New blog series “Now’s the time! – Digitalisation made easy”

They still exist: traditional business owners who held off digitalising their business for a long time, hoping this “trend” would pass. When the digital world stayed after all, they finally put a website online, got themselves an email address, improved their Google rating – and then thought: “Great, I’m digital now. Done.”

But careful, dear business owners: these aspects of digitalisation are really just today’s essential basic kit – merely the foundation for the actual digital transformation.

You too can digitalise your business successfully

Digitalising your business effectively and taking it to a higher level takes more than that: it is about optimising almost every process of your business model with digital information and communication technology. Whether sales or logistics, purchasing or production, marketing or availability: thanks to digitalisation, all of these areas can be rethought and reshaped.

Still, digitalisation is not rocket science: today anyone can present themselves and their business profitably on every channel – without having to be a developer or a digital native. In this new series, “Now’s the time! – Digitalisation made easy”, we want to show you exactly how.

We support you on your way to a digital business

Your own app can be an essential part of digitalising your business. It opens up many opportunities for your marketing and for communicating with your customers – opportunities you can use quickly, easily and, above all, successfully.

But apps are not the only way to dive into digital transformation profitably: there are other ways to shape your business around your target groups and the times we live in.

The aim of this series is to show you in concrete terms, with step-by-step guides, best-practice examples and valuable tips, how you can score digitally quickly and easily.

We will take you on an exciting journey through all kinds of industries and show how our customers and partners achieve a big digital impact with small means. Whether retail, services, trades, healthcare, education, media or much more: stay one digital step ahead of your competitors!

Meet customers where they are: app-solutely easy and app-solutely successful

Let’s start with the advantages of an app for digitalising your business. As you read in our last blog post, your app as a touchpoint gives you direct access to your customers: you can communicate quickly on the go, share information and win people over emotionally. That way you always stay up to date and just one click away – a convenience customers love.

What’s more, customers increasingly use every channel when they shop, as you read in the post “Your customers are omnipresent – make sure you are too!”: with your app you can always be there in the right micro-moment to meet them exactly where they are, keep them online and offline, and offer them everything they are looking for.

As you can see, everything speaks in favour of an app – and it gets even better: this step towards digitalisation is much easier than you might think! Below, we would like to walk you through actually putting an app into practice.

The ingredients for a successful digital transformation? You and your app!

Compared with the effect, the list of ingredients is quite short: you need an app, a business (or several), motivation and a little time. Let’s go.

1. Plan your app

Create an app – your app – with us or with another app builder. There is usually a free trial so you can get to know how it all works.

Before you think about which content and features you want to use – and above all, which ones meet your customers’ needs – you should do something else, though: beat the drum!

2. Make your customers aware of your app!

Announce your app on your website, talk about it on your Facebook account, and use mailings, newsletters and Twitter to spread the word.

And whenever you are on the phone with a customer or talking to one in your shop, take every opportunity to mention your app and its advantages.

Ask your customers what they would like, get feedback and stay in touch.

In a nutshell: treat your future app like a new product!

3. Create your app

When it comes to content and features, the key is to think about your customers’ needs, not your own. If you are unsure at the start, use our free, no-obligation trial – and do ask our customer support for advice; we look forward to your call!

4. Design? You already have it!

Your business surely has a logo already, perhaps its own colours and a typeface too. Great – then of course you should use them for your app as well! Thanks to user-friendly editors, setting this up is quick, easy and clear – and your customers find what they are looking for even more easily.

5. Off into the digital world!

You’re ready – and can go online right now! Publish your app in the Play Store and the App Store, and once again use every channel available to make your customers, and everyone who might become one, aware of your new tool.

You can add, optimise and change much more once your app is online. What matters, though, is to attract and keep your customers with a clever bouquet of content and products.

If all this was too theoretical for you, look forward to the next post in our series. There we will use success stories to explain in practical terms how our customers built their apps.

Links to our blog posts:

https://www.appconfector.de/en/Blog/2016/08/ihr-kunde-ist-omnipraesent-seien-sie-es-auch/

https://www.appconfector.de/en/Blog/2016/07/auf-den-kontaktpunkt-gebracht/