The Benefits of Alumni Giving Through a Mobile App

Written by on March 7, 2012 in Alumni - No Comments

If you are currently considering developing a mobile app for your alumni office, you’ll find the following a helpful discussion about how such an app can help in your fundraising efforts.

  1. Provides a Consistent Opportunity for Giving:
    A simple icon for accepting gifts, placed on the home screen of your alumni app, provides a great and consistent reminder about alumni giving. You never know when the best time to contact each person may be, but an app installed on someone’s phone enables them to give any time, day or night.
  2. Does Not Annoy by Being Overly Proactive:
    It’s not a disruptive phone call or another piece of junk mail to be tossed in the trash.  A link or icon on the alumni app simply provides a reminder about giving each and every time the alumnus uses the app.  And if you’d like to be a little more proactive, like, say during a giving campaign, you can set the app to prompt the user the next time the app is opened.
  3. Low Cost:
    Zero postage costs. Zero printing costs. Zero volunteer time. Can’t get much better than that!
  4. Provides a Platform for Sharing What has been Done with Alumni Dollars:
    You probably find more success in your campaign efforts when you can show how the money will be used, or even how previous gifts were used effectively. A mobile app for alumni provides a great platform for sharing this type of information, and you can include pictures as well to give potential donors a powerful visual of your objectives.

How Much Will a Mobile App Cost Your College or University?

Written by on March 7, 2012 in Admissions, Alumni, Campus - No Comments

Cost or Investment for the Future?

Are you approaching your mobile project as an expense or an investment for future? If you see it as just another expense in the budget, there are many professional app development firms who will get the job done, but we focus specifically on the college and university app niche and understand that investing in mobile development is critical for the future of your institution.

Collegiate Apps Experience:

Return on Investment (ROI) is incredibly important to the success of your mobile app projects and we focus on strategies to maximize it for you! Whether its in dollars like sales revenue, merchandising, sponsorships, and advertising or in other metrics like downloads, users, time-spent, and market-reach, we present you with an analysis of all your options.

Before we even start on your project, we’ll make a plan that will show you how and when your mobile app will start paying returns on that initial investment. In our experience, the following factors will play a role in determining your mobile project’s total cost:

  • Platforms chosen (iPhone, iPad, Android, Mobile Website, etc.)
  • How many features your app offers
  • Will the app integrate with your current content management systems or utilize our API’s (monthly fee)
  • Will you host your own content or use our service (monthly fee)

Estimating Development Costs with Other Firms:

After seeing all of the benefits mobile apps can provide your college or university, the next logical question relates to cost. To get a general idea, check out the following articles from around the web:

  1. iPhone Development Costs - OS X Daily

    “it’s not unusual for an iPhone developer to charge well over $100/hour to do contract iOS development, but realistically the hourly range is anywhere from $50/hour to $250/hour”
    “Relatively Simple or Small App: $3,000-$8,000″
    “More Complex or Recognized Brand App: $50,000-$150,000″

  2. Want to build a mobile app? Here’s how to convince the CFO – Silicon.com

    “A Forrester report last year [2009] set the price of a no-frills app at a minimum of $20,000 – and reckoned a more sophisticated app could set you back up to $150,000.”

  3. How Much Will my Mobile App Cost to Create? -   Accella, a mobile app development company

    “Simple, static apps typically fall in a price range of $8,000.00 – $20,000.00 (per platform) depending on the amount of information that has to be displayed in the app.  Dynamic apps generally average from $12,000.00 – $30,000.00 (per platform) depending on the complexity”

  4. The Cost of Building an iPad App – PadGadget.com

    “For a nice but simple app…your total budget is around $35,000.”
    “For a nice high end app…at the end of the day, your app will likely cost you at least $200,000.”

  5. iPhone App Sales, Exposed – TechCrunch

    “the average total development cost [iPhone only] amounting to $6,453″

So to sum up, a relatively simple app is going to cost you a minimum of $6,000 per phone platform (iPhone, Android, Blackberry)

On the other end, a more complex app is going to cost you anywhere from $12,000 to $30,000 per platform, leading to total project costs upwards of $150,000.

5 Ways Mobile Apps can Help Your Admissions Office

Written by on March 3, 2012 in Admissions - No Comments
  1. Cool “Give-a-Way” Item:
    Advertise your admissions iPhone/Android app to students (and parents) visiting your campus, or better yet, incorporate some aspects of the app into the walking tour! Have them “check-in” at certain locations or take photos to be shared or submitted back to your office.  This will get your app installed and opens up a new and powerful line of future communications.
  2. Higher Quantity of Contacts:
    Once an app is installed on a user’s phone, you can push messages directly to the device. Anyone who has used apps understands the power of this kind of messaging. While emails get blocked or simply deleted, direct mail pieces get thrown in the trash, messages sent to an app on a mobile device will have a much greater acceptance rate. Not only will your communications be received but the cost of sending them is extremely low, allowing for multiple, periodic notifications of upcoming events or approaching deadlines.
  3. Higher Quality of Communication:
    Communications through a native mobile app offers the opportunity to incorporate many different kinds of media and social media. Share videos and pictures, and enable those prospective students to share these items with their social network, which creates even more leads.
  4. Improved Data Gathering:
    Integrate custom forms that gather useful user information. You’ll have a high conversion rate once the app is installed, but this can be increased even more with occasional, gentle prompts to provide the data. Once you collect info suck as potential major, gender, interests, etc. you can begin to really connect the student with the potential opportunities your campus can provide.
  5. Opportunity to Differentiate Yourself:
    Not many campus admissions offices currently use mobile apps, so that alone will make you stand out. However, even as a greater number of schools begin to use iPhone, iPad, and Android apps in their recruitment efforts, you can still find ways to set your app apart. Adding interactive features like polls and contests, or unique content, such as blog feeds from current students, will make your app different and memorable.

Learn more about our apps for admissions offices.