Increase Your Customer Knowledge with Mobile Analytics

By John Houghton on January 29, 2014

Do you want more data about your customers and prospects?  It’s a worthwhile pursuit.  He who has the data, has the power; and if you have the data, you also stand a much better chance of winning.  I remember in my Marketing class at UC Berkeley, when my professor David Aaker explained that in the ‘70s, the grocery store retailers held the power because they controlled the shelf space.  Then when the brands began to harness the data, the power position reversed, so that the brands now told the retailers what to do.  This is because the brands were first to harness customer data.  Information is power, and as the playing field has shifted to mobile, you must play well in mobile.

There are a few ways you can go about taking advantage of mobile analytics.  You can buy the data outright, but that’s expensive and might not correlate to your particular audience.  The easiest thing to do is to get on your customer’s devices by providing an app for them.  Nearly everybody uses apps, and you need to think of something useful that your company can uniquely provide.  Then, with a clear privacy policy, place tracking code in your app, so that you can begin collecting data.  Privacy is a luxury, but you’d be surprised how many people will give some of it up for simple privileges.  Now with beacons, you can collect not only in-app data, but physical location data as well, and correlate with other data.

It’s wise to know what you want to learn about your audience before you get started.  It doesn’t do much good to collect a bunch of meaningless data, but if you know what you’re after, the right data at the right time can make a big difference.  One best practice is to start collecting data as your app is going through beta testing.  This can help you understand what users value the most, and just like any kind of sales, once you know what someone wants, you have a very important key to getting what you want in exchange.  There is a lot of in-app A B testing that can be performed to better understand your audience’s motivations.

By collecting and harnessing mobile data, you will be on a better path toward gaining insight to help you reach your audiences more effectively and grow revenue.

Posted in Android Apps, App Development, Enterprise Mobile Apps, iOS Apps, iPad Apps, iPhone Apps

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