Web/app development across platforms!

2011 was an exciting year for web/application developers at envigo. The driver was the growth in the mobile and social web. Several studies and statistics pointed at the new customer playgrounds – places where customers were spending a lot of their time. Clients finally started to take the plunge. Better still, clients agreed to extend a campaign's touch-points into the mobile and social domains. A campaign could therefore have its micro-site backed by search and banner advertising, but customers could also interact with the campaign on a mobile app or through their facebook wall. Our clients successfully create digital multi-platform marketing campaigns – generating awareness through search and banner advertising, letting the community compete over games and contests on Facebook and finding a way to reach his pocket inside a mobile app.

In 2011, envigo's web development team were contacted to provide the following kinds of applications:

• Web development – 2011 was a big year for Ecommerce websites in India. Businesses finally believe that online ordering has come of age and did not need to be limited only to online travel. envigo worked on one of India's most exclusive loyalty programs (Read this blog on Club ITC) and also on an food ordering and home delivery website for a start-up. The requirements for website development almost always included social and search engine friendly modules.
• Facebook applications to generate engagement – envigo worked on developing games, quizzes, polls, contests, profile pic editors for various fan pages. There were some projects which were for enabling lead capture and tactical promotions. Applications were used to maintain a high level of engagement on the Facebook pages and give fans novel ways of engaging with the Pages, its community and with their friends. We also noted that Facebook is gradually launching platform features which used to be apps earlier. (A lot of the work which we had done for Diditz is now part of Timeline and Facebook photos. We are in no way claiming that Facebook's product roadmap is being influenced by envigo, however it is nice to see some of our thinking being validated)
• Mobile applications to drive customer utility – envigo worked on a few mobile apps which were light on branding specific benefits, but focused more on customer utility. Max Bupa's HealthFirst application was one of the apps we were involved in. By limiting the apps only for customer utility more than direct sales or lead capture led to an increase in downloads in the initial few weeks and also in the number of times an app was used.

Location and identity should be the two important themes for apps in 2012. Using apps which deliver personalised information depending upon your location will be interesting. It will not only be pull information, which is similar to 'Google search on mobile' today, in which a user shares his location and gets algorithmically filetered information directly on the mobile phone. By sharing location with marketeers in a strictly policed (read anti-spam) environment, a customer will be able to enjoy highly relevant information exactly when she needs it.

Think about the possibility when you enter a mall and your phone lights up to tell you that the shoes you have been planning to buy are on the first floor at 30% off!

That's what we are working on now – watch this space!