2011 was an exciting year for web/application developers at Envigo. The driver was the growth in the mobile and social web. Several studies and statistics pointed at the new customer playgrounds  – places where customers were spending a lot of their time. Clients finally started to take the plunge. Better still, clients agreed to extend a campaign’s touch-points into the mobile and social domains. A campaign could therefore have its micro-site backed by search and banner advertising, but customers could also interact with the campaign on a mobile app or through their facebook wall. Our clients successfully create digital multi-platform marketing campaigns – generating awareness through search and banner advertising, letting the community compete over games and contests on Facebook and finding a way to reach his pocket inside a mobile app.

In 2011, Envigo’s web development team were contacted to provide the following kinds of applications:

• Web development – 2011 was a big year for Ecommerce websites in India.  Businesses finally believe that online ordering has come of age and did not need to be limited only to online travel. Envigo worked on one of India’s most exclusive loyalty programs (Read this blog on Club ITC) and also on an food ordering and home delivery website for a start-up. The requirements for website development almost always included social and search engine friendly modules.
• Facebook applications to generate engagement – Envigo worked on developing games, quizzes, polls, contests, profile pic editors for various fan pages. There were some projects which were for enabling lead capture and tactical promotions. Applications were used to maintain a high level of engagement on the Facebook pages and give fans novel ways of engaging with the Pages, its community and with their friends. We also noted that Facebook is gradually launching platform features which used to be apps earlier. (A lot of the work which we had done for Diditz is now part of Timeline and Facebook photos. We are in no way claiming that Facebook’s product roadmap is being influenced by Envigo, however it is nice to see some of our thinking being validated)
• Mobile applications to drive customer utility – Envigo worked on a few mobile apps which were light on branding specific benefits, but focused more on customer utility. Max Bupa’s HealthFirst application was one of the apps we were involved in. By limiting the apps only for customer utility more than direct sales or lead capture led to an increase in downloads in the initial few weeks and also in the number of times an app was used.

Location and identity should be the two important themes for apps in 2012. Using apps which deliver personalised information depending upon your location will be interesting. It will not only be pull information, which is similar to ‘Google search on mobile’ today, in which a user shares his location and gets algorithmically filetered information directly on the mobile phone. By sharing location with marketeers in a strictly policed (read anti-spam) environment, a customer will be able to enjoy highly relevant information exactly when she needs it.

Think about the possibility when you enter a mall and your phone lights up to tell you that the shoes you have been planning to buy are on the first floor at 30% off!

That’s what we are working on now – watch this space!

Every one who wants to make it big developing Iphone apps needs to know how much money the existing 200,000 applications are making. I came across a survey of 96 iphone developers and wanted to summarise the post here:

• Average number of apps sold – 101,024
• Price point – $0.99 (The average is higher at $5.49 because of a $49.99 outlier)
• Average number of updates – 3.89
• Average total development cost – $6,453 (but developers rarely included their own time spent in development, which would increase the costs a few times)

Even with a higher development cost, the app world is highly profitable. No wonder there are over 200,000 applications, but this field is set to grow further.

• The market is top heavy, the top 10% apps would be getting the bulk of the revenue
• Greatest contributor to sales – Being featured by Apple in some way, in place of sending out an app update

We believe that we live in a world which does a lot of things on the internet, and very soon, will be doing most of it, on mobile. Can you imagine the look you will get if you tell a business partner that you do not have email? Just a few years ago, it would not have raised eyebrows.

Customers are getting onto the mobile bus in droves. In the US, data usage of mobile phones has surpassed voice.  In India, mobile operators are busy bidding for the 3G licenses. Apparently, they want to use the 3G bandwidth for 2G phones, because they are starved of spectrum.

In the not too distant future, a customer might expect video reviews of products streaming onto their location-aware mobile as they pass by a store. They would discuss it with their friends and family on their always on, 3G-enabled social network and then order it by dragging the video into their shopping cart. They would then pay for it using their phone provider’s monthly billing cycle.

The applications used in the paragraph above exist and are in use today.

Are you ready?

Large organisations have product roadmaps which look ahead 1-3 years. Smaller organisations have a mix of look-ahead and what-next plans which take them from quarter to quarter or year to year. There are firms who are working on their “20092010 online marketing strategy” because that is what it essentially is – the same story in a new page template.

Envigo is here to help. We have set our house in order and are now able to offer development services on mobiles – Iphones, Android, Samsung and Nokia!