Rebrand your business so it’s ready for the mobile age

You may have been using the same logo and brand identity for many years, and it has probably served you well. But all logos, even those from giants like Coca Cola or McDonalds have been revised, tweaked and updated over the years to keep them modern, fresh and communicate the correct message for those times. However it is not always a wholesale change of branding that is required, those iterations are always subtle and looking back at the original logo you can still recognise who it is. If you search Google for ‘coca cola 1950’ you will see those classic advertisements sparking nostalgia in some but your recognition of the brand is instant.

If you are making your first step into the mobile space you will need to have a modern, fresh and recognisable presence on this new platform to be seen as current. Having an app where the logo and colour scheme look like they are from 1920’s is not going to engage the user as much as something that is fresh and modern where users find the brand engaging and exciting to look at. You can have the best user experience developers working on your app but if the brand isn’t stimulating and exiting users could be turned off immediately.

So when you need a new app (or maybe a website or any new market engagement) considering the following benefits of a rebrand:

1. Attract prospects with a new exciting brand identity that is modern and gives them the feeling they want to work with you.
2. The rebrand will communicate your company’s values and attracts the type of customer you want to work with.
3. It communicates your companies professionalism and can give you the opportunity to increase your fees to your customers.
4. Differentiate yourselves from your competitors, maybe adjust your company focus if needs be and stand out in your market place.
5. People buy from people and if you staff are proud to wear your logo they will be more confident, engaging and their ability to enthuse others to work with you will be increased. Your rebrand will have a positive effect on staff, moral and engagement with customers and prospects.
6. If you are pushing into new markets or your business model and demographic has changed over the years, the rebrand can help you achieve more success by resonating with that new demographic. Remember society and culture also changes over the years.
7. Rebranding is a great opportunity for you to engage in plenty of social media activity even leading up to the change. Give your followers snippets of new ideas coming soon.
8. When recruiting, potential high quality employees will see your brand identity and be inspired to work for you too.

When making a decision to rebrand your company, it is not one to be taken lightly and it does have its risks. It needs to be well researched and executed but it can bring amazing results. Not rebranding and leaving your company with an image that is looking tired and out of date could be much more of a risk for your companies future going forward than a rebrand.

Coming in Episode 3: How much does it cost to develop an app?

Does your business really need an app?

The simple answer is yes you do, otherwise your competition could gain a major business advantage over you. I guess you would expect us to say that but a business that has its own app can steal the march on its competitors by offering their customers the benefit of quick and easy communication and purchases, improved customer service and keeping up to date with them on the go. In 2016 90%* of companies surveyed said they were going to increase investment in their mobile apps so if you are not one of these 90% you could be in danger of falling behind.

1 – Improve Perceived Value With Your Clients
Giving your customers an app to keep in touch with their orders not only gives added value but benefits such as a free draw or loyalty points is a good way to add even more perceived value. We know customers who have promotions such as ‘freebie Friday’ or ‘Manic Monday’ where app users can win small items like some business cards, a banner, branded pens and notepads. It works a treat, engages app users, builds loyalty and doesn’t cost the company much in costs.

2 – Build A Stronger Brand
Consider this, everyone is looking at their phones everywhere they go. Is the opportunity to be there with them a good one? Letting them know of your special offers, discounts, exclusive app offers, loyalty discounts, news feeds? Of course it is!

Even if they are mostly using their devices for LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, your app is there on their phone and if you have a well designed icon they will still see this during every day navigation and be subconsciously reminded of your brand.

3 – Win More Business Quicker
There are so many reports that have been commissioned over the years that provide different measures on how much it costs to win new clients versus selling new services to existing clients. Having an app allows you to push those new services to the existing clients quicker than ever before and gain a faster ROI.

New customers can be attracted by the knowledge you have an app that allows them to order anytime of the day or night quickly and gain improved customer service.

4 – Staying Ahead Of Your Competition
Let’s face it, your competition will be trying to court your customer all the time. If they don’t have an app, the perception is that they are well behind you in technology, service levels won’t be as good and it will just reaffirm how advanced your business is to them. They will consider it a backward step to even considering changing supplier!

5 – Boost Efficient With Order Submission To Your SOP/MIS/ERP
E-commerce is mostly thought of as the concept of selling online to the masses 24 hours a day with low overheads. If this is your thought then you are right but you are missing a major advantage for your business.

You can gain major efficiency savings by submitting these online orders directly into your SOP/MIS/ERP system via an API. Recent studies have indicated that the cost of administering online orders where they have to be rekeyed into an order or invoice system can range from £30 to £80 per order, so all your profit could have evaporated before the administration of that order is complete. On smaller value orders you could even be loosing money.

6 – Make It Easy For Your Customer To Re-Order
If you supply physical product, consider printing a code on the item or box that your app can read. This allows a buyer to notice they are getting low, scan, confirm quantity and submit in less than 3 clicks. Be smart and use the GPS within the device to establish what location they are ordering from to preset delivery. Quick and efficient. If you then submit this order to your internal system via an API then it goes direct to production with no manual touch points.

Your own dedicated business app keeps you ahead of your competition on so many levels.

Coming in Episode 2: When designing your app, should you also take the opportunity for a rebrand?

* https://arc.applause.com/2016/01/18/mobile-app-investment-in-2016/

350 people attended the annual 2 day Historical Association Conference 2017 and they were in for a treat with the keynote address given by the author, lecturer, broadcaster and champion of history Michael Wood who spoke on the Anglo-Saxons and the making of England.

You can find more here including links to their Twitter feed.

Today is International Museum Day. Check your local museum for events and activities. Proud to be a partner with some of the finest heritage and culture institutions in the world including Imperial War Museum, Royal Armouries, University of Cambridge Museums, National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich, Museum of London and more. Find our more here.

All clients who traded with Gooii in the 2016 financial year were requested to provide feedback, so we could obtain valuable statistics as to where we are successful and where we could improve. The results were excellent and surpassed all of our expectations. We are very proud of how the team have delivered projects and exceeded customer expectations in all areas. Key areas included 100% of clients that were satisfied with the communication they received from the team and would also recommend us to others!

It was interesting that Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality we popular areas where our clients believe would be a part of their future development plans, possibly based on our success with apps like DriveVR.

To download DriveVR and see how VR can help your business visit: gooii-apps.com/drivevr

One of the main internal projects we have been working on recently at Gooii is a refresh of our website, with more of a focus on our quality coding of web, app and Virtual Reality work. Another key stage is underway today with the photography of all the staff for our ‘Meet The Team’ page and generic ones of our offices, all with a focus on tech that each of us love. Most of us went for our favourite childhood tech with the likes of the original Playstation, Gamecube or ZX Spectrum but Nicky, one of our Creative Directors, went for the more modern VR headset!

“Right from the initial DriveVR pitching process, Gooii listened carefully to our brief and we were very impressed with their fresh ideas and innovative approach.

Gooii were a great company to work with and we would highly recommend them. We believe that Gooii have produced an app for us which is the first of its kind in road safety for young people, and we’re extremely pleased with it. I am sure we will work with Gooii to further develop and improve the DriveVR app, and I wouldn’t hesitate to approach them for other projects.”

Anna Higgins
Communications Manager
Safer Roads Partnership in Warwickshire and West Mercia

Split them kits, then pop their balls

Splitty Kitty is a cross platform iOS and Android app game development, that features power ups, in-app purchases and its own in-app currency. Swipe to split a kit, then tap to pop. Unpopped balls turn back into kitties, try and clear the screen as more kitties fire on. Furious feline action. Don’t let them ruin your life!

Splitty Kitty is both fun to play but just as importantly the in-app purchases and advertising enables the app to make money. The Splitty Kitty app project also included a social media marketing package, ensuring the app will achieve the downloads required to make the development profitable.

Other features include leaderboards and achievements using iOS Game Center and Android Google Play Games.

Download and getting splitting on iOS and Android.

It’s been quite a week for our new VR app Drive VR, with the official launch taking place last week. Since then both Gooii and Driver VR have been featured by the BBC, Nottingham Evening Post, Road Safety GB, Planet Radio, Worcester News, Design Week and many more.

DriveVR is an iOS and Android app store first and uses innovative Virtual Reality technology to simulate real-world driving situations. DriveVR also features actors from Nottingham’s Television Workshop, directors, sound technicians, police, ambulance crews and stunt drivers.

Since the official launch DriveVR has received over 1.3k downloads. This is a phenomenal start and we look forward to its continued success.

To download DriveVR visit: gooii-apps.com/drivevr

Gooii are proud to announce the release of the Virtual Reality app ‘Drive VR’. Commissioned by the Safer Roads Partnership, DriveVR is a massive collaboration between Gooii’s talented team of project managers, designers, photographers and app coders. The app also features actors from Nottingham’s Television Workshop, directors, sound technicians, police, ambulance crews and stunt drivers. DriveVR is an iOS and Android app store first and uses innovative Virtual Reality technology to simulate real-world driving situations.

The app allows players to choose and customise a character and explore their social media timeline before encountering multiple driving events. Inspiration came from hard hitting road safety commercials, computer games, and time-travel films.

We can’t wait for everyone to see this app, so please download and share it now: gooii.com/DriveVR