Learn how you can Unlock Limitless Customer Lifetime Value with CleverTap’s All-in-One Customer Engagement Platform.
The issue of inequitable access to broadband connectivity—otherwise known as the digital divide—has existed for decades. The problem only grew during the pandemic, when people suddenly became more reliant than ever on wireless connectivity for school, work, and daily living.
One company, the telecom data services provider M2Catalyst, is using crowdsourcing to help the communities most affected by the digital divide play a direct role in ensuring that networks work for them. Not coincidentally, M2Catalyst’s customer-centric approach has helped its free mobile apps experience massive growth.
In this episode of the Mobile Presence podcast, host Peggy Anne Salz interviews Joshua Shorter, Director of Marketing for M2Catalyst, on how the company is succeeding by amplifying the voice of the consumer and improving the mobile experience for everyone.
Throughout his well-rounded career, Shorter has used his skills in marketing, engagement, lead generation, customer acquisition, channel optimization, multichannel campaign management, and content creation to help major brands achieve growth. His career portfolio spans Fortune 500 companies such as Las Vegas Sands Corp., to tech startups, to respected global brands such as Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, and AEG Live.
As part of its commitment to improving the mobile experience for consumers and businesses, M2Catalyst offers a number of free apps such as Network Cell Info Lite — a mobile network and wifi monitoring app with measurement and diagnostic tools— designed to help users achieve greater mobile network performance. The company also provides network performance data to enterprise customers in more than 30 countries.
M2Catalyst is furthering this commitment through one of its newest apps, Mobile Signal Finder, a mobile signal mapper powered by crowdsourced data. “It’s similar to how Waze leverages crowdsourced data to give real-time insights into what’s happening with traffic,” explains Shorter. “Mobile Signal Finder does the same thing but with the mobile experience of consumers.” The app helps users see “where other users worldwide are getting good signals, where they’re getting bad signals.”
Thanks in part to timely and effective marketing messaging, the company’s apps are seeing impressive growth—for example, Shorter says that Mobile Signal Finder has recently seen a 90% increase in monthly active users. According to him, marketers can begin to achieve results like these largely because of a single word: testing.
“Test your message and your headlines. Test your images,” Shorter advises. “If it’s a push notification, see which headline performs best. Emoji or no emoji. You can get laser-focused on what works and really start driving more engagement. A 10% increase in user retention can increase the value of your business by more than 30%. Testing really helps you get there.”
In its efforts to improve engagement and retention, and cross-promote its apps, M2Catalyst partners with CleverTap for campaigns, journeys, and analytics.
Shorter says that one of the most valuable aspects of the CleverTap platform is its ability to drill down on analytics regarding user events. “One thing I like to look at is how frequently a user is opening the app,” he explains. “That can be an indicator for whether or not someone becomes a power user. I can see that on Network Cell Info Lite, 28% of our users launch the app five times or more. When we look at the paid version, 52% of users launch the app five times or more.”
Building effective user journeys is also vital, particularly when it comes to onboarding. This 7-to-14-day period “is critical for empowering the user as much as possible,” Shorter notes. “We really load up with our initial onboarding experience through some of CleverTap’s automated user journeys.”
To hear more from Joshua Shorter about engaging and retaining app users by giving them an active role in improving the mobile experience, tune into the entire interview:
Plus, check out our Quick Talks video below for an update on M2Catalyst, along with Shorter’s take on how to maintain momentum and learn from data signals to grow retention.
