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As many technology specialists praise the use of mobile applications as another growing business tool, one expert is imploring business owners to think twice before dabbling in the new “fad”.
Speaking to Real Estate Business’ sister publication, The Adviser, Brett Spencer, CEO of Stargate Group - a software provider in the financial services industry, said that business owners wasted time and money trying to construct the perfect company app, with little to no success.
“People are being fooled by a very good marketing spiel that tells us that 99.9 per cent of their customers are on mobile and if they don’t have an app, then they won’t be found. This is plain wrong,” he said.
“Do you really think that your customers care if you are on their mobile? Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself whether you have your accountant or lawyer on an app on your mobile. The answer will most likely be a big 'no'.”
According to Mr Spencer, a massive 79 per cent of mobile device usage is attributed to non-business related activity.
“Games take up 43 per cent, social networking about 26 per cent and entertainment 10 per cent. This is what the bulk of our mobile usage looks like, with a large chunk of the remainder being taken up by simple email and phone use,” he said.
Whilst traditional ways of reaching your customers are in decline, spending money and effort on fad-based marketing is a sure-fire miss, Mr Spencer said.
“Digital advertising is here to stay and is wildly popular for all forms of products and services, but don’t lose focus on the right type of digital advertising. Spend money on traditional traffic sites like your real estate magazine and increase your web search presence through Google and Bing. You’ll find way more customers through these forms of digital advertising than having an app,” he continued.
“The big take away from this information is that in order to find your customers, you should focus on both traditional and technological avenues, as consumer trends towards mobile will not mean that the creation of your own app will bring you new customers.”
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