It’s easy to talk about enterprise mobility to an IT crowd. The tech-savvy types want to know what happens under the hood, and understand the way a mobile application management platform benefits enterprise mobility in terms of needs near to a CTO’s heart: distribution, security, testing, analytics, etc.
But you need to take the car out of the garage and get it on the road, right? What about the people who will actually interact with their MAM solutions on a daily basis? The users themselves often don’t care about how it’s working; they only care that it’s working.
That thinking is the inspiration for this series of posts discussing why MAM matters to every interest within an organization. This week, we’re talking about the people responsible for establishing brands, generating awareness, increasing visibility — the marketing team and the CMO.
When it comes to standing up an app store, we’ve explained the managerial benefits at length. You centralize approved apps, everyone gets on the same page in terms of productivity and collaboration, etc.
But we’ve learned that there’s a more subtle, if equally powerful, benefit to having your own app store: loyalty. The app store your organization creates is the app store your audiences (whether internal employees or external customers) interact with. It’s very existence is testament to your willingness to help them embrace enterprise mobility, whether you serve up your own apps, or simply offer a choice selection of public app store favorites.
We’ve had enough of our own clients tell us they’ve gotten unexpectedly positive feedback from users who appreciate the outright convenience and peace-of-mind inherent in having access to a customized app store, regardless of the apps therein. We’ve also heard from marketing teams who have seen the app store, specifically the awareness campaigns they build driving users to it, as a tremendous means of loyalty reinforcement. The store itself is, of course, appropriately branded to amplify a company’s presence, and outreach efforts launched in concert (such as explanatory email invitations, update blasts, and supporting social media) have created a valuable new messaging channel. The app store, from a CMO perspective, often evolves into a channel. And this app store channel can be set up by a member of your marketing team in minutes, without the need to bring in the IT team to set it up. Trust me, from one marketing guy to another, this is the easiest brand awareness or loyalty campaign you could set up to motivate buyers or your get employees fired up.
We know that everyone is bringing their own device. Smart organizations are standing up their own app stores so they can manage and monitor app usage, but they’re also getting ahead of their user’s concerns about enterprise mobility. The app store gives them a comfortable point of entry, and gives the marketing team a fresh, positive means of both customer and employee interaction.
Call it the unsung app store effect: A stronger brand. Loyal, satisfied staff and customers. What’s not to like?
