Recent Study on Hotel Mobile Apps

It should be no surprise to you by now that hotels everywhere are going mobile. They are now understanding the importance of a mobile app for their customers. Apps make the booking process hassle free, streamline the process and provide overall more efficiency for travelers, after all that is what mobile apps are meant to do. 

MCD has recently polled 1,000 domestic travelers who owned smartphones last fall 2013. They released their numbers in November 2013. Travelers utilized mobile apps quite frequently while staying at the hotel but the biggest feature they used was maps of the area in which they were staying, with 83% of family travelers using maps. Business travelers (71%) used features like bill-paying, ordering room service and transportation arrangements. 68% of the total travelers liked seeing concierge tips (push notes) in their mobile apps providing them with tips about the places they were visiting.

Easy Integration

Based on the study above, Grand Apps offers a full suite of app features that would benefit each hotel and their visitors from this study.

Maps
We offer an around us tab allowing you to put in geo coordinates of places. Users can click on that pinpoint to get more information about that particular location or even get one touch directions. You can easily add points in minutes with our amazing app builder.

Room Service
We have a food ordering app feature that allows app users to order their favorite dishes. The hotel will be notified via email & a print out receipt via Google Cloud technologies. (basically your standard wifi printer). This is very easy to integrate and majority of our restaurant clients take advantage of this feature.

Concierge Tips
This would be a great opportunity for hotels everywhere to utilize our Geo Fencing technologies. They can setup geo fences around the hotel so when travelers come back, they will get tips about the hotel. They can setup fences around the city at favorite restaurants with messages about the food they should try. Hotels can ever partner with certain restaurants, setup a geo fence and when users enter it will say "show us your hotel app for a discounted meal price or $5 off).

The possibilities are endless when it comes to marketing your mobile app for your hotel but based on the recent study, these are the top 3 features that people use frequently while staying at a hotel. Grand Apps is capable of helping hotels everywhere get their mobile app off of the ground. Contact us today to get going on yours.

YouTube is Down

So it appears that YouTube is down temporarily. The worst part is it is down at 5:26pm, just before everybody gets off of work, watches their motivational CT Fletcher videos and heads to the gym. But we did want to let you know that the Mobile App for YouTube seems to be working and playing videos! Keep calm, the apps are here! 

For all you non-mobile app believers, believe! This is why we are firm believers that every business needs an app. Just in case your website crashes, you will have a mobile app back up. 

Is Your Business Invisible?

My business does not need a mobile app or any kind of mobile marketing strategy, we're set. We have a decent website with a fairly good Google rank, so...no thanks.

Surprisingly, business owners have this mindset. But what if we told you that your business might actually be invisible. About 31% of consumers are primarily using mobile for searches. This means if your business is not mobile friendly or you do not have a mobile strategy, these consumers will turn back the instant they see your website is not mobile friendly. Nobody likes to pinch & zoom to find useful information in their fast paced on the go lifestyle. People will actually turn to competition that is mobile friendly.

What do we mean by mobile friendly?

-Mobile Apps for businesses
-Mobile websites for business
-Mobile advertising for businesses

These mobile strategies cannot be ignored anymore. More people are using mobile apps & mobile searches to seek out the knowledge they want and need. Mobile is one of the fastest growing markets and great news, it is not that expensive.

We have talked with business owners that said they paid over $10,000 for a new website. (that website was not even mobile optimized). No offense, but that business owner could have invested in a mobile app, mobile website and some paid mobile advertisements for this price, through Grand Apps of course. 

Our software & development is hassle free and very inexpensive. We are helping business owners get mobile in weeks. We have built over 40+ mobile apps for businesses and want to help you out. Shoot us an email to get started today!

support@grandapps.com

3 Tips for Business Owners & Mobile Apps

3 Tips for Business Owners & Mobile Apps

So your business has finally caught on that mobile marketing is here to stay and you're now considering a mobile app for your business. You are probably like most small business owners and have no idea where to start. Here are 3 tips that will get you going in the right direction.

1)  Target Customers - Who are they?

2) Target Customers Expectations - What do they expect in your mobile app?

3) Your Businesses App - Real Expectations. 

Every single business is unique in it's own way and we understand that. Your businesses app should have a few features that really emphasize your business. For example, your business serves change all the time and consumers demand to know when and what those changes are. One great feature for this would be Push Notifications. You can inform the customers on the fly those changes to your unique business with your mobile app. 

Target Customers - Who are they? 

It is important that you drill down to majority of the customers you are serving. Every business should have a customer profile of that target customer. 

For Example: 

• 25-30 Years Old
• Males
• Yearly Income Average: $30,000

Even if you cannot get very specific, it is important that you get something down. Just by knowing this information we look at mobile data and pair this profile with statistics. These males are twice as likely to download a mobile app, they are young so they most likely have a smartphone. Again, just by drilling down these key profiles you can already assume a mobile app would be a great fit for this young target consumer.

Target Customers - What do they expect in your mobile app? 

Today there are millions of mobile apps that have a huge variety of app features. But usually simple is best. This second question ties in with question one. You must know what type of customer you are serving with your mobile app. If you own a prom dress show, then you probably want a nice beautiful gallery of dresses for your app users to browse through. On the other hand, if you are a lawyer, having a gallery might not be the most important and you can already assume your clients do not care about pictures in your office. Instead offer them an app feature that allows them to contact their attorney with one touch calling, that would be a great feature.

Sometimes you may not have a clue as to what features your users will utilize. This is where it gets even better! Our app platform allows you to track progress throughout the mobile app. You can see where users are clicking on what tab features. So if there is a feature in your app that is not being used, simply delete it in your management platform.

Your Businesses App - Real Expectations

Maybe your customer wants a live feed from your store to see how busy it is and if they want to come in now to shop. That feature sounds great but have you thought about the cost? You would need live camera feeds from your store, custom app development (From Grand Apps of course) and many other factors to go into this where it might take half a year to get it up and running.

Marketing strategies are changing faster and faster with the exponential growth of technology. Also, you need a variety of app features that users want and a mobile app you can manage. You probably want to stay ahead of the marketing game and get going on your app right away.

Grand Apps provides many useful features at a very cost effective price. We can have your app live in iTunes and Android with a marketing plan ready in just 30 days. (You knew we had to add this)



But really...

Mobile is here to stay. Mobile will be here for years and getting your mobile marketing strategies figured out first, before your competition even thinks about mobile, will put you 5 steps ahead of them. We have over 30+ app features built for businesses like yours. If you want to learn more simply email

support@grandapps.com

and ask for our PDF with app features. Thanks for the read!

Grand Apps 2.0 Launches | New App Features

Hello Everyone;

We're super excited to announce that Grand Apps will be launching our Grand Apps 2.0 for all clients next week!

Grand Apps 2.0 is a complete revamp & rebuild of our mobile app management platform. With this release, we put a huge emphasis on beautiful designs, intuitive user experience and blazing fast loading speeds.

What does Grand Apps 2.0 include?

• Completely revamped platform
• Redesigned template menus
• Redesigned background images engine
• Redesigned food management dashboard
• Redesigned reservation management dashboard
• Redesigned coupon management dashboard
• Redesigned shopping management dashboard
• Redesigned every feature dashboard
• Redesigned app previewing
• User experience tested & improved
• Improved loading speeds 
• Beautiful menu animations added
• Beautiful gradients added to all buttons
• and much much more...

How does this benefit our clients?

This new 2.0 version looks even more professional than ever before. You will simply be "wowed". We will demonstrate just how powerful & fast your new Client Management System is. We are always looking for ways to improve our clients user experiences with Grand Apps. 

Hope you enjoy the new design just as we do!

Thanks again for all the support, everyone!!

Chris Ake

Co-Founder @ Grand Apps

Mobile App Industry | December 2012

Mobile App Industry | December 2012

Grand Apps Readers;

It is crucial today that small businesses start thinking about mobile, and with Grand Apps, small businesses have an opportunity to go mobile with the leading Grand Rapids app developer. Grand Apps will provide you a complete mobile marketing strategy with a mobile app and a mobile website for less than the price of newspaper ads. 

Mobile websites are perfect for acquisition through local searches, and mobile apps are perfect for customer loyalty through engaging features such as loyalty programs, coupons, mobile shopping, food ordering, push notifications and more. 

Still not totally convinced that mobile is the way to go? Checkout the below images. 

Mobile Apps are being downloaded at exponential rates by users. Also, the smartphone business will grow at 30% compound annual growth rate for the next five years!

Customers are shopping online by the millions, should't you give them the option at your local business? Also, by 2015, 81% of U.S. cell users will have smartphones. 

Overall, your customers are downloading apps at very exponential rates and spending millions of dollars on them. Isn't it about time you invested in a mobile app for your local business. Again, Grand Apps is the leading Mobile App developer in Grand Rapids, MI. We do not limit to West Michigan App Development, we actually develop mobile apps for iPhone and Android Apps across the country. 

Checkout our website and we will talk soon.

Grand Apps Update | December 2012

New Features Update | December 2012

Grand Apps Readers;

We are are very excited to announce our biggest launch of new feature updates this quarter! We believe companies should be focusing heavily on creating beautifully designed products, and that's exactly what we did in this update. We made tons of our existing features beautiful. Take a look at the images below for an overview of what the new update has to offer.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!

-Grand Apps

Loyalty Tab Update

Reservation Tab Update

Email Photo Update

Contact Us Tab Update

Mailing List Tab Update

Fan Wall Update

Tip Calc Update

Music Tab Update

Podcast Tab Update

Info Tier Tab Update

New Layout Designs

Authorize.net Payments Integrated