Figs & Feta is a lifestyle magazine for women, along with an ecommerce brand selling a range of kitchen and homeware.
Figs & Feta needed a way to expand their reader base, as well as connecting with their readers on a deeper level. That meant improving their mobile app, and expanding to more than just a standalone app-based app.
MobiLoud helped them do it. Read on to find out how MobiLoud solved the challenges faced by founder Kim La Ferla, and allowed Figs & Feta to build a deeper, multi-channel experience for their subscribers.
About Figs & Feta
Figs & Feta is a lifestyle magazine for women, designed to inspire and to give women the tools to learn, be courageous, make choices, breathe, and love life.
It started out as a home brand, before Kim, the founder, began blogging and writing and shifting the focus more into a magazine.
The magazine was initially distributed as an app. However, they found their standalone digital magazine left something to be desired.
The Challenge
As an app alone, Kim found that they weren’t able to build deep relationships with Figs & Feta readers. They weren’t able to really understand what kind of people their subscribers were.
“I had no control over my database. You're getting subscribers, but you don't know who they are, you have no way to contact them any other way. So it just makes sense to be able to capture our audience.”
Furthermore, there was no secondary step for people to take if they wanted to learn more, but not subscribe straight away. This meant losing touch with a lot of potential subscribers.
“The magazine was on the App Store, selling the magazine solely, with nowhere else to direct them. So if they decided that they weren't going to subscribe to that magazine, that was the end of the relationship.”
The Solution
There were two issues that needed to be solved: improving the analytic capabilities of the app (without having mobile app developers on staff), and spreading their reach to more than just a mobile app.
MobiLoud helped with both, proving more effective, not to mention more affordable, than hiring developers for the project.
“I had a couple of white-label developers I was looking at. But I still did not get what I was looking for. The service MobiLoud offers, in building the app and taking it from the beginning to publishing, was probably the most important part of my decision-making process.”
Along with making it easy to create an app with in-built analytics, MobiLoud offered a multi-channel solution, where the website and app could be fully in-sync.
This let Kim provide a way for people to learn about Figs & Feta, consume content and stay in the loop without being asked to subscribe straight away.
“I wanted to be able to bring them into a space on a mobile device where they can start to learn about the brand, about the ethos and the message that we've gotten and what it is that we can help them with.”
There would now be numerous ways people could become subscribers - coming from web, from app to web, or direct through the app, instead of one possible user journey they had before.
Results
The result was a deeper experience for Figs & Feta fans and subscribers. They could offer content and products on the website, along with the existing mobile app, all synced to provide consistency.
“It allowed any visitor to stay on my site longer and to stay in my space longer. It also was the opportunity to be able to offer our subscribers more than just the magazine.”
This resonated with Figs & Feta readers, as Kim received numerous positive comments from subscribers.
It was also a hit in-house, as MobiLoud allowed them to update or change the app easily, without the arduous process of re-developing the app.
They finally had full control over each channel.
“What we love most is that we get to control the app. For us to make changes to the app and to be able to do it on our back end as opposed to having to change with somebody else and wait for somebody else.”
Build Apps with MobiLoud Today
Figs & Feta are just one business of many who have found out how easy it is to build and manage mobile apps with MobiLoud.
MobiLoud handles all the technical work of converting a website into an app. We create a hybrid app, where web and app are in total sync, which users like Kim say is the most valuable part of it all.
“Besides you guys putting the app together, the best part is that we can add something, change something, put a page on, without having to get help every single time.”
Building apps from scratch can take hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention hundreds of thousands on top to keep your apps maintained and up to date.
You’ll save a significant amount of money, time and energy by having your mobile apps and website synced, and having our team on hand to help with everything technical.
Kim has a few words for anyone on the fence about using MobiLoud.
“You can rest assured that the app will be published exactly the way you want it, that you have the support and the expertise to get it to where you want to be, and thereafter. And it's very efficient. MobiLoud is so awesome, I highly recommend it.”
Get a free demo now to kick off the process and see how easy it is to launch mobile apps with MobiLoud.
Figs & Feta is a lifestyle magazine for women, along with an ecommerce brand selling a range of kitchen and homeware.
