5-31-2013
The weather, traffic, and local news apps developed by radio stations over the last few years will never generate significant mobile advertising revenue. The ubiquitous content and the average CPM rate on mobile displays ads is currently less than five bucks.
The real money is in shopping apps. If you haven?t heard, mobile is reeking havoc in the retail business and is forever changing how people shop. According to research by Flurry Analytics, time spent using shopping apps by consumers was double that of all other mobile apps last year.
According to Statista, the number of mobile shoppers is expected to double from 52 million in 2011 to 107 million in 2015. The mobile advertising train is leaving the station and it?s time for radio broadcasters to get on board!
If you want to build mobile apps that actually generate advertising revenue for your station, then here are five shopping app ideas for your consideration . . .
1) Integrate Local Deals Into Existing Apps
Unleash the revenue potential for your existing mobile apps by integrating a mobile geofencing capability like BreadKrum from OnRouteDigital.com. Your users can instantly choose the type of local deals they would like to receive. As they travel throughout your market area they?ll receive mobile alerts when they are within a short distance of your various advertisers.
The special offers will be pushed out to them when they are close to a point of purchase, rather than jumping through hoops by first visiting one of your apps and then clicking on a display ad to get the offer.
Users have a higher likelihood of redeeming offers the closer they are to the point of purchase compared with existing mobile text blasts that send offers to people regardless of their location.
2) Restaurant App
A growing majority of consumers perform searches on their phones for information about local restaurants rather than their computer. A recent Nielsen study showed 65 percent of mobile users looking for restaurant information on their phones wanted to find one within a short walking or driving distance.
You could create promotions around weekends, a restaurant week, lunchtime specials, or boost business during slow times like Monday and Tuesday nights. Start building this app for free using Yapp.us.
3) Buy Local App
More and more consumers are concerned about helping their local economy grow by supporting their local businesses. Unfortunately, even consumers with the best intentions default to national big box stores or chains because they are convenient and save them time.
Creating a buy-local app with geofencing capabilities could help address this problem by promoting mobile alerts with special offers from local businesses as a reminder to ?buy local.? It could help drive more foot traffic into local storefronts and offer consumers more convenient options for buying local.
4) Farmers Market App
There?s nothing like locally grown strawberries or fresh corn in the summer, but supporting your local farmers market requires a little effort. It?s difficult to remember when they are open, the location also changes, and you never quite know what they have available to sell on any given day. Your station could revolutionize how people shop at farmers markets by building an app to make shopping at farmers markets easier.
5) Holiday Shopping App
During the 2012 holiday shopping season, research from Pew showed that six in 10 mobile users used their phone for help with a purchase while in a store. If that mobile stat doesn?t get your attention about the growing influence of mobile over retail sales then nothing will.
Radio can easily insert itself into this new holiday buying pattern by creating a local holiday shopping app with geofencing alerts. You could simply team up with a shopping mall or your local main street business association to fill your holiday app with special offers.
If your station wants to increase its mobile advertising revenue, you?ll need to either integrate a geofencing capability to send out hyperlocal offers or create a shopping app. Remember, your competitive advantage over other apps is the promotional power of your radio station to drive adoption and usage.
Stephen Warley is the founder of inboundarts.com, a research and training firm dedicated to helping radio broadcasters use digital tools to generate more qualified sales leads. He is also the founded of LocalBroadcastSales.com in 2008. Have a question for Stephen? Email him at stephen@inboundarts.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.
(6/1/2013 5:19:30 PM)
I believe this article tells you everything you need to know about the current state of broadcasting today.
The point is clearly to sell people more crap, not to serve the public in any meaningful way.
Why am I not surprised by this?
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