Clowder Blog

Just as the world of commerce has changed drastically in the last decade, the banking industry has seen some rapid changes in the past couple of years. Leading for-profit companies have yielded great results by launching mobile apps—increasing their customer base and gaining loyalty by creating value with consumers. Banks have joined the ranks with other big brands to leverage the benefits that a mobile app can offer customers.

A note from our CEO Sergei Dubograev:

Every now and again I hear people saying mobile is a fad. "Apps fail." "Websites and email are here to stay." Without being too disrespectful, what I want to say to those people is... good luck, because you’ll need it.

As far as the website vs. app debate goes, it’s not an Either/Or Situation - both are needed. Just as we always like to say – websites are for attention, apps are for retention. It’s time to put your website’s most utilized features and resources in a native app so your members can access them right through their phones. When it comes to keeping your association engaging, it’s important you know your people, what they need, and how to best deliver that.

Many associations are utilizing an online, web-based forum to digitally connect their community. The experience however tends to be clunky, delayed and disjointed.

In this webinar, we explore the value in relocating that engagement to a mobile format, and more specifically, inside of a dedicated year-round mobile membership app. 

Membership retention is the name of the game when it comes to associations. With so many new resources and programs introduced in the market, how can you get members to stay and continue finding value in your organization? What can’t happen is remaining stagnant in your offerings and benefits. A lack of innovation will equate to a lack of interest towards your membership.

When your organization makes the wise decision to invest in an app, you have some choices to make. The most important being, “Should our app be native or web-based?” To help answer that, we've illustrated a helpful scenario:

As our upcoming webinar - Web Forums Out, Mobile Forums In (Oct. 2, 2 pm!) approaches, we wanted to dive into what makes an organization's mobile forums a success.

Forums through Clowder are user-generated and serve to continually engage your community. When a user creates a post, it opens up communication within the app. Readers are able to comment on, like and subscribe to content in the feed. Forums are the perfect way to get people talking and collaborating on a consistent basis, right on their mobile device.

Mobile devices have become invaluable business tools and the primary channel people conduct many aspects of their personal and professional lives through. The proof is indisputable - mobile has overtaken desktop and apps have overtaken websites. Even back in 2017, a study conducted by Samsung to gauge mobility trends at the workplace found that 93% of respondents used cell phones at work to complete professional tasks, reporting they spend 33% of their workday using their phones. In the two years since then, it’s very likely those statistics have increased. 

When McKinley conducted a recent survey identifying the association market's three highest priorities for the following year, the goal of generating non-dues revenue topped the chart. Increasing non-dues revenue allows for organizations to rely on alternative sources of income and not solely on membership payments. 

All organizations understand the necessity of a web presence. Your website is how your audience finds you and accesses the information, products and resources you provide. It should reveal a bit about your culture, your values and your personality. It’s an invaluable tool for communications and for personal and consumer transactions. However, nearly 80% of internet usage in 2019 is likely to be mobile, so simply having a good website isn’t enough.