The Cost of Investing in Mobile for Social Change
I attended a really interesting "Investing in Mobile" session at this week's Netsquared Conference in San Jose, California.
Here are some of the things I learned:
1) How much does it cost to develop an application for the iPhone? The cost can range from $10,000 to $100,000 depending on the type of App.
2) Should you start in mobile by developing a mobile website (.mobi) or begin with a mobile application for the iPhone, etc.? Begin with a mobile friendly website as the cost is basically free and can be very complementary to developing ann App. Lots of sites, like MobiSiteGalore can help you "mobilize" your website for free.
3) How do I measure the success of my mobile site and App? For your mobile site you can use Google Analytics, for example. For your App you can use something like Mobilytics. Because phone apps are so new, there aren't that many reliable analytics tools, but they are emerging pretty quickly. If you want to measure text messages, plenty of products apparently do this, including free ones like frontlineSMS. Open Source platforms like Drupal can also provide mobile analytics. For measuring mobile fundraising results, including integration into multi-platform campaigns and outreach, you can work with an intermediary like mGive or Mobile Commons. Finally, you can do follow up surveys using text messaging and even surveying. Some text messaging surveying products even integrate with backend databases and online survey products like Survey Monkey.
4) What should I expect my conversion rate to be with mobile Apps: roughly between 1 and 10%.
5) What are my other costs for going mobile? Need to look at more than up front investment, as you will have ongoing costs like maintenance and upgrades.
6) Should I develop a stand along App or follow an integrated approach? Best to go with an integrated approach that includes online, email, etc. Part of the benefit of mobile is that you can recruit new users more easily (by asking people to text to support XYZ cause or to make a mobile donation via text). Collecting new user information can be extremely valuable over the long run, particularly as you get emails and phone numbers to do follow up outreach.
7) Are iPhone and other mobile Apps making money? Most are not, but again you need to think also of the value of having another tool in your overall marketing and outreach approach - on that can drive traffic to your website, increase visibility, and gather useful information on clients/customers for later use.
8) Where can I get some free or low cost help with developing an iPhone apps and running mobile campaigns. Take a look at the MobileActive, Mobile Commons, Mobile Accord, and mGive sites. You can also attend one of the iPhone development camps for free.
Here are some of the things I learned:
1) How much does it cost to develop an application for the iPhone? The cost can range from $10,000 to $100,000 depending on the type of App.
2) Should you start in mobile by developing a mobile website (.mobi) or begin with a mobile application for the iPhone, etc.? Begin with a mobile friendly website as the cost is basically free and can be very complementary to developing ann App. Lots of sites, like MobiSiteGalore can help you "mobilize" your website for free.
3) How do I measure the success of my mobile site and App? For your mobile site you can use Google Analytics, for example. For your App you can use something like Mobilytics. Because phone apps are so new, there aren't that many reliable analytics tools, but they are emerging pretty quickly. If you want to measure text messages, plenty of products apparently do this, including free ones like frontlineSMS. Open Source platforms like Drupal can also provide mobile analytics. For measuring mobile fundraising results, including integration into multi-platform campaigns and outreach, you can work with an intermediary like mGive or Mobile Commons. Finally, you can do follow up surveys using text messaging and even surveying. Some text messaging surveying products even integrate with backend databases and online survey products like Survey Monkey.
4) What should I expect my conversion rate to be with mobile Apps: roughly between 1 and 10%.
5) What are my other costs for going mobile? Need to look at more than up front investment, as you will have ongoing costs like maintenance and upgrades.
6) Should I develop a stand along App or follow an integrated approach? Best to go with an integrated approach that includes online, email, etc. Part of the benefit of mobile is that you can recruit new users more easily (by asking people to text to support XYZ cause or to make a mobile donation via text). Collecting new user information can be extremely valuable over the long run, particularly as you get emails and phone numbers to do follow up outreach.
7) Are iPhone and other mobile Apps making money? Most are not, but again you need to think also of the value of having another tool in your overall marketing and outreach approach - on that can drive traffic to your website, increase visibility, and gather useful information on clients/customers for later use.
8) Where can I get some free or low cost help with developing an iPhone apps and running mobile campaigns. Take a look at the MobileActive, Mobile Commons, Mobile Accord, and mGive sites. You can also attend one of the iPhone development camps for free.
Tags: app, devcamp, frontlinesms, iphone, mgive, mobile, mobileaccord, mobileactive, n2y4, netsquared
2 Comments
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Comment by Paul Lamb on May 30, 2009 at 10:17am
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Thanks for the inside scoop on Google analytics for mobile websites, and the suggestions of more sophisticated platforms like mCommons, etc.
Sorry, no source was cited for the conversion rate statistic. Looking forward to seeing your benchmark study.
Wish YOU had been on the panel! Hope GAID was good....
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© 2009 Created by Paul Lamb on Ning. Create Your Own Social Network
Also, Google Analytics does not provide click paths which makes it less than useful to designers.
What does 'measuring text messages' mean? For purposes of good analytics for conversion of texts to actions (online or offline) tools like Frontline are useless. You need more sophisticated platforms than that that integrate with member databases and online analytic tools. mCommons and MobileAccord's mGive both integrate with Convio's CRM, for example.
And about 4. -- where in the world does that conversion rate come from? A source would be good -- because no one has really measured this across organizations other than vendors whose numbers are dubious more often than not. We are actually doing the first-ever mobile benchmark study for exactly this purpose -- to get some independent numbers that are actually reliable (as opposed to hype and fiction ;)
Katrin, MobileActive.org