Internet and Technology

Harness the Benefits of Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex

The current economy notwithstanding, today’s business market is a competitive place.  Customers are becoming more demanding and competing brands are getting more difficult to ignore. The overall value of effective branding cannot be overestimated as more and more consumers are motivated to shop based on their familiarity with your name, your logo, and your reputation. Moreover, we’re in an era where the marketing industry is more dynamic than ever and new media and technologies are changing the way we establish said brands. The internet has made the consumer far more fickle but also more difficult to engage which is why rich internet applications (RIA) are a cornerstone of many modern marketing campaigns. With RIA, the customer experience is fuller and more affecting as many RIA require the total engagement of the customer.  In short, RIA help you to create a much more memorable brand experience which will ultimately equate to more stability and greater profit for your organization.

Engaging the Customer

Of course, from a marketing standpoint, engaging your customer with your advertisements is critical. Throughout the evolution of marketing, advertising, and branding, professionals in the industry have gained a greater acceptance and understanding of the notion that in order to influence a customer to buy your product, you must first make some kind of connection with them. As we have seen the predominant marketing media change from radio and print to television to the internet, we have also seen a change in the way advertising seeks to make this connection.  In the early days of branding, companies generally sought to gain connect to customers by providing information. Customers were also given a sense that their choices were important and it was especially important not to make the wrong choice. As television became more central in our lives, branding was a matter of arousing a strong and influential emotional response that would later be associated with the brand thereby making it far more memorable. But as advertising and branding focus has shifted to online mediums, we are seeing the importance of consumer engagement skyrocketing.  With the multitude of sensory input we face on any given day, our attention spans have become shorter. RIA can help you to engage your customers in such a way that they give you their focus. They learn about your brand, product or service while engaged by your RIA.

Reaching the Customer

Business executives are quickly learning the value of engaging your customers. Recent research suggests that customer engagement translates directly into customer loyalty. RIA are interesting and dynamic and are developing quickly. But RIA are more than marketing tools for improving customer engagement, with RIA you can also reach customers across a broad spectrum of sources. Mobile web, for example, is becoming increasingly popular. With applications like Adobe Flex and Flash, developers can create interesting, highly engaging applications that can reach the vast majority of mobile web users. In addition, we all know that web presence is international and once you commit to branding online, RIA are the only way you are going to keep up with your competitors.  The fact of the matter is that as online technologies are getting more sophisticated there are more people going online. Any organization that did not adapt to these changing technologies, in this case creating RIA with Adobe Flex, will be left behind.

Impressing the Customer

In addition to engaging and reaching customers, RIA can help you impress customers. As an example here are the details of an experience anyone can relate to. You’re searching the web for a product you want to buy. You stumble across two websites. One of those sites features black and white text and a crude online ordering form. The other website features eye-popping applications with streaming video and a well organized home page. Ask yourself which site you’d be more likely to buy from and also more likely to trust. Trust is an important element for consumers today and one of the great benefits of RIA is that they help make your site look professional while also achieving the lofty goals of engagement and reach. Moreover, as RIA can easily incorporate a variety of rich media, like embedded video or contextual help, they allow for better configurations.

The Specific Adobe Benefits

Perhaps the most important benefit of developing RIA with Adobe products is ubiquity.  Without a doubt, Adobe Flash is the world leader as far as its ability to reach internet-enabled desktops. In fact, it is estimated that 98% of computers with internet capability run Adobe Flash meaning the development tools like Adobe AIR or Adobe Flex provide you with the opportunity to create ubiquitous RIA. Furthermore, most designers and developers already have the skills necessary to start working with technologies like Flex and as these technologies evolve the developer experience doesn’t change all that much.  In a very short time developers and designers can adapt to these new technologies, in fact most already are.

RIA are a relatively new addition to the repertoire of marketing tools but they are already highly influential in terms of engaging, reaching, and impressing your customers.  Furthermore, Adobe technologies allow designers and developers to work together seamlessly within the bounds of their current skill set. Creating rich, meaningful online applications makes your brand unforgettable and as such you can’t afford to ignore the potential of RIA.