The global pandemic has changed a lot about the way that things operate. As humans, it is easy to notice the large changes to our day to day lives, but it is more difficult for us to notice the long term trends and movements that make up these patterns. One of these emerging patterns is that ever since the first lockdowns began, there have been more and more cyber attacks. The reasons that this is happening is multitude, and the ways in which people are more vulnerable and more likely to be successful are multitude as well. To understand the steps you need to take to take care of a problem such as this, you need to understand its nature, what is currently being done, and what has changed.
Why Cyber Attacks are On the Rise
An Increase in Skilled People Without Work
Why have hackers started attacking more? Part of it is simply that there are more skilled people without work, meaning a larger pool of potential hackers with the skills that can allow them to be successful. As businesses are already dealing with so much, most people simply do not have the time to worry about cyber security if they do not have a full stack team in place to deal with it for them.
An Increase in Hospital Workload
To make matters worse, more and more hospitals specifically are being targeted. Because they are dealing with such an increased workload, most of them tend to not have the time to focus on other areas of the business like cyber security. That opens up a door for hackers to exploit non-maintained systems.
An Increase in Remote Work
Another major source of infections is the fact that the workforce has gone from working at in-office computers—which at least offered some form of protection on the server—to personal devices that are much more likely to become infected. Even if remote workers are now using work laptops at home, that still means they are using their personal network and personal devices connected to it. For some of these hacks, the attacker will simply hack as often as they feel they can be successful, meaning more opportunity leads to more attempts.
An Increase in Online Communication
Similarly, since more and more communication is happening online and not in person, people are falling victim to more phishing attempts and spoofing hacks. These are when someone pretends to be someone they are not. The fact that people are using social media more on their devices opens them up to social media phishing attacks.
Improvements in Tools for Attack
Finally, technology has simply gotten better. There are more AI tools than ever, ransomware is up more than ever and the things that viruses can now do is expanding beyond what traditional basic antivirus can actually handle. AI is now not only defending, but attacking and constantly running penetration tests to seek out any weaknesses in a given system. When it finds one,it exploits it and takes advantage of anything it can.
What You Can Do About It
To counter all of this, you need a company to provide training for employees and teach them to spot scams. As well, you need someone who can monitor each end point and make sure that no one using a work laptop that is infected can then infect the main server and gain access to your business and its data. A full-stack managed service provider (MSP) like tekRESCUE can do all of this and more for your business. Consider working with an MSP if your organization does not have its own internal IT staff—your valuable data deserves the protection now more than ever.
The global pandemic has changed a lot about the way that things operate. As humans, it is easy to notice the large changes to our day to day lives, but it is more difficult for us to notice the long term trends and movements that make up these patterns. One of these emerging patterns is that ever since the first lockdowns began, there have been more and more cyber attacks. The reasons that this is happening is multitude, and the ways in which people are more vulnerable and more likely to be successful are multitude as well. To understand the steps you need to take to take care of a problem such as this, you need to understand its nature, what is currently being done, and what has changed.
Why Cyber Attacks are On the Rise
An Increase in Skilled People Without Work
Why have hackers started attacking more? Part of it is simply that there are more skilled people without work, meaning a larger pool of potential hackers with the skills that can allow them to be successful. As businesses are already dealing with so much, most people simply do not have the time to worry about cyber security if they do not have a full stack team in place to deal with it for them.
An Increase in Hospital Workload
To make matters worse, more and more hospitals specifically are being targeted. Because they are dealing with such an increased workload, most of them tend to not have the time to focus on other areas of the business like cyber security. That opens up a door for hackers to exploit non-maintained systems.
An Increase in Remote Work
Another major source of infections is the fact that the workforce has gone from working at in-office computers—which at least offered some form of protection on the server—to personal devices that are much more likely to become infected. Even if remote workers are now using work laptops at home, that still means they are using their personal network and personal devices connected to it. For some of these hacks, the attacker will simply hack as often as they feel they can be successful, meaning more opportunity leads to more attempts.
An Increase in Online Communication
Similarly, since more and more communication is happening online and not in person, people are falling victim to more phishing attempts and spoofing hacks. These are when someone pretends to be someone they are not. The fact that people are using social media more on their devices opens them up to social media phishing attacks.
Improvements in Tools for Attack
Finally, technology has simply gotten better. There are more AI tools than ever, ransomware is up more than ever and the things that viruses can now do is expanding beyond what traditional basic antivirus can actually handle. AI is now not only defending, but attacking and constantly running penetration tests to seek out any weaknesses in a given system. When it finds one,it exploits it and takes advantage of anything it can.
What You Can Do About It
To counter all of this, you need a company to provide training for employees and teach them to spot scams. As well, you need someone who can monitor each end point and make sure that no one using a work laptop that is infected can then infect the main server and gain access to your business and its data. A full-stack managed service provider (MSP) like tekRESCUE can do all of this and more for your business. Consider working with an MSP if your organization does not have its own internal IT staff—your valuable data deserves the protection now more than ever.
Digital analytics covers the collection, analysis, visualization, and interpretation of real time, online data describing user behavior on web sites, mobile apps, and social media platforms. An important part of online intelligence, digital analytics allows business owners and brands to know how their websites and apps are being viewed and found by visitors. This information can be used to improve your current strategies, or to create new ones.
How Google Analytics Works
Google Analytics is an open source website monitoring tool that provides many different statistics. The most important ones are the number of visitors and the number of people who actually clicked through to the sales page or the other pages of your site. When people to your site to view a particular page, this JavaScript snippet references a special JavaScript file that then runs the tracking process for Analytics on your site.
To make use of Google’s advanced analytics features, you should get the latest version from Google. The most commonly used Google Analytics tracking features are the Google Analytics pop up and the Google analytics code. With the Google Analytics code, you can set the appearance of your site on your Google Analytics account, and you can also set up statistics that show the behavior of your visitors. However, you should make sure that the code does not cause your system to crash or that you need to be a member of the program to see the report. There are other reporting options available for you, but these two are the most popular. You can also use Google Search Console to get details about clicks or impressions on your web pages, and then you can use the Google XML Sitemap to find out more information about the source of traffic to your site. Another option you may want to consider is getting a paid Google Analytics account to get you all the information you need.
How to Set Up Google Analytics
Before you start setting up your site, make sure you have a basic understanding of the Google analytics application. There are many different aspects to this tool that you need to be familiar with. It is important that you learn how to set up Google Analytics in order to get the best results out of your online campaign.
Google Tag manager will set up Google Analytics. You will want set up Universal Analytics (also called Google Webmaster Tools) through Google Tag manager. This will help Google Analytics record all web traffic on your site. There is also an advanced reporting option on the Google webmaster tools that can help you track more than just website traffic. The advanced reporting option allows you to send emails to your clients and visitors if you like, and other advanced features like importing statistics from other sites into your own website is also available. This feature allows you to customize Google analytics in order to suit your own website needs and desires. This is a great feature that makes it easy to keep your site up and running.
After you have finished setting up your site and your Google analytics, it is time to put it all to use. The next step in the setup process will be to install Google Analytics. Once you have installed the software, you can track your website’s performance and use the webmaster tools to see where the traffic is coming in comes from.
We use passwords for all kinds of online activity, from social media to our bank accounts. You can probably think of a dozen accounts you have passwords for right now.
Unfortunately, data breaches including password theft have become so common that the World Economic Forum considered cyber-attacks among the top five risks to global stability in 2019.
Multi-factor authentication is currently one of the best defenses you can have against password theft. Let’s look at what it is and how to set it up.
What is Multi-Factor Authentication?
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security feature offered by many online services today that sets up a second verification method for logging into accounts. That second verification method is triggered when certain conditions are met.
Let’s take a look at that and clear up some of the terminology.
What is a second verification method?
When you log into an account with your username and password, your username and password are the first verification. That shows that you own an account with the service. The second verification usually calls for a second device, like your cell phone.
For example: You log into your email with your username and password. If you have MFA set up and conditions are met to trigger it, before you can access your account a text message with a unique code will be sent to the cell phone you connected when you set up MFA. You’ll need to enter that code online before you can finish accessing your account.
The second verification method doesn’t always have to be a text message. For example, Google accounts sometimes send a regular push notification that allows you to just tap a prompt on your phone to continue logging in instead of entering a code.
Some accounts also allow MFA to be set up using an “authenticator app.” An authenticator app generates a unique code every 60 seconds that you must enter to log into accounts connected to it. Authy is one of the most popular authenticator apps.
Right now you might be imagining that it would be a huge pain to have to enter more than your username and password to log into your accounts all the time. Luckily, even with MFA activated, that isn’t the case.
What are the conditions that trigger the second verification method?
Turning on MFA won’t cause logging into your accounts to be a pain because you’ll rarely trigger the second verification method yourself. Here’s why:
Most accounts recognize the device you are logging in on. This is how you’re able to check the option to “remember me for 14 days” on some accounts and not have to re-enter your password at all during that time.
Your location is also usually recognized. If you always log into your email from your home or your office, these locations will be recognized. If you visit a friend in another city or state, your location won’t be immediately recognized.
Changing either of these two conditions, the device and location, are often what trigger a second verification method when using MFA. So when you log into your email from your regular computer or laptop at home or at your office, you won’t have to deal with the second verification method at all after using it once.
Why is this so helpful? With MFA set up, if someone tries to log into your account from another device or in another location they won’t be able to, even if they have your exact password. The MFA will present them with a second verification that they won’t be able to get past. In addition, you’ll notice immediately that your password has been compromised because you’ll receive a notification for a login attempt you know you didn’t make.
Setting Up Multi-Factor Authentication
MFA must be set up on each account you want to use it for; there is no universal set up at this time. Fortunately it’s pretty easy to set up on the accounts where it is available! We’re going to look at how to set up MFA for some specific accounts below, but in case the account you want to use it for isn’t listed here, these are the general steps:
Log into the account you want to protect
Find the account settings
Find the security settings option
Look for a multi-factor authentication (MFA) or 2 factor authentication (2FA) option
Follow prompts to complete the set up
Below are specific instructions to set up MFA for some of the most popular online services that offer it in their security options.
How To Set Up Multi-Factor Authentication for a Google Account (Gmail)
NOTE: If your business uses Google Workspace and your admin enables your organization with MFA, you will be prompted to set it up as soon as you log in. The following instructions are for free Gmail on the web.
Step 3: On the Security page find “Signing in to Google” and choose “2-Step Verification” (preview shown below)
Step 4: Click “Get Started” and verify using your password
Step 5: Choose how to receive second level verification codes
Google defaults to setting up push notifications on a cell phone. If you would prefer text messages choose “Show more options” and click that option in the dropdown menu
Step 6: Follow the prompts to enter your phone number and verify using the appropriate code or push notification sent to you.
How to Set Up Multi-Factor Authentication for a Microsoft Account (Outlook)
NOTE: If your business uses Microsoft 365 and your admin enables your organization with MFA, you will be prompted to set it up as soon as you log in. The following instructions are for free Outlook on the web.
Step 2: Go to Security in your account options and click “update”
Step 3: On the Security page choose “Two-step verification” (preview shown below)
Step 4: You should end up on the Additional Security Options page (you may have to verify with your password first). Choose “Set up two-step verification” then click “Next”
Step 5: Choose how to receive second level verification codes
Outlook allows the use of an authenticator app, a phone, or an email
NOTE: If you choose to verify using an app, Microsoft has their own authenticator app you can use. If you are planning to set up MFA on multiple accounts, you’ll probably want to use a different authenticator that works with multiple accounts, such as Authy. To use Authy or another authenticator besides the Microsoft one, just choose “set up a different Authenticator app”
Step 6: Follow the prompts to enter your phone number or email or to set up an authenticator app and verify using the appropriate code.
How to Set Up Multi-Factor Authentication for a Yahoo! Account
Step 3: On the Account Security page choose “Phone Number” from the Two-step verification options (preview shown below)
Step 4: Follow prompts to enter your phone number and verify using the code sent to you.
How to Set Up Multi-Factor Authentication for a PayPal Account
NOTE: Currently setting up MFA on PayPal will cause you to get a second level verification every time you log in, unlike other services which remember your location and device. While it may seem an inconvenience, it’s important to have this extra security on accounts that have access to your financial information.
Step 2: Go to “Settings & Privacy” then “Settings” (after September 2020 update the settings dropdown is now located in the very top right corner of your newsfeed screen under the “Account” arrow in the browser version)
Step 3: Choose “Security and Login.” Scroll down to the “Two-Factor Authentication” section (preview shown below)
Step 4: Click “Edit” to open two-factor authentication options
Step 5: Choose how to receive second level verification codes
Facebook allows the use of an authenticator app or a phone
NOTE: If you choose to use your phone you will need to set up a new “Forgot Password” method. Facebook does not allow the same phone to be used for both MFA and password resets
Step 6: Follow the prompts to enter your phone number or to set up an authenticator app and verify using the appropriate code.
How to Set Up Multi-Factor Authentication for a Twitter Account
Step 2: From your home feed, click on “More” then “Settings and privacy”
Step 3: You should end up on the Settings>Account page. Choose “Security” (preview shown below)
Step 4: Choose “Two-factor authentication”
Step 5: Choose how to receive second level verification codes
Twitter allows the use of an authenticator app or a phone
Step 6: Follow the prompts to enter your phone number or to set up an authenticator app and verify using the appropriate code.
Looking for More?
Didn’t see instructions for the service you need to set up MFA for? Just contact us or message us on Facebook and we’ll do our best to update with instructions for the service you need.
Remember, MFA isn’t the only way to keep your passwords safe. It’s also important to do the following:
Use a strong password. Strong passwords should meet all of these requirements:
be at least 16 characters long or more, or as many as an account allows if it is less than 16
use upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters (where allowed)
be random – a password such as “MyTechIsSafe123!” is not as secure as a password like “vCQEe!EK47SayS_B.”
Make passwords unique and never use the same password for more than one account. If a password is compromised on one account, it compromises all the others.
Use a password manager such as LastPass. LastPass offers a free password manager with everything you need so you don’t have to remember all of your long, complicated, unique passwords.
In our previous article on creating a strong email campaign, we went over some strategies to craft enticing subject lines and engaging email content. While these pieces of content are the core elements of an email campaign, they can go much further if you supplement them with a few additional techniques. From email tracking to calls to action and brand consistency, below we’ll discuss how you can fine-tune your email campaign to maximize its engagement and conversion.
Email Tracking
You should be tracking as much information about your campaign as you can, and a great place to start is pixel tracking. Pixel tracking allows you to see if someone has opened an email or not, and if they have, it lets you know how long they were on the page. This is done by using a small pixel hidden in the email that tracks if it is viewed. You can use this tool to track how many people are using a discount code or to determine which of your email headers and content has the best results when it comes to opening and read through.
Calls to Action
Crafting the Call
One important part of any effective email campaign is having a call to action—a place where you ask your customers to take a specific step as the result of your email campaign. This might be as simple as having them visit your online store, buy a ticket for an event, take a survey, or anything that you hold as a goal. Ask yourself, “What do I want the readers to do?” and use this to craft a response. Keep it simple and brief with actions like “Shop Now”, “Purchase Here”, “Donate Here”, or “Please Take Our Survey”.
Building a Landing Page
If you are looking to do something unique, consider crafting a landing page that takes your customers directly to a unique page on a website. There, you can have unique content crafted specifically for the purpose of your email campaign. For example, you can create a survey landing page that directs anyone with positive results to a link where they can leave a review. On the other hand, if you do not want to use a landing page, you can use something like a specific discount code that can be tracked. The more the sense of urgency you create, the more effective your campaign can be.
Brand Consistency
Keeping it Simple
Your emails should also have brand consistency, which is where graphic design can play a huge role. Make sure that your email templates make use of your brand’s colors, fonts, and overall visual style. If you want to include infographics, make sure they adhere to your brand’s design aesthetic as well. You want to make sure that you do not have differing colors or bizarre logos that do not fit the spirit of your company.
Using the Fundamentals
Don’t forget to consider fundamental design principles as well. You want to make sure that your emails present information efficiently and in a pleasing manner, visually guiding your customers from the header to the content and finally to the call to action. You can also use stock images in the email as long as you make sure they also fit your brand guidelines for maximum effectiveness.
There is a long list of things to consider when it comes to effectively creating an email campaign that elicits the response you want. An effective email campaign should grab the attention of customers right away, inspire them to take action, and retain their interest throughout the duration of the campaign.
In this two-part series of articles, we will go over a few key strategies that will help ensure you have the most effective campaign and the highest conversion rate possible. Below, we’ll begin with the email content and subject line.
The Subject Line & Pre-Header
Crafting the Subject
One very important thing you will want to focus on is the subject line and the pre-header. The subject line is used by every email provider, so you will want to make sure that you find an effective way to condense the essence of your email into just a few words. Generally, people will decide if they want to open the email or not based on the subject line. So the goal is to catch their attention and keep it without seeming spammy or unprofessional (i.e., avoid using all caps, punctuation, and other over-the-top tactics).
Tracking the Subject
You should also be keeping a list of all your email subject lines used so you can track which ones have the largest impact and what times are most effective to send them out. Many experts find the early morning to be the most effective, because that will allow your message to be the first thing your customers read in the morning when they get to work and check their email.
Considering the Pre-Header
Another item related to the subject line is the pre-header. Many email providers such as Gmail place this element next to the subject line to provide customers with more information (this is the little grey text next to the subject). The pre-header can be especially effective on mobile devices, where notification bars can also provide a little more information on the content through the pre-header. It should let readers know exactly what to expect.
The Content
Creating Customer Engagement
The content of the email itself should also be tracked, as it is one of the most important components for anyone that has clicked into the email and is deciding what their next step will be. Create content that you would want to read yourself, and consider the specific interests and sensibilities of your customer base. You will want to make sure that you decide exactly what your content will be ahead of time, whether it’s a deal of some sort, a special availability, an event that is ongoing, or a new product or service.
Retaining Customer Engagement
If you can regularly create quality content, email services like Gmail will push your emails to the top of your customers’ inboxes. Your customers will make it a habit to click the email blasts you send if they know that they can always expect something unique. If you can provide a way to track the effectiveness of this content, even better.
The Template
You will also want to use a consistent template for your email campaigns that includes links to your social media accounts. This will provide further connectivity and increase the overall effectiveness of your email campaigns. This template should provide contact info as well as a call to action for your customers to take advantage of whatever you are using your email campaign to promote. This will ensure that you don’t waste any conversion opportunities.
Templates are also an excellent way to create consistent branding in your email campaigns. We will be taking a closer look into this in our next article, which will cover brand consistency, email tracking and calls to action.
Many businesses might no longer provide their employees option to choose if they would like to work from home or at the office. Some have had to overnight move a large portion of their business around to accommodate employees working from home in an effort to keep their businesses running. One thing that can help with this is by moving to the cloud. This can allow company resource to be accessed in different areas (file sharing, employee management, customer management, security, and collaboration), and ultimately provide shared benefits.
Start with the Professionals
To start, you should have an IT professional look over whatever systems you are using in order to make sure you transition effectively so your employees are secure and not at risk of leaking information. One of the biggest reasons to move to the cloud is of course the fact that this well let your employees work from home during coronavirus since all they would need to work effectively is a computer.
Mitigate Damage
Another big benefit you might see from working at home is that it can limit the amount of damage that data loss can cause. Data recovery is made far easier by making sure you are keeping backups offline and off-site in the cloud, which is part of our policy for protecting any business. This allows you to be ready to handle any disasters that may come your way, and limit down time.
Increased Security
Using the cloud can also help ensure that your files are more secure from external sources allowing you to have greater limits on what each person can access. This will limit the possibility of someone hacking into your network. It also means that if someone loses physical access to a laptop, that they can make sure that they are wiped or any access to data the laptop has is now revoked so that the laptop is useless. Although this gives you more fidelity to protect the company data, we still strongly recommend you secure each of your employees machines. It’s important to keep them informed on how they can avoid getting viruses, how they can make sure that they do not get their passwords phished, as well as use proper password protocol. From within a company, you can now ensure that only the correct person is getting access to a specific document, and that sensitive information isn’t being shared to the wrong person.
Keep it Updated
Maintenance, especially on-site maintenance, can be accomplished by using cloud services which offer automatic updates since they simply push out updates through their websites without needing everyone to download updates, or the need to install updates on local networks. Since changes are pushed out through the cloud, you can scale up or down more easily, decreasing costs when you have unused space, and upgrade cost when you need to scale up.
These are just some of the benefits of using the cloud for you company. You will notice that by using network optimized software that receive automatic updates, your employees will be able to organize and format items more clearly while the company remains secure.
Looking to get your business more cloud friendly? Consider contacting tekRESCUE, your IT and managed service provider, to see how we can help.
While generally we will not tell someone what specific browser they should use, there are situations that make it clear for some people that one option is better than others. Most browsers that exist today have some upsides with limited downsides, but there are downsides in some form for each browser. In the past, there were generally more downsides, but today, most web browsers adhere to a certain set of uniformed standards.
Google Chrome
One of the most commonly used browsers now is Google Chrome. Chrome is fairly lightweight, simple, and almost every web developer will use Google Chrome as a template, meaning there is little worry that something will not be compatible with Google Chrome. Another great reason to use Google Chrome is the fact that it automatically will work with all Google Apps, and can sync with Mobile Chrome. It also has a huge extension store, with some of the most uniform design standards meaning that their extensions will work for a long time, and offers the widest range of browser extensions.
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is another great option for anyone who is interested in privacy protection. One very cool feature is that it will alert you if your email is involved in a data breach, something that happens more often than not. This is something that most people do not realize can happen, but often times websites that you viewed years ago, will ultimately be hacked, and if you used the same password on this obscure or even mainstream website as you did for your email, you will ultimately end up getting hacked, and be unable to access tons of other websites. It also has auto-block for pop-up ads, and can also stops fingerprinting, meaning that you will not be recognized across websites as being the same person, protecting your privacy.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is Microsoft’s latest browser. In the past, it was not a very great option, but they have added many new features. This browser now offers a very interesting feature called “NewsGuard”, a bipartisan review of news websites that allows you to see if a news organization is reputable, or if it simply puts out opinion pieces, and how often they put out false news. It is running on Chromium, meaning it shares many features with Chrome itself, as well as Firefox. It is also fairly lightweight, but not the most lightweight option. It also now has add-ons available to it.
Opera
Opera is a lightweight browser that has some cool built-in features and also runs on Chromium. Among these features is the ability to use a built-in VPN, great for getting around local content locks when something isn’t available in your country, or when you do not want your internet provider to know exactly what you are looking up. It is speedy, lightweight, and has a built-in ad blocker. While not everyone develops for it specifically, the fact it is Chromium means it doesn’t matter as much since it is built on a common platform.
For many people interested in having a mobile app developed, one of their main goals is to reach the widest audience possible and have the biggest impact with their app. This impact might be different for others depending on their type of business. For example, a business app might be to provide coupons or access member plans, while a service or utility app might seek to provide a service in the app itself and provide utility directly; the goal itself is still to reach the widest number of people in regards to your business. If you are developing your app for one specific platform, you might be limiting the reach that your app can have. Developing an app with cross platform in mind can have the bonus of allowing your app to be used as a web app as well as a native phone app.
One for All
One benefit of working in a cross-platform development environment is that it allows you to reuse your code base, meaning that you can save time while developing the app. Because Android, web, and iOS normally use different programming languages, you will end up needing to develop every app from start each time you create for a new platform. The only thing that will be shared between platforms is the graphics and content that you use, but not the code base, meaning instead of building 1 app, you are really developing 2 or 3 different apps altogether. Reusing code means cutting down the time that you must spend slowly transforming each module into a whole other language. By cutting down the work you have to do, you can save time, resulting in quicker development time to get a beta app out, quicker to get feedback, quicker to implement changes, and quicker to ultimately get into the app store. When you are using a single script, you will save time and get your app out the door quicker.
Saving Costly Developers
This process of saving work and time also means that you are saving money. Since often time it is not the same developer that know both iOS programming (Cocoa language) and Android languages (Java), so to develop without developing cross-platform means that you need more than 1 developer to create your app. The fact that not every language has the same capability, something that might be easily done using one language, might be more difficult to do on another.
Rather than each app being different because it is built in a different language, you can have the same look between different platforms. Achieving this same look will not cost you development time, which also helps your brand maintain its design standards. The fact that it is uniform also means that when it comes time to push out updates, you will only have to develop the update one time, saving you both in development and in managing costs for the app.
If you’re a business owner who has already invested in a professionally-built responsive website, you may be wondering if it’s necessary to put down more money into a mobile app. About half of the traffic on search engines comes from mobile devices, but a well-designed responsive website can already serve mobile as well as desktop traffic. So what’s the point of adding a mobile app to the mix? Being optimized for mobile devices and more quickly accessible in just a single tap, mobile apps can make many interactions easier, quicker, and more convenient for customers as opposed to a website. Here are a few compelling reasons you might want to invest in a mobile app even if your business already has a well-designed responsive website.
Building Brand Awareness
An app will play a significant role in building brand awareness. With icons occupying prime real estate on people’s phone screens, an app acts as a billboard. This makes it easy for people to know what your app is all about before even opening it, unlike a website that must be accessed through a browser. You will improve your brand recognition if you can proceed and get an app. And as all marketers know, when people get to know you quickly, they will tend to do business with you more easily.
Improving Customer Engagement
Once a potential customer installs an app, you will be free to send notifications and even get personal data from the customer. It is unlike running a website where it can be hard to get into details with the customer. Imagine you’re a restaurant owner. Instead of requiring customers to visit your website then call to book a table, you can easily make the booking process available online with a few taps. While web apps can also accomplish this, a mobile app will be more easily accessible and better optimized for mobile devices. Your customers will prefer the quicker and easier option!
Beating the competition
Your competitors may still be relying on their websites to handle all of their online interactions with customers. With a mobile app, you can potentially introduce something different and make your business stand out. When your services are available on an app, you will take advantage of potential customers who are ready to get your services online quickly without having to open their browsers and navigate to your domain. Because of this, many business owners who opt for apps on top of their existing websites find it easy to realize the best return on investment.
Cultivating Customer Loyalty
Most business owners are running all sorts of advertisements out there. You need to look for a way to keep the customers you get and turn them into repeat customers so those competitor ads don’t lure them away. An app allows the creation of special offers that you can then send to potential customers as exclusive deals. It is easy for the customers to get coupons and apply them to the app, making them develop some form of brand loyalty. Making customers prefer your brand over others can make your business grow quickly.
Improving visibility
An app can hold a very prominent place on a smartphone’s user interface. People spend a lot of time on their phones, and an app icon will be immediately visible to them anytime they open their phone screens. This makes it easy to improve your visibility if you can get as many interested buyers to install your app as possible, and those interested buyers will readily do business with you if they can easily access your services.
Creating a More Direct Marketing Channel
Like a website, an app can provide general information about your brand. Customers can use it to find prices, search for other services you offer, and access other features. If you want to introduce new features, you can release app updates that will be available instantly to potential customers. Unlike a website, however, an app makes it easy to market services directly to your customers. Whereas websites tend to be impersonal and informational, apps can more easily facilitate personalized interactions between customers and brands.
We hope this article has made you re-think the relationship between mobile apps and responsive websites. It’s not always a one-or-the-other situation; they can both be valuable parts of a robust digital marketing strategy.
