An association iPhone App would use alerts and notifications as part of its core functionality.  Similarly the ability to have videos and podcasts should be built in – in this way, members can be called to action when necessary, and at a moments notice, and as well have before them the depth and breath of the association, club and organizations mandate.

Examples of current iPhone Apps include -

• USGA, the United States Golf Association
• Redeemer Church
• SFIMA, the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association
• Willow Creek Association, for member churches
• American Diabetes Association
• Pro Rodeo Cowboy Association
• Merced County Association of Realtors

Where an association deals with the public, an iPhone App is a great way to have direct communications with this constituency. You can post information for public consumption, that’s as timely and immediate as you would like, which is more likely to be read than a similar email or web posting simply because of the mobile nature of the App. Two way communication can also be encouraged where the App can provide for postings from the public onto a shared “wall” – notably such postings can be moderated by the association so that improper or inordinate content not be displayed.  In this sense the App can be utilized as an association’s public relations tool.

Collection of membership dues is a necessary evil and can be a frustrating, ongoing task. Here an iPhone App can be an efficient and effective solution. Imagine being able to send an alert, notification or make a call directly to members and then have them make the payment through the App, right there and then.

As well, an App would be a positive green initiative, where newsletters could be digitally delivered, saving on printing and distribution costs. This opportunity to lower the association’s Carbon Footprint is a very positive step to promoting goodwill amongst  the members and public.

Finally, you can use the iPhone App to increase membership. First, a form and supporting material can be included in the App so that members can virally share their association experience directly to new candidates. This viral sharing would be assisted by including Facebook, Twitter, Flicker and YouTube social network connectivity that can be integrated into an iPhone App.  Secondly, because Apps are Hot, the release of an iPhone App is a publicity event in itself, that with PR support could go a long way to generating media and prospective member attention.

“It’s nice. It’s designed to catch your attention…,” said Jeff Richardson, a New Orleans attorney who blogs at iPhoneJD (reproduced from New Orleans City Business – June 24, 2010)

Not only have legal professionals jumped onboard the App train like “Houston Lawyer” Gregg Harrison PLLC, but take a look at these app purveyors:

Designers – Donna Karan and Diane von Furstenberg

Singers – Kenney Chesney and Taylor Swift

Icons – Dolly Parton and Madonna

Politicians – Derek Wyatt

Plastic Surgeons – Dr. Steven Denenberg

Notably, the Houston legal market has taken to Apps quite extensively with market segmentation along the lines of business, immigration, criminal, accident and dwi, all with dedicated apps!

Admittedly and understandably, a lawyer knows that their app will be hard to isolate from the hundreds of thousands of apps available from the iTunes Store, but that type of marketing essentially misses the point. The law firms and other professionals use their iPhone apps to leverage existing marketing and professional awareness by:

1. extending the reach of their marketing into the hands and pockets of prospective clients, especially those that have need of the professional’s information while on the move or with others
2. exponentially increasing the possibility and probability of business development through word of mouth sharing and referrals, that can be built into an app’s functionality and internal connectivity with prevailing social networks FaceBook and Twitter
3. using the release and availability of the app as a PR event to support traditional media outreach

“We’ve definitely gotten a lot of publicity and it’s brought attention to our law practice,” summarized Michelle May O’Neil, a Dallas family law attorney, in the New Orleans City Business article. In her instance the apps served a specific function. Yet it can easily be said that getting information sought by prospective clients into their hands, where and when they can consume such content, is itself a function that can only be uniquely addressed by an app. It’s this information availability, with connectivity to the professional to make an appointment for specific expertise, that gets the professional’s foot in the door with prospective new clients – essentially the iPhone app is a lead generation device.

In addition, given that the demographics of app users and reach of an app is becoming accepted as distinctive from those reached by traditional media, a professional’s app has the potential to extend their field of influence into these developing markets.  The average age of the iPhone user is 37 years old according to Admob’s Mobile Metrics Report of 2010 – which is a perfect market for consumption of many professional services – and when the gender split of just over half of device users being male is taken into account, the potential market is extensive.

Where competition amongst professionals is reaching new heights, the iPhone App is a new and impactful tool for practice client development – one with reach, engagement, and most important, two way communicability – for which other traditional forms of marketing are becoming less effective and at which the iPhone App is particularly adept.

The pharmacy App is one of the most logical extensions of pharmaceutical marketing because of its relevance to consumers, who are now mobile enabled and consumptive consumers.

Unlike other Apps, a pharmacy App is an App offering a solution to a very real and immediate need as a point of engagement. Once so engaged, the App engenders continuing good will as it was the right solution at the right time. Tell me that someone would not positively and extensively speak about such an App that saved them in the nick of time. This type of App therefore has the potential for one of the most effective word of mouth referral campaigns ever.

From the standpoint of immediacy there is no better way to send crucial information to a community than through an Apps alert function. This important immediate information could range from product recalls to what is going on sale, given that today’s pharmacies have multiple revenue generators in addition to drug dispensation. The pharmacy App also provides a channel for marketing communication of drug brands directly to consumers, much like we see on TV, except that the App channel has the potential to be more focused in its reach and more direct in its call to action.

The other key benefit of a pharmacy App is the ability to develop and leverage a community of users and through their in-App connection to social networks, a viral sharing of not only the information but the pharmacy brand. This is a real competitive advantage to regional pharmacies in securing and maintaining a regional or neighborhood focus and top of mind recall.

The pharmacy App is essentially a fantastic extension of the helpful neighborhood pharmacist. We all go to the pharmacist looking for information because they are convenient, available and around the corner.

Oftentimes going to a doctor with delays in appointments, waiting in the waiting room and possibly receiving the same advice as could have been obtained through a pharmacist, secures the future of the neighborhood pharmacist as the first go to guy or gal for health advice. This is why an App that starts off the conversation with the pharmacist in your hand or pocket truly makes sense.

There are a number of social networking platforms that are benefiting from and leveraging the fact that many if not most social experiences occur when we’re out and about. For instance – Buzzd is all about up to the minute commentary & ratings of restaurants, nightlife & venues within a city, reported in realtime in its mobile apps and mobile website by way of a “buzzdmeter”; Loopt is a social-mapping service that uses the location of the mobile device to find your friends, discover places and events around you, make & share comments on listings; FourSquare has you check in to your favorite spots, restaurants, bars, workplaces, you name it, and with enough popularity you can become appointed mayor thereof; Gowalla is a social location game that provides rewards to checkin, allows you to review ratings of locations that have been checked into and to discover your “friends” favorite places; and mobile versions of traditional social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp, the latter of which provides user reviews and recommendations of restaurants, shopping, nightlife and entertainment.

In mobile social networking your mobile device is more often than not used to let those in your community know where you are, or for determining where others in your community are currently located, to meet up or to see what’s happening in those locations right now.

By extension, mobile social networking allows sharing of venue information and to meetup with those that have the same likes and interests. The aspect of instantaneous update capability makes mobile social networking one of the best means to move people to a location in realtime, especially when your friends can update as to what’s happening at a specific venue right at that moment. Location becomes relevant to the social networking experience, as does timeliness of the interpersonal communications.

What this means is that restaurants, banks, gas stations, any places where business can be done and that could benefit from additional location traffic should recognize the opportunities that integration with and advertising on these mobile networks could have. For example, using mobile social networks to establish relationships with mobile users allows businesses to capitalize on the symbiosis involved in moving those users’ friends to that business’ locations – everyone wants to be where their friends are, find out who’s there right now and what’s going on at that location.

First, by using mobile fund raising you have the ability to reach a new demographic that has been untouched by traditional fund raising methods. This demographic, made up of the millennial generation and others, is not a consumer of print, television or email content. Rather this generation is mobile, consuming YouTube & Flickr, socially networked through Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. This is the mobile enabled generation – for which you can be one of the first to reach with a call to action to contribute to your cause if you communicate at their level and by way of the device that’s with them 24/7, always on, always available – their mobile phone.

Second, the delay between receipt of a call to action and being able to actualize it, such as by hearing a television ad and making the call or going to the computer to make a credit card donation, has the potential for gross loss of opportunity, requiring multiple impressions and high spend to move the prospective donor to action. In comparison, a call to action seen or sent to the mobile user can be acted on immediately, in the moment. This in the moment giving permits calls to action at events, on PSA’s, in the news, to be acted on without the delay and inherent loss of intent suffered by other traditional giving requests.

Third, in the above manner mobile fund raising can activate traditional media so that the call to action therein can similarly be immediately actionalized. There is also a potential cross over benefit, where traditional donors will be continue to be impacted by print, television and email media, but those with access to a mobile device will be able to immediately respond. The cost of adding a mobile call to action to such traditional media would be marginal if any, especially compared to the potential for inciting the mobile user to action.

Fourth, mobile fund raising is available to everyone that has a mobile phone. Penetration of mobile phones are estimated to be above 70% of the general population, which translates into millions of potential donors.

Fifth, campaign setup and ongoing fees for a mobile giving campaign are quite low presenting a small cost to enter with a high potential return. Related mobile campaign elements such as copy writing the call to action, choice of keyword, instructions on how to operationalize the giving process, all optimize the return on investment of a mobile giving campaign.

Sixth, mobile integrates well with social network, Facebook mobile growth is greater than access by laptop or PC. Millennials are connected by social networks and you can use a shareable widget to take advantage of these social networks to initiate a mobile giving transaction.

Finally, there’s a very important ongoing benefit of a mobile giving campaign – the resulting list of telephone numbers that have opted-in to receive further information from your cause. While a mobile user may change their phone and their carrier, they are unlikely to change their mobile telephone number which over time has become an extension of themselves, part of their identity. If the terms of use and privacy policy have been crafted property and made known at the time of the initial call to action, the mobile user would be regarded as having opted-in to the relationship thereby defined with the cause. This could then permit the cause to have ongoing communication, both downwards and two-way with the opted-in mobile user forever or until the mobile user opts-out. The value of acquisition of a telephone number and associated permission to recontact cannot be underestimated, as you have essentially set up a direct communication link with your prospect that can be mined for future donations and other requests.

Mobile fundraising is a new means of giving. This channel cuts through the clutter of traditional media messages that are ignored or not responded to by potential giving demographics. Mobile giving is immediate, responsive and inexpensive – the means of starting a lasting relationships with new giving demographics.

Although there are many ways to monetize a mobile app, there are 5 common alternatives that can be used separately or together:

1) Sell it – Both the iTunes Store and Android Marketplace let you put a price tag on downloading your app. For Apple the minimum price is $0.99, with 70% revenue share of sales to the developer.

2) Sell Advertising – Use the home page or banners to sell ad space. There are a number of mobile advertising aggregators from which you could obtain an advertising feed under a revenue share agreement. Usually any advertising that you source and sell yourself will be more profitable that a 3^rd party advertising feed, but such aggregator feeds are useful to supplement your own ads with additional ad inventory.

3) Sell Alerts & Notifications – Remember that the app platform is still in essence a mobile phone benefiting from a communications link to the platform’s user. Mobile is an immediate reaction platform, as can be seen by the popularity of SMS Calls to Action, such as for events & mobile giving. This means that you could capitalize on the ability to send timely and time specific mobile offers & reminders for events, appearances, specials and the like, to your captive app audience.

4) Sell Offer Feeds – You could set up an in-app category specific to offers and promotions in the nature of an ongoing feed, much like a news feed, and essentially sell access to this in-app channel.

5) Sell Subscriptions – By selling a time defined subscription for access to your app, you can develop an ongoing revenue stream.

6) Sell Content Tags – You can also monetize the content within your app by way of integrating advertising into audio tags, video pre and ante rolls.

While these monetization alternatives can defray the cost of an app, a proper marketing plan that views the app as mobile communications channel could really take advantage of the opportunities of delivering media to consumers while on the go. In this way the app as a channel differs from television, radio and print, which differences can be leveraged to increase the value of the monetization alternatives in comparison to those traditional media outlets. So consider using a mobile app as your content delivery tool, that when purposed as a mobile channel has the enhanced ability to pay for itself and much more!

Here’s the key differences between traditional donors and the new millennial generation. Traditional donors responded to calls to action contained in print materials received by mail, television commercials during the weekend or late at night, and some by way of emails addressed to them. All calls to action in such media for the most part suffered from delayed reactivity, probably resulting in lower conversions and requiring multiple repetitions of the call to action message. As for millennials, those born between 1979 and 2005 – print materials aren’t read; television spots aren’t watched; emails are ignored as spam.

The millennial generation is a networked mobile generation. How do you engage this demographic as a young, up and coming, giving generation? Easy … use the channels they use to communicate, share and receive their snackable content on. It’s either YouTube or the mobile phone, or better yet YouTube on the mobile phone.

Seriously, in order to engage this prospective audience your message has be mobile capable, and preferable mobile reactive. Mobile reactive means the ability to utilize the unique characteristics of the mobile device to not only receive a call to action, but to respond to it. The latter reactive capability is built into mobile devices and simply has to be properly communicated and configured to make a difference.

For instance, Text to Give campaigns utilize the sms capability built into all mobile phones sold today to permit making a donation or pledge as simple as texting a keyword to a shortcode. Other on device capabilities could leverage the popularity of today’s apps that permit taking a credit card directly through a mobile device.

Just as important as being a means of fundraising, mobile devices and apps are a key to maintaining an ongoing relationship with your prospective donors. Alerts, notifications and mobile content are all means of reaching out and maintaining a sense of community, that is as much important to these social networking mavens as making a request for donations or other call to action. Remember, a friend is not one that is simply there asking for help, but should be in touch and interested.

Your new prospective donors are mobile and so are their relationships, and to become and maintain a top of mind position, you have to act as they do and engage them through and on their own turf. There is no better means of doing so in today’s market than through their mobile phone which is with them 24/7, always on, always available.

Delay is the enemy of a call to action. This means that a request to give made at an event, by radio and tv, or print materials, all suffer from an inherent latency or delay before action can be taken. For instance, consider what happens when an event mc requests the crowd to support him, her or the cause they represent – the crowd has to remember the call to action when they are proximate to a means to fulfill that request, such as a computer or mailbox.

On the other hand, if a call to action is accompanied by the phrase “and download our app” or “text DONATE to 000000” to support the cause, such a call to action can be acted upon immediately by those present. This aspect to immediacy of action, with its corresponding fulfillment to the contributor, underlies the success of text to donate campaigns that reduce or eliminate the delay potentially associated with a call to action request.

Fundraising alternatives possible through an iPhone app include:

Text to Donate/Pledge – Through app integration with the texting capabilities available on the iPhone, a one button touch could initiate a $5 or $10 donation that would then have to be confirmed through an SMS double opt-in. Alternatively, the clickthrough could be routed by SMS to an IVR or live call center to take donations of higher amounts. Texting alternatives may however require carrier shortcode authorizations and/or Mobile Giving Foundation application.

Onboard Merchanting – Various merchant sources can be integrated on-device such as with Paypal or Google Checkout to take credit cards or permit direct account access.

In-app Advertising – Ads can be placed in the app or through other mobile channels that when clicked on could take the user to a charitable, political and non profit organization site or other means of monetization.

But there’s more! … All the above benefits are further enhanced by virtue of the iPhone platform through its sharing capabilities. In a practical sense this means that the contributor can have the means to “pay it forward” by suggesting with moral persuasion, to their friends, in their phonebook, their Facebook site or Twitter followers, to follow in their footsteps in benefiting the cause they’ve just contributed to.

Wait! There’s still more! … Once the app’s been downloaded, you have a direct connection with those who are supportive of the cause. This connection can be energized at little if any cost in the future, through your app, by sending an alert or notification, or content directly to the app.

So there you have it – a win, win situation, of taking advantage of the immediacy of a call to action, potential viral sharing, and the development of an ongoing relationship that can bear future fruit … all with your iPhone app.

The Google search algorithm takes locations into account, tending to show local results first. Google has also set out to tag their Google Maps with local content by way of Google Places. These are all steps in the right direction to make geo-tagged information useful and practical. One of today’s best geo-tagging applications can be seen in the various AR (augmented reality) applications that let you actually see the geo-tags overlaid in what you are viewing at the time.

Imagine looking through your smartphone, where the forward facing camera is displaying on the phone’s screen what the camera is pointing at, except overlaid on this view of reality are geo-tags of information related to the locations the camera is pointing at. Far fetched? No, you can actually see it in operation by downloading the Layar or Wikitude augmented reality applications available for both iPhone and Android devices – then launching the Google local search overlay – the phone’s screen will then show the geo-tagged businesses within the radius you specified. You can similarly see geo-tagged Youtube videos and Flickr photos depending upon the application.

At this point the geo-tagging advertising universe is just starting to evolve – using the above applications you will see some store locations, personal videos and pictures. But larger businesses are already getting geo-tagged, such as coffee shop franchises, restaurant chains and venues. These are first movers in a new developing advertising space. So far some geo-tagging advertising opportunities are free, for how long no one knows.

There is also a bigger opportunity – in developing your own augmented reality channel or application. The AR channel could utilize a number of platforms such as those above and others, and would simply require development of an unique overlay using the platform’s api. You could set pricing on your AR overlay or have it accessible for free.

A more sophisticated approach would see development of your own AR app, which would give you the most control over the user interface, advertising and content opportunities. As above, you could either sell the app through the various app stores or have it downloadable for free.

Try it out for yourself! Augmented realities are here to stay and it’s a good idea to be part of the development in its formative years in order to see and participate in the developing opportunities.

Use the empowering aspects of an iPhone app to enhance your event promotion, support your event’s management, and most importantly, extend your event into the digital world such as through viral sharing with social networks, monetizations through on-platform advertising, and contributions through in-app donations. Examples included the following:

Promote Your Event – iPhone Apps are hot! Simple association with release of an app and availability of an app for your event offers parasitic benefits associated with this medium’s popularity. Positive public relations opportunities abound, with as above the app’s release and availability, but also with content that can be released and accessed through your app.

Manage Your Event – Laptops aren’t truly portable … it’s not like you or your patrons are going to be carrying laptops while attending the event. On the other hand, an iPhone app is truly portable and with the user everywhere, all the time. The implication is that the app can deliver to your patrons the static data present on your website, but in a useful format, when and where they can use it. Schedules, itineraries, maps, all available when they’re most useful, thereby increasing consumer convenience and app commitment. Consequentially, the app is also a green solution saving on printing, costs as well as associated garbage and cleanup costs. Now for the best part … unlike the PC web, an iPhone app offers the potential for dynamic, realtime event content deliveries – alerts or notifications as to what’s on where, offers from event participants, and information updates of event occurrences & changes.

Digitally Extend Your Event – In app connectivity to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube allow for immediate sharing of your and your patron’s content, for potential viral distribution. What better way to publicize your event. Similarly, in-app monetization functions permit in-app advertising by way of banner ads with click through capabilities. Donation functionality is also possible such as through embedding sms text to donate initiation or integration with mobile merchanting alternatives.

So use an iPhone app to promote, manage and extend your event – engaging today’s event patron and their means of direct communications. Bring your event into today’s digital world, your patrons are there and so should you be.