There’s CRM and then there’s MRM – mobile relationship management.
In-app marketing company MobileBridge is looking to span the two with cloud-based tech that combines marketing automation and loyalty to boost app engagement.
MobileBridge integrates both with a brand’s app and with its traditional CRM partners, including SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, IBM, Marketo and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, formerly ExactTarget. MobileBridge also hooks into POS systems.
“A lot of apps simply don’t engage users at all,” said Eyal Oster, CEO and founder of MobileBridge, which rolled out expanded content creation functionality on Tuesday, including the ability to incorporate rotating product shots within in-app games, polls, coupons and other related content.
Oster argues this solution is more aesthetically pleasing than sending out “a push notification that looks like an SMS message from 1995” and that it incorporates context. He noted that MobileBridge’s tools enable advertisers to dole out loyalty points tied to in-app actions and in-store beacon interactions.
One such advertiser is Medispa, a Milan, Italy-based health and wellness company that owns and operates several hundred kiosks located in pharmacies where customers can go to run basic diagnostic tests around things like bone density, metabolic rate or vascular health.
The Medispa app is only available to customers who sign up at one of the physical kiosks, at which point they’re given a link to download the app and register. Having encouraged the initial install, however, re-engagement and boosting return foot traffic are ongoing challenges.
To increase footfalls to its wellness stalls, the company tapped MobileBridge to target its app users with a personalized digital scratch-card game and location-aware coupons with calls to action around in-store redemption. Users were also shown in-app videos based on their profile demonstrating the health benefits of Medispa’s offerings and offered in-store incentives hinged on their social sharing of Medispa content.
According to Medispa CEO Andrea Prina, the company saw increased app usage and an uptick in revenue from in-store sales.
That, in Oster’s view, is the ultimate goal: a closed-loop system from app to store.
Another client, for example, a chain of DIY stores, used MobileBridge to connect its app to its POS system as well as to its CRM system, SAP in this case.
Around the holiday season, customers within the vicinity of one of the chain’s locations were targeted with an in-app mobile game that offered players the chance to get a discount on their purchase of a Christmas tree with free lighting thrown in. When players entered the store with their in-app coupon, the app directed them right to the tree section. The campaign culminated in a 7.8% conversion rate at the point of sale.
“It’s just a question of making the user experience engaging and fun,” Oster said. “But it’s not just about sending push notifications, but rather about getting the visuals right, the context right and the experience right.”
Founded in 2012, MobileBridge, which recently passed the 40-employee mark, maintains offices in Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as small sales outposts in Milan and Paris, and recently opened locations in London and Orange County, Calif., with Asia Pacific next on the list.
The company’s client roster includes Nestlé, Pirelli, Osem subsidiary Tivall, Sabra, DigitasLBi and Forbes Digital Commerce. MobileBridge raised $3.5 million in seed funding in early 2014 led by SAP-owned hybris software CEO Ariel F. Lüdi, who also sits on the MobileBridge board.
