Work Smarter Without Using Your Smartphone

Being without your device basically let's you apply 95% of all productivity tips in one go and working without your device for a full day means supporting your productivity and well-being alike. Yet, a weekly day off means a real challenge for many of us. So at best, start it as an experiment: Can you still manage some hours without your phone? How does it feel?

If you're up for that challenge, here's some advice on how to avoid getting into trouble and to improve your productivity:

#1 Focus

All the productivity tips over the web have one thing in common that they recommend and that successful people do: focus. Focus on one thing at a time and get rid of all distractions.

When you feel like doing something else: embrace the feeling coming up. And also listen to yourself: why did you want to stop doing what you do? How is your breathing? Where is your mind going? There will be many impulses which you can't and shouldn't immediately follow up upon – looking up this thing on Wikipedia, checking your Facebook status, answering this email or following this superb idea.

#2 Make notes and get back to work

In case you wonder with your mind to other things, just make sure they aren't lost. Get yourself a notebook (a piece of paper will do, too) to write them down for later and get back to work. In the evening go through the list and take necessary actions.

#3 Organise your day the day before

Go through the day before it has begun: What's coming up? What do you want/need to get done? For our 'Mobile free Monday', you should ideally do this on Fridays. It's then also an opportunity to finish your week and plan the next. To fix meetings, send out your requests now or call your contacts right away. This way you get a head start into the next week: get straight into working mode, get your things done quickly and have important meetings already on Tuesday.

#4 Limit your availability

Setting up an auto-reply for your emails, you could even limit your availability to something like 2 x 2 hours per week. This can work great to maximize your effectiveness. Just take into account that people will take you up on this.

#5 Use (OFFTIME)

Of course, our last and final advice is to use apps like (OFFTIME). It not only allows you to block you out from your phone for some time – so you don't procrastinate -, but it can also filter your callers and can give certain callers a little status update, telling them when you're going to be available again ("Sorry, Max is currently in a meeting. Please try to call again after 4 pm."). Our mobile devices and the apps in it are really good in helping us getting things done but too much of anything is also a bad thing. We all learn to be more productive without relying too much on our mobile devices.

Apps marketing: Screenshots vs. Videos

So you're having a promo video for your app or a game trailer produced (by us?). Or you're producing it yourself.

You know why you're doing it: if a picture (or screenshot) is worth a thousand words, imaging how powerful a video can be to show what's unique about your app, etc.

You probably already have several ideas on how you're going to use it. But since you're spending money and/or time on that video, shouldn't you make sure you plan it right and make the best out of it?

Well, we're happy to help you out with this. After all, it's in our interest to prove you what we believe in: video is one of the best assets you can have when promoting your app.

Different Channels to Use Your Video for App Marketing

The type(s) of video you want to create is going to depend on where you plan to use it. Before starting to work on your video, you want to know if you'll use it on the app stores (and which ones – formats differ), for user acquisition (here to, formats can vary) or for something else (website, PR, etc.).

Video on App Stores

Video on the Google Play Store

This has (obviously) been one of our favorite features of the Google Play Store: it lets you add a video. It's one of the most visible assets on your Google Play Store page, as it shows up right next to the app screenshots.

In one click (or one tap if they are on their phone or table) and a few seconds, visitors can know why they need your app or want to play your game. What's pretty cool about it too, is that the views you get on your video through the Google Play Store count as views on YouTube. And the more views you get on YouTube, the higher your video is ranked in YouTube search results and therefore Google search results (more on that later – engagement matters a lot as well).

Video on Alternative App Stores (Amazon)

It's not all about the App Store and the Google Play Store.

If you have an Android app with engaged users, you should consider alternative app stores to get additional distribution channels. The most famous is the Amazon App Store, where you can also have a video.

Video ads

Creating additional videos (usually between 15s and 30s) for your app is definitely a good idea if you're considering video ads. You can use those video ads for user acquisition on Facebook, Instagram, Google or some video-focused ad networks.

Facebook Video ads

Facebook ads allow targeting a very detailed audience, at scale. You can match your database with Facebook to target your best users or reactivate some; find people that are like your best customers (lookalike audience), etc.

Their photo page post ads were pretty effective, with a direct "Install Now" call to action below it that leads directly to the App Store or Google Play Store.

And you can now have basically the same thing, with a video thumbnail that allows your potential customers to watch a video about your app. If they like what they see, they just have to tap the "Install Now" button and are brought to their app store.

Instagram video ads

With stats like that, it seemed logical that Facebook decided to monetize it with ads. And this time, it seems it only took a few months to go from traditional square image ads available to just a few to video ads for mobile app installs available to businesses of all sizes, everywhere.

And because you can now have landscape photo and videos on Instagram (not only the original square format), you can pretty much use your Facebook video creatives on Instagram as well. As long as the video is not more than 30s, which is plenty for a video ad.

Video on your app website or landing page

Increase conversion with a video on your app website so visitors can get what your app is all about quickly, or see some gameplay.

If your app website or the landing page you've created has the right layout, your potential customers will get everything at a quick glance: your headline along with a short description, your promo video and a call to action (CTA) to download the app.

You actually don't have to wait until your app is released to embed your promo video on your website. You can have a "coming soon" version, with a call to action inviting to get notified when the app launches. Once your app is available, change the video with the app store badges at the end as well as your CTA.

Quora

Quora is a great place to get some answers from experts or people in general. Your app might be worth mentioning in some answers, as long as it's relevant and not blatant auto promotion.

If you do mention it, think about embedding a YouTube video so that people see instantely what you're talking about.

Ten tech trends that will change the mobile world

It isn't hard to predict that future innovations will continue to shape the digital marketing landscape. We are now in a digital era where technologies have disrupted various traditional marketing methods and are continuing to do so. Let's look deeper at how three technologies will impact digital marketing in the future.

Social media marketing is a tough game, and opting out of it is not an option for any business or brand. Knowing where the social media is heading and what will determine its future state can make a big difference in formulating the right strategies and approach.

We see and experience shift in mobile marketing trends every year. From the emergence of mobile commerce to the growing importance of chat apps, we see new trends keep shaping the mobile marketing scene. Here we have picked such big trends that will shape mobile marketing in near future.

Integration of mobile social and mobile commerce

According to many reputed analysts, the emergence of mobile commerce is likely to collide head-on with social media on the mobile allowing bigger integration of these two mobile experiences. This will only lead to allowing making purchases through the social media page of a brand.

Integrating buy buttons to social media is extremely easy. This allows marketers bigger ease in driving sales and generating leads.

Mobile video ads

Video advertising on mobile is rapidly increasing and slowly we can see a shift of focus from TV ads to Smartphone ads.

Already a good portion of advertisers is coming with small duration mobile-specific video ads for major native social media apps like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snap Chat, etc. Vertical video is the most popular video ad format now.

Mobile payments

With Apple Pay and Android Pay spearheading the integration of banking and transaction with mobile, mobile based payment option will see more adoption across buyers and businesses in the upcoming days.

Samsung Pay being capable of working with all payment terminals can eventually come out as the winner. The slow upgrading of terminals in retail outlets will continue to be a challenge in spite of a favorable condition for the growth of mobile pay.

Mobile marketing automation

Emerging technologies like predictive analytics, testing of user behaviour, personalized content and email marketing will make mobile marketing less dependent on human intervention and more prone to forces of automation.

Marketing automation software can offer really valuable insights on your customers and accordingly you can decide your strategy and fine tune things. Automation will leave less scope for guesswork allowing far better performance for all your marketing campaigns.

Mobile experience beyond phone

Mobile experience no longer refers to only handheld devices like phone or tablet. Today with the rapid proliferation of wearable technology your smart watch, smart car and fashion accessories are coming with digital interface creating a diverse mobile experience.

Smart watches are spearheading the wearable market and in the span of just 3 to 5 years, a majority of smart watch manufacturers will bring wearable elements in handheld devices redefining mobile experience altogether.

Multiple experiences instead of one-size-fits-all

While today most people talk about mobile friendly digital experience or design that is fit to address mobile requirement first, no longer 'one experience fits all' strategy will work. On the basis of interaction of people with content, you need to create multiple experiences.

Brands will need to customize content based on how users interact with them. Customizing experience with content will not just take the design of Menu or layout into consideration, but a whole lot of things including the buttons, readability aspects and the content itself. The same content can be presented differently to different users as per their preference.

Instead of optimizing for mobile, creating more apps

Now businesses understand the real importance of dedicated apps. Naturally, instead of focusing on optimizing the website for mobile and thinking that the needful has been done to address the mobile audience, they are increasingly depending upon native apps for more user engagement.

In comparison to mobile websites or responsively built websites mobile apps are more visually engaging, functional and accessible. Apps allow quicker and almost instant access to company products and services.

Personalized location based marketing will rule

Now marketers are capable of collecting more individual customer data thanks to the rapid proliferation of connected devices and app ecosystem. Marketers now can create more individual preference based, location based and more interactive experience with their marketing.

The location will be the most important aspect in mobilizing marketing messages for customers. Individual targeting according to location and other contextual data received from user devices will create more scope for automated marketing for both small and big brands.

Mobile chat will rule over social media

Mobile chat apps like Facebook Messenger is fast going to take over the erstwhile social media landscape. WeChat already became the most formidable social platform in China and WhatsApp is likely to cross 1 billion users in this year only.

Thanks to this instant messaging platform, now brands can easily connect users, take request, serve them and users can order or pay for goods. Chat apps evolved as the most dynamic social platform for marketers.

Apps are a per with web pages

By indexing app contents in search results, the usage of the app will get a bigger push. In the time to come, app contents will be a bigger source of information than web pages as mobile and native experience is gaining popularity across enterprises. This will also help to reduce the budget and concern over app launch and marketing.

A Guide to Organizing Your Smart phone Home Screen

Are there too many apps on your smart phone? Trying to locate an app has become quite a task in the present times? You may want to consider shuffling up your smart phone just so that you can organize the apps present on your mobile. This kind of shuffling might not just keep your phone closet clean, but will also help you get the apps on time. Here are some picture perfect ways of organizing the mobile apps.

Be it Android or iPhone, users of smart phones use significant amount of their time interacting with mobile apps. Mobile app development is the in thing and thousands of apps are being downloaded by users every day. Gradually our smart phones become full of apps and become a clutter of icons scattered everywhere on the home screen and menu.

Having large number of apps on your mobile device can make organizing and accessing them difficult. You will spend more time swiping looking for an app if they are not properly organized. The mobile platforms do offer some organizing options, but they may not be sufficient if you are a heavy user of apps. To manage and organize your mobile apps better, here are some creative ways which you can implement according to your preferences.

It is better to make an assessment of the collection of apps stored in your smart phone before you begin to organize them. You can use the phone or connect it to a computer and use third party software to check and determine various details about your apps. The way you want to sort the apps will be decided by the genre, nature, size and use of the apps. Make a list if required and note the apps and decide which of the creative ways is best for you.

Action Based Sorting

Organizing mobile apps in the traditional way under categories such as "Social", ""Reference," etc is not a useful way to manage them. It can work if we were dealing with books, movies, music or food menus, but it fails while attempted for apps. A mobile app is a tool which enables us to perform an action or carry out a task or access information.

We use our mobile phones to shop, date, travel, read, watch, listen, order groceries and food, and for many other activities. You can try sorting your apps in folder and name them after the action they carry out. For example, you can create a folder called "shop" and fill it with apps related to shopping, ecommerce and other coupons and deals. This way you just think what you want to do and then choose the necessary folder containing the apps.

Alphabetical Order

If you like to remember your apps by alphabets, you can sort them out in A to Z order using the following steps in iPhone:

• Go to Settings and tap on "General."

• Scroll below to select "Reset" and tap on "Reset Home Screen Layout."

This will organize the non-iOS apps in alphabetical order. You can also name folders with alphabets and keep your apps in them.

Color Scheme

Many of us perceive the world in a more visual form than others. As humans we relate to colors better than texts. Mobile app development also attempts to deliver unique visual elements to their icons which makes them easily recognizable and memorable.

You can put the Facebook app icon next to twitter, both of which are blue coloured. Both messages and WhatsApp come in green, and can be lined up together for easy access.

Theme Based Rows

Arranging your apps in rows according to their genre is a great way to quickly access them. You can make a row of related apps like WhatsApp, Hike, and Google Hangout and call it the communication row. Similarly, you can also make a social media row, videos row, to-do row, etc. 

Most Common To Uncommon Use

There are some apps which we use every hour like WhatsApp, camera, mails etc. Next comes apps which are frequently used on daily basis and then there are some we use sometimes to distract or entertain us. This frequency of usage is a great way to organize your apps.

The main home screen can contain the most used apps. Then another swipe can lead to the second screen with frequently usage apps. The third screen should have apps like games which are less used.

Position of Hand

Some of us use the thumb most and some use their index finger while operating our smart phones. Each of our position of hands and actions differ, and this can be the perfect way to sort your apps. Keeps the most frequently used apps near the finger which you mostly use. This will increase the speed of operation of your device.

Folder Based Home Screen

We have talked about how the multiple home screens can be used to organize your apps on usage. But some people prefer to operate out of a single screen to access their apps. They can use the central screen and make different folders to store the apps. Naming the folders can be done in any way – using categories or actions like we discussed above. It is best for people preferring a simple start point for their operations.

Online Business -Brand Reputation Management

Every brand has a reputation regardless if they think they do or not. Your brand is the sum of what people think, say and tell other people about you. You can spend all the money in the world to create a beautiful brand inclusive of digital elements and visuals, fancy logo, website, blog and social media channels and profiles. However, if you don't deliver on your brand promise it's all for nothing.

Your brand is the foundation of your business. It doesn't matter if you are a small business, corporation or something in between you impact your brand with every action you take. Every tweet, call, post on Facebook, Instagram photo, Google+ update is a representation of your brand. Every employee that works for you is leaving hundreds of brand impressions every day online and offline.

It's obvious that a mobile presence is an extension of your brand, but what many app marketers might not realize is just how much their mobile channels influence their brand's general reputation.

Today's consumers have come to expect their customer experience with a brand will match across all of its channels (in-store, online, mobile, apps, etc.), and brands want the same; after all, they've invested too much time and energy into creating a five-star customer experience for one neglected channel to cause damage to the entire brand.

To start segmenting your customers effectively, consider these three tips:

1.    Start by understanding your goals. Do you want to boost your ratings and reviews? Do you want to hear from your unhappy customers to understand how to make their experience better? Do you want to know what keeps your most active customers coming back to your app? Once you know your goals, you'll be able to determine the right audience to target.

2.    Next, define your audience segment. You can create segments based on your customers' device specifications (device data), which version of your app they are using, how active they are within your app, or any other information that is specific to your business (custom data—both person and device).

3.    Finally, evaluate your results. Were you able to achieve your goals with the segment(s) used? If not, work to understand how you can set up a different segment that's more relevant to your desired outcome.

They are talking about you! Yes, people are talking about your brand, your executives, your service and your employees. They are talking about what you do right and what you have screwed up on. The question is do you know what they are saying? Are you part of the conversation? Or are you choosing to ignore it? The truth is, the conversations are not going to go away. You might as well be proactive and understand how you can leverage the same social technologies and strategies that may scare you half to death to your advantage. It's all about perspective and how you choose to look at it and manage it.

Stay Competitive in an Increasingly Growing App Market

Over the span of just a few years, the concept of app usage has transformed from a novelty to an essential part of the mobile user experience. With millions of apps now available and more being rolled out every day, there is an app for everyone, regardless of age, race or interest.

Like anything else on the internet, your app will bury under the 2 million others available on the App Store.

To contextualise, there are clear parallels between the App Store and the web; between SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and ASO (App Store Optimization). Just like when people or app development company search for your website on search engines, there's funnel aspect to your app being discovered:

Number of people who you can potentially serve (market) > app store views > app store downloads > signups > users > referrals. This cycle repeats, hopefully resulting in revenue.

Here's how to stay competitive:

1. Target a specific market that has size and demand. Growing a market is harder than serving the need of one that's already established. Aim for high popularity, low competition markets or niches. Start with those people, if you serve their needs, they'll tell their friends.

2. Optimize, optimize, optimize. Optimizing your app's iTunes Connect metadata. This is probably the most overlooked area of app publishing. It's not easy to do, but it's worth the time investment. This is both parts art and science.

3. Have a good app. This one should be self explanatory. People are smart, impatient, and judgmental. You can't grow a low-quality app. Design and function should be prioritized, and try to limit your feature set to features that only deliver upon your core value proposition.

4. You have 1 minute to display value, if you can't do that after the initial download— you've lost. Be clear about the value you bring to your users, don't forget to communicate this value to your users in your UI, Metadata, website, etc.

5. Measure & manage. Split test and measure growth attributed to your of metadata changes and app changes to see what drives the most growth. Test often with your product, and test your metadata assets every 2–4 weeks.

Mobile Marketing Trends Every Marketer Needs

In the past, advertisers tended to treat mobile as an afterthought. In today's environment, this no longer makes sense. If you want to target your customers where they spend their time, mobile needs to be a core part of your marketing strategy. We see and experience shift in mobile marketing trends every year. From the emergence of mobile commerce to the growing importance of chat apps, we see new trends keep shaping the mobile marketing scene. Here we have picked such big trends that will shape mobile marketing in near future.

1. Integration of mobile social and mobile commerce

According to many reputed analysts, the emergence of mobile commerce is likely to collide head-on with social media on the mobile allowing bigger integration of these two mobile experiences. This will only lead to allowing making purchases through the social media page of a brand.

Integrating buy buttons to social media is extremely easy. This allows marketers bigger ease in driving sales and generating leads.

2. Mobile video ads

Video advertising on mobile is rapidly increasing and slowly we can see a shift of focus from TV ads to Smartphone ads.

Already a good portion of advertisers is coming with small duration mobile-specific video ads for major native social media apps like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snap Chat, etc. Vertical video is the most popular video ad format now.

3. Mobile payments

With Apple Pay and Android Pay spearheading the integration of banking and transaction with mobile, mobile based payment option will see more adoption across buyers and businesses in the upcoming days.

The slow upgrading of terminals in retail outlets will continue to be a challenge in spite of a favorable condition for the growth of mobile pay.

4. Mobile marketing automation

Emerging technologies like predictive analytics, testing of user behaviour, personalized content and email marketing will make mobile marketing less dependent on human intervention and more prone to forces of automation.

Marketing automation software can offer really valuable insights on your customers and accordingly you can decide your strategy and fine tune things. Automation will leave less scope for guesswork allowing far better performance for all your marketing campaigns.

5. Mobile experience beyond phone

Mobile experience no longer refers to only handheld devices like phone or tablet. Today with the rapid proliferation of wearable technology your smart watch, smart car and fashion accessories are coming with digital interface creating a diverse mobile experience.

Smart watches are spearheading the wearable market and in the span of just 3 to 5 years, a majority of smart watch manufacturers will bring wearable elements in handheld devices redefining mobile experience altogether.

6. Multiple experiences instead of one-size-fits-all

While today most people talk about mobile friendly digital experience or design that is fit to address mobile requirement first, no longer 'one experience fits all' strategy will work. On the basis of interaction of people with content, you need to create multiple experiences.

Brands will need to customize content based on how users interact with them. Customizing experience with content will not just take the design of Menu or layout into consideration, but a whole lot of things including the buttons, readability aspects and the content itself. The same content can be presented differently to different users as per their preference.

7. Instead of optimizing for mobile, creating more apps

Now businesses understand the real importance of dedicated apps. Naturally, instead of focusing on optimizing the website for mobile and thinking that the needful has been done to address the mobile audience, they are increasingly depending upon native apps for more user engagement.

In comparison to mobile websites or responsively built websites mobile apps are more visually engaging, functional and accessible. Apps allow quicker and almost instant access to company products and services.

8. Personalized location based marketing will rule

Now marketers are capable of collecting more individual customer data thanks to the rapid proliferation of connected devices and app ecosystem. Marketers now can create more individual preference based, location based and more interactive experience with their marketing.

The location will be the most important aspect in mobilizing marketing messages for customers. Individual targeting according to location and other contextual data received from user devices will create more scope for automated marketing for both small and big brands.

9. Mobile chat will rule over social media

Mobile chat apps like Facebook Messenger are fast going to take over the erstwhile social media landscape. We Chat already became the most formidable social platform in China and WhatsApp is likely to cross 1 billion users in this year only.

Thanks to this instant messaging platform, now brands can easily connect users, take request, serve them and users can order or pay for goods. Chat apps evolved as the most dynamic social platform for marketers.

10. Apps are a per with web pages

By indexing app contents in search results, the usage of the app will get a bigger push. In the time to come, app contents will be a bigger source of information than web pages as mobile and native experience is gaining popularity across enterprises. This will also help to reduce the budget and concern over app launch and marketing.