March 31, 2016
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Creator Closes the Deal: Sell your Client a Mobile App

Matt Kremer

There’s something special about holding a real, tangible product in your hands before making a purchasing decision. It can be hard to visualize yourself owning something you’ve only read about or talked about with a sales representative.

So if you’re in the business of making mobile apps for your clients (especially at higher price tags), it can be quite difficult to actually seal the deal.

For example, would you buy a brand new car online, especially when many are $20,000+? Or would you rather check it out first?

Car sales are effective because they appeal to your emotions in the moment and allow you to visualize your dream as a physical reality.

You sit down in a brand-new vehicle–the one you’ve always wanted, in your favorite color. You turn on the radio, and it’s already set to the station you enjoy. You adjust the seat, put your hands on the steering wheel, and place the key in the ignition. When you turn the key, and the engine revs and turns over, you can feel it in your bones. It’s a beautiful day, and as you accelerate out of the lot, you roll down the windows and let in that warm breeze.

This.

This feeling is what is going to get you to purchase the car. ?

So what does this have to do with selling mobile apps?

  1. Mobile apps are expensive. Sometimes a few hundred, sometimes a few grand, sometimes as much as that new car.
  2. It’s very hard to create that “physical” feeling with a potential customer when you’re selling a mobile app.

Both of these facts can make it hard to actually close a deal.

Want to join us for a FREE webinar about selling mobile apps with Creator on 4/14? Register Here.

Making mobile apps can be a long, intensive process. So when it comes to sales, it may be easier to just show clients apps that you’ve built previously. But this is like showing a two-seater convertible to someone who actually wants a minivan.

Why? Because they can’t actually picture what their app might look like. Their app doesn’t feel real yet.

Many agencies choose not to do “speculative work”–starting to make a mobile app for a client to show them what it will look like, before agreeing on a price. And why would they? It’s a lot of hard work for which they’re not getting paid.

This is where Ionic Creator comes into play.

Creator is a rapid drag-and-drop mobile app prototyping tool that exports clean, production-ready Ionic code (or even native IPA/SDKs). Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the ways in which we see Creator being used to help our customers close deals for more money.

1. Mock up apps in minutes to show to clients. ?

creator-screen

There’s no doubt in my mind (and most developers’ and designers’ minds) that speculative work is just the worst. So instead of taking 20+ hours to develop and design an app for a client who may or may not pay you, you can use Creator to make real prototypes that you can show your client in minutes.

Just drag & drop Ionic components onto pages, link your pages together, and click “Preview.” Now, you can navigate through the app and actually interact with it live.

Here are some tips to keep in mind while mocking up apps for clients:

  • Use your client’s logo in the design. A great place for this is on the login page or in the foreground of a nice image on the first screen of your app.
  • Use their colors throughout the app. Be sure to change button colors and other important parts of the app to include the colors that your client uses for their brand.
  • Use language your client uses. Take a look at your client’s website and use some of the language they use on their website inside the app. In fact, you can base some of the navigation of the app on their website, as well.

The more you make the app “feel” like their app, the better.

If you find yourself working with a lot of similar clients, like restaurants, you could make one master restaurant example app, complete with a menu, and just duplicate that one project for every restaurant you go to, customizing it with their color and logo.

This turns speculative work from a money-losing time-sink into something that can actually generate you brand new leads and, ultimately, sales.

2. “Test drive” the app on an actual device. ?

Pasted image at 2015_11_10 10_29 AM

Just like test-driving cars, people like trying products before they buy. They like to feel it in their hands. We built the Creator Mobile App specifically for this purpose.

Creator Pro and Team accounts have access to this mobile app, which allows you to preview your Creator projects right from your phone without any exporting, compiling, or time required on your end. Make a change in Creator, tap the project in the Creator mobile app, and you automatically get the change.

Now, when you walk into a sales meeting, you can hand your phone to the client and say, “We took the time to mock up an app for your business. Would you like to play with it for a minute?”

Instead of the discussion being “Do I even want an app?” the discussion can move to “What would I change about my app?” much more quickly.

3. Reduce your workload with exported code. ?

xport

Creator exports real code for Ionic Framework projects, including the templates that you’ve designed, dynamic routes that have been pre-generated for you, and blank controllers to which you can start to add dynamic functionality.

After you add dynamic functionality (logins, databases, interacting with the phone, etc.), Ionic will generate actual IPA and APK files that you can submit to the App Store.

And since Creator generated all that code for you and cut some development time out, you even have more wiggle room in the negotiation!

From start to finish, Creator and Ionic have been built to improve your life as a mobile app development agency, and we think Creator is your ace in the hole for closing deals with prospective and existing clients. We’d love to hear your stories about how Creator helps make your work easier. Leave them in the comments below, or email us!

 

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Matt Kremer