Tag: qr code scanner

Developers invest significant time and resources into creating apps that are highly functional and appealing to users. But marketing is the missing link between your product and the world at large. Without the best app marketing strategy in your corner, your app risks falling by the wayside in increasingly crowded mobile app marketplaces. After all, there are millions of apps vying for mobile users’ attention these days.

Driving installs—and, more importantly, meaningful engagement—is a matter of connecting with the right users at the right time in the right ways. Here are a few app marketing strategies to consider before launching your app. 

QR Codes

At their best, Quick Response (QR) codes “ideally act as shortcuts for getting valuable information into the hands of your customers and prospects.” However, it’s important to make sure your usage of QR codes actually simplifies the user’s journey by taking them to a relevant place within your app. In mobile app marketing, QR codes often transport mobile device users to an install screen.

Many marketers feel QR codes have already experienced their rise and fall in prominence. It is worth noting Apple began building in the QR code scanner as a native component of the Camera application, making it more intuitive for iOS users to scan them. Even so, QR codes are far from the most cutting-edge approach to mobile app marketing available today. 

Cost-Per-Install (CPI) Campaign

Put simply, running a Cost-Per-Install (CPI) paid mobile app marketing campaign means you will pay each time someone taps your ad and subsequently installs your app. The primary advantage of this approach is that it’s easy to track—each install results in X amount of additional ad spend. If the acquisition cost is less than the projected lifetime value of an app user under a CPI model, it makes at least some financial sense to pursue this method.

In one survey, over half of app developers (52 percent) chose CPI as their preferred user acquisition model. Unfortunately, data actually shows that many of the users acquired via CPI are “astonishingly low value.” This is because mobile users tend to install apps and use them a handful of times—or none at all. This is especially true in our current marketplace in which many apps use a “freemium” pricing model which encourages users to download apps because there’s no risk.

So, what’s a better alternative? 

Cost-Per-Action (CPA) Campaign

Mobile analytics companies offering CPA acquisition focus more on post-install engagement than installs themselves. To start, this strategy promotes targeting mobile users most likely to engage based on the fact they share characteristics with already active app users. Showing these promising users dynamic advertisements personalized to their demographics, OS and more aims to drive meaningful installs.

But most importantly, marketers pay only when these users engage in desirable actions like creating an account or making an in-app purchase. Unlike CPI, this means you will not end up paying for people to install your app initially and forget about it before further engaging. This tends to boost the lifetime value of your users, which is an important metric in monetizing a modern app.

 App Store Optimization

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a marketing strategy so simple it’s actually easy to overlook. In a world where 63 percent of mobile users discover new apps via “general browsing in an app store,” it’s important to make sure your app is findable and appealing at first sight.

Here are the basics of ASO:

• Title: Should be readable and contain the highest-trafficked keyword related to your app.
• Description: Should be clear, laying out what value your app provides to users.
• Icon: Should convey recognizable branding at first glance.
• Screenshots: Should display your app’s most important features and functionalities.

A combination of the best app marketing strategies, like CPA user acquisition plus ASO, will help you monetize your app through meaningful engagement.

The company is aiming to use quick response codes to make tech data easier to obtain.

Nortek Global HVAC recently announced that it would be adding QR codes to its product labels in order to make it easier for contractors to be able to obtain the tech literature for a specific piece of equipment.

The goal of using these barcodes in this way is to make troubleshooting faster and easier for service contractors.

The new label with the QR codes links the contractor directly to the tech literature specific to the product in question. In order to use the quick response codes, the contractor must simply use a smartphone to scan the barcode printed on the equipment’s label. The smartphone is directed to the Nortek website, where a page will be displayed with the information about that specific equipment model. Among the types of information that are available to the contractor are the installation instructions, lists of replacement parts, charging charts, wiring diagrams, and other important and practical troubleshooting information.

In this way, contractors can scan QR codes and rapidly obtain information instead of needing to phone the company.

According to the Nortek Global HVAC director of warranty and technical services, Matt Lattanzi, “Contractors call us for technical help and many times the answers are in the literature.” Lattanzi also added that “Having a way to quickly scan a code on the product and find the necessary documents can reduce lost time on the job and help ensure the equipment is installed and/or serviced correctly.”

By using the QRcode, a number of slower steps can be skipped so the contractor can complete his or her work with greater effectiveness and efficiency. Moreover, beyond the implementation of the barcodes on the product labels, Nortek has also gone to the extent of providing contractors with support through an iPad app for in-home sales, weekly video tips, mobile load calculation tools, as well as support for using and managing a Facebook business page.

The QR codes were implemented by Nortek on its labels for split-system air conditioners, but it intends to add the barcodes to additional products in the future.