner Thinfilm Electronics introduced a prototype "smart bottle" for the flagship Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky.

The smart bottle features a printed sensor tag made with Thinfilm's OpenSense technology. It can detect the sealed and opened state of each bottle. OpenSense uses smartphones' Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities, allowing Diageo to send personalized communications to consumers who read the tags with their smartphones.

[ Related: CIOs put the Internet of Things in perspective ]

"Although these are very traditional product categories, there is a huge amount of digital interaction that is happening with our products," Balakrishnan says. "These are people standing in stores or bars and wondering whether they buy the single malt or the blend, highland or lowland."

In fact, he says, Diageo sees millions of searches about its brands occurring, and more than 50 percent of those searches happen through mobile within a few feet of the bottle on the shelf. Communicating with those consumers at the point of sale is a major push for Diageo, Balakrishnan says. But Thinfilm's technology goes even further, because it can detect the closed or opened state of the bottle.

Diageo wants to continue communicating with the consumer once the bottle has been opened, but it wants that interaction to be responsive. Once the bottle is opened, it's not about presenting sales information anymore.

[Related: Internet of Things connections to quadruple by 2020 ]

"We know the bottle opening event has occurred," he says. "Our communication can change from guiding the consumer on which bottle to buy to how to best enjoy this product."

  

Diageo is primarily focused on the marketing elements of the technology, but it also has application in the supply chain. Companies with products equipped with Thinfilm sensor tags can track those products across the supply chain, in-store and to the point of consumption, with the sensor tags remaining readable even when the factory seal has been broken. This provides an additional layer of security to protect the authenticity of the product.

[Related: 10 Hot Internet of Things startups]

Thinfilm's sensor tags consist of an antenna and an integrated circuit (IC) printed on a label, says Matthew Bright, director of Product & Technical Marketing at Thinfilm and chair of the Retail Working Group at the NFC Forum. They have an engineered weak point that is designed to break when the seal of the container is broken, changing the information transmitted by the circuit.

Each tag has a unique identifier encoded by Thinfilm and is 100 percent read-only, making them very difficult to clone. Bright notes that Thinfilm uses partially randomized non-sequential identifiers using very large numbers.

"We can identify a trillion products a year every year for a trillion years without duplication," he says.

The technology could help detect counterfeiting, he adds. For instance, counterfeiting in the cosmetics world is a known problem. The product in a cosmetics container could be replaced with something that's inferior or even dangerous, Bright says. With Thinfilm's OpenSense technology, companies can track their product through the supply chain and detect whether containers have been opened prior to sale. The technology can also help with diversion, where a product is intended for sale in one geography, but then diverted to another location where it can be sold for a higher price.

Smart labels can even be manufactured with temperature sensors that can detect if a product, like vaccines, goes beyond a set temperature range, Bright says.

But for Diageo, it's all about beverages, and the smart label is just the tip of a larger ice berg. Diageo has been working with EVRYTHNG, a software company which specializes in an Internet of Things (IoT) smart products platform intended to connect consumer products to the Web, helping manufacturers manage real-time data associated with those products to drive applications.

The Web of Things creates a network of data

EVRYTHNG helped Diageo build a strategic technology platform called +More that runs on EVRYTHNG's engine. +More allows digital interaction with retailers and other supply partners based on how products are made, sold and used. Diageo is using the platform for a range applications that allow it to track products in the supply chain and deliver interaction analytics.

Niall Murphy, co-founder and CEO of EVRYTHNG, says the mission is about more than IoT, it's about creating the Web of Things.

"The Internet of Things is about how stuff gets connected," he says. "The Web of Things is about how things are connected in a broader network. How stuff is getting connected is the least interesting part of the whole puzzle. The value arises as a consequence of the data getting connected."

When an inventory item is connected to the Internet of Things, it becomes a data generator, Murphy explains.

"From a CIO's point of view, the operational capability of the business can become informed by its assets," he says.

That means consumer products can help you instrument your supply chain and inform you about the performance of products in the field, or the LED lights in a building could detect the amount of daylight in a room and dynamically throttle their output for maximum energy efficiency.

"When products become smart it's transformative to the enterprise providing those products," Murphy says. "What is a product? It used to be defined as being a physical thing. Now it's a combination of physical capability, software capability and data."

Leveraging the cloud-based EVERYTHNG Engine, Diageo used APIs and Web services to integrate its +More marketing platform with internal global ERP and CRM systems, external agencies, developers and social networks. As a result, it can manage each OpenSense-equipped smart bottle's unique identity and associated dynamic data, allowing it to trigger "in-the-moment" marketing experiences and capture real-time supply chain analytics.

How to create an app for your business

theguardian.com
For consumers addicted to their mobiles, apps are an essential part of everyday life. But just how easy is it for entrepreneurs to take advantage of this trend?

Businesses want to be the first port of call for their customers and what better way to do that than to have their offerings embedded onto a smartphone? A successful app means a business is only ever a few thumbstrokes away from a sale, while apps can also provide valuable data about customers’ needs and preferences. But while the best apps are often very straightforward, don’t be fooled: creating even the simplest interface takes a huge amount of time, research and resources.

Creating an app is time-consuming and potentially expensive, so businesses must first decide if an app is really mission-critical or advantageous. Market research is key, as the app’s ability to meet customer needs will ultimately determine how successful it is.

Nick Katz is co-founder and CEO of Splittable, an app that helps shared households divide up their costs and bills.

“We started with a website and that was getting used a lot,” Katz says. “We were growing significantly without spending any money on marketing. We always wanted to build an app, but we had to prove the concept worked first.”

Though Katz felt sure there was demand for his idea, he wanted to drill down further into customer needs and so began speaking to them directly. “Before we sketched anything out, we started talking to customers and non-customers, interviewing 100 people. We wanted to talk about the problems they faced sharing property. From that, we really decided to focus on the money side of things, rather than focusing on cleaning, for instance,” he says.

Following the initial market research, Katz and co-founder Vasanth Subramanian, an experienced coder, created a plan for the app and then asked customers for further feedback.

“We created a wireframe and then took it back to the customers. It’s called ‘paper prototyping’ when you ask them specifically what they will do at a particular screen,” he says.

“We did a soft launch, so it was on the app store, but we didn’t do any PR. We then got family and friends to download it and test it out. We discovered a few bugs, fixed them with an update and we were ready to go.”

The costs of creating an app vary significantly, depending on the project and company concerned. Industry insiders suggest a fairly basic app can be created for £15,000 to £20,000, although the average is more likely to be in the region of £50,000 to £70,000. However, depending on the additional back-end architecture required, it’s not unheard of for development costs to rise above £100,000.

Costs are also impacted by the skills of existing personnel and partners. Many businesses already have web teams in place, meaning they can utilise existing staff. However, unless a business has very strong coding skills, it’s likely to need some outside help.

Finding tech talent is getting easier, with sites such as Freelancer.com enabling coders to bid for work from employers. Coding Cupboard enables businesses to tap into the skills of students and graduates keen for experience and first commissions. Businesses should also seek recommendations from other entrepreneurs and companies that have successfully created apps before deciding who to hire.

Adam Twidell, founder and CEO of private jet brokerage PrivateFly, already had a strong web platform, but liked the idea of his customers being able to book a plane via their mobile phones. Since it launched in 2010, the app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times and accounts for 10% of the company’s bookings.

“The reason we wanted to do the app was for the PR and marketing. We wanted to be the first company to enable customers to book a private jet via an app,” he says.

Twidell hired a consultant to design the app and manage the process, although he was able to use his existing suppliers thereafter. “There are only so many ways you can make an app,” he says. “You have to follow one of a number of templates. Building an app from scratch is a lot easier than creating a website.”

Sarah Weller, London managing director of mobile consultancy Mubaloo, advises businesses looking for an app to first investigate whether they can buy one “off the shelf” to suit their purposes. For companies that do need to create their own, there is likely to be an ongoing process of research, feedback and updates. “For small businesses, the only way to really do it is to launch and then to use the data analytics to create an update,” says Weller.

Despite investing in research and development, many businesses discover that their apps receive a lukewarm response from consumers after launch. The important thing here is to work out what went wrong and learn from your mistakes.

This was the case for domestic services business Fantastic Services, led by CEO Rune Sovndahl. The company initially brought out its app, which enabled booking services, in 2009 but it didn’t work.

“The reaction was mixed, but overall it seemed that people weren’t ready to use a service of this type, so we put it on hold,” says Sovndahl. “The company then went back to the drawing board, did more customer research and finally relaunched in late 2014. Since then, the app has had 6,500 downloads.

Sovndahl says he has learned a lot about his customers from the process. “If I were to give any advice to entrepreneurs looking to create their own apps, I would recommend having a very clear plan before you start talking with developers. You need to know exactly what you want the app to do, and the outcome. You’ll also need to be clear on target audiences.”

How to stand out in the App Store

One of the big problems with apps is that the marketplace is hugely crowded and you need to make sure your customers can find you in the App Store. Andy Atalla of digital agency atom42, which has promoted apps for clients including Drinkaware and BoxNation, offers some advice on App Store Optimisation (ASO). 

• Use relevant keywords: The keywords you choose in your app name and description will affect visibility in app store search results, so choose wisely. Tools such as Sensor Tower and AppTweak are great for finding new keywords or seeing what your competitors are doing.

• Use an app review plug-in: Good ratings are paramount and review plug-ins, which ask users for feedback while in-app, are by far the most effective way of generating positive reviews. Appirator and Apptentive are good options for this

• Encourage reviews from users you know: It makes sense to ask employees or friends who have downloaded the app to leave an honest review. Remember, though, that fake reviews are never a good idea!

• Include an email address in the App Store description: This allows users to contact you directly with support issues and prevents people airing their frustrations in a review