In an age where all information is easily accesible on the go, still, not all companies are sure that investing in mobile phone applications is the best move for their business. We show you how building a mobile phone apps could give your business a competitive advantage.

What is a Mobile App?

Let’s start at the beginning. App is short for “application” and mobile apps are simply applications (standalone software) that run on a mobile device. Primarly these apps are supposed to ‘do something’ useful, as opposed to a website (or mobile website), which is mostly used just to offer information or sell something. Apps must be downloaded and installed into your device and some of them do not require an internet connection once they have been installed. There are 2 types of apps: Native apps and web-based apps (more on this here).

What are they good for?

Apps can serve many purposes, but they’re mostly used for the following: business, entertainment, quick reference, gaming and media playback, connecting people and a way to offer diferent kinds of product in real-time.

How popular are mobile apps?

Depending on your type of business, a mobile app might be a good fit or not. However, it’s important to know that mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular, and it’s too large of a market to ignore. As shown below, the time spent by users on mobile phone apps in 2011 exceeded, for the first time, the time spent mobile web browsing.

This trend is expected to continue in 2012.

What are the potential advantages of an app for my business?

Unlike mobile websites, mobile apps are not for everybody. Some of the factors to consider are your target market, your marketing goals, your budget and the size of your company. Some companies find mobile apps to be the right fit for them, some think mobile websites are best, and some use a combination of both. It’s up to you to decide which one works best for you. To help you, here are some advantages that mobile apps offer:

-                  Allow customers to purchase any time and anywhere.

-                  Great tool to introduce yours new products to the right customers and at the right time.

-                  Promotions and offers in real-time.

-                  Ability to perform complex calcutlations.

-                  You can personalize your customers’ experience.

-                   No need for connectivity.

Due to the above reasons, not all companies and all sectors can achieve this effect but there is a cost balanced behind a clearly defined strategy that allows mobility make the right decisions on the type of application that must be used.

Evocreative together with its partner Anyware (www.anyware.cz), can help you determine what is the best strategy and options for your business. We have helped introduce many companies to mobile marketing and successfully launch their initial mobile marketing efforts.

Article written by Fernando Davila, Managing and Creative Director of Evocreative.

What is a mobile website?

A mobile website is simply your existing website configured in a way that is easy to see and navigate with a mobile device (smart phone, tablet, etc). If your website is not optimized for mobile use, it could present major problems for the user, which could make it very difficult or impossible to use your website. (Please note that a mobile website is not the same as a mobile app – Read about mobile apps).

Why is having a mobile website important to my business?

Mobile browsing is on the rise… Checking your emails and browsing the internet with your phone it’s quickly becoming the norm. Statistics in 2011 reveal that over 10% of internet browsing is done with mobile devices. According to signalnews.com, that constitutes 16.7 million users worldwide. By the year 2015, the majority of internet users will be doing so with a mobile device. If you don’t have a mobile website you are losing out on a lot of traffic and potential business.

How do I get a mobile website?

It’s easier than you think. Depending on the size of complexity of your website, we can have a mobile version of it in 1 or 2 weeks. If you’re a client of ours, it’s even faster, since we designed and built your website and we know exactly how to optimize it. Feel free to contact us anytime for a free consultation. This is a worthy investment. You business will need a mobile website sooner or later, so why wait until your competition has one and establishes a relation with your potential clients?

Article written by Fernando Davila, Managing and Creative Director of Evocreative.

http://designbeep.com/2011/12/15/40-excellent-iphone-application-website-designs-for-inspiration/

Here is very helpful guide about creating an email marketing plan. We have been using this great tool for email marketing and it’s producing great results. The best thing about it is that it is a very user friendly and multilingual. All you need to do is create your campaign, and that’s what we would be glad to help you with.

Source: Mailchimp

You know you want to do some email marketing, but you’re not sure where to start. You think you might need a “Plan of Action,” but that sounds complicated and time consuming. Let’s face it: You’re too darn busy to spend hours and hours developing an email- marketing plan. This guide is for you.

You’re smart to explore email marketing for your business. Current research suggests that email marketing is among the most cost-effective marketing tactics available. Email marketing gets results. For example, the Ad Effectiveness Survey commissioned by Forbes Media in Feb/March 2009 reveals that email and e-newsletter marketing is considered the second most effective tool for generating conversions (that means customers)—just behind Search Engine Optimization.

An email-marketing plan is easy to put together—we’ll take you through all the steps.

Step One: Define Your Readers

Before you start putting together email campaigns, you probably want to define your audience. Once you get a good idea of the folks reading your newsletters, it’ll be easier to decide what you want to say to them.

Your content is the most important part of your email newsletters. Here are some content-related tips:

Sit down with your calendar—personal and business—and think about what frequency makes sense for your audience and your content. We recommend that you email your list at least monthly, but don’t feel the need to commit to that immediately. Feel free to skip a month if you don’t have anything truly useful to say.

You probably don’t want to go more than a couple months without contacting your subscribers, because they may forget that they opted-in to receive emails from you and might report you as a spammer. You don’t want to send too frequently either, or subscribers will feel overloaded with emails and may unsubscribe or, worse, report you as a spammer.

Within those guidelines, your specific product or service and the content of your email campaigns can guide frequency and timing. If you’re sending info on sales and discounts and you discount items every Sunday, you probably want to send an email every Friday giving your subscribers a sneak peek at the specials. If you are doing a more general e-newsletter that discusses news and special events, then a monthly newsletter might be a better fit. If you’re showcasing new products that come in every two weeks, your readers will want to know right away, so you should email them every two weeks.

Step Five: Create A Timeline

You’ve already done so much to make your email communications smart and effective. Now take a minute to write a timeline for creating each email newsletter. Add deadlines in your calendar for when each step should happen in order for you to send your campaign on time

Your timeline and steps will vary, depending on your industry, type of content and calendar. But here’s an example of steps you might include in your timeline:

DAY 1: Jot down the topics you want to include in your newsletter and some ideas for pictures to include.

DAY 2: Write out what you want to say about each topic, and pull the pictures you want to use into one folder on your computer. (Make sure you have permission to use the photos—don’t just grab something from Google images.)

DAY 3: Sign into MailChimp and create your email campaign. Read over it a few times looking for any grammatical errors or typos. You should also send a test email of your campaign to yourself and a friend or colleague who could read over the email and check for errors and typos.

DAY 4: Send your campaign

Now you’ve outlined the steps in creating your newsletter and you know how much time you need. With that information, go back to your calendar and jot down the date you’ll send your campaign and the date you’ll start working on the campaign.

Don’t forget to take holidays into account when sketching out your newsletter deadlines. You may want to send out an exclusive offer before a holiday like Valentines Day to encourage your readers to purchase a Valentine’s gift from your site. Or you may want to avoid sending near a holiday if you’re sending industry news when businesses are likely to be closed.

So there you have it—your guide to developing a comprehensive email marketing plan for your business. We hope this guide has helped you through that process, and that you’re ready to begin creating a newsletter that your subscribers see as an asset and a joy to read when it arrives in their inboxes.

What can Evocreative do for you?

• design your newsletter
• implement the newsletter into Mailchimp
• implement subscription form into your website
• give you a quick tutorial how to get started

Contact us for free consultation

http://blog.karachicorner.com/2012/01/100-logos-for-design-inspiration/

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/landing-pages-101/

http://designmodo.com/web-design-behance-deviantart/