MobilePro: every app needs a News module, here is why

Every app should have at least one News module.

This allows you to publish news and send a Push Notification to all users who have selected that club. This is a great way of getting news to your users:

• Marketing messages -- events, promotions, new classes, half-term, holiday activities...
• Service messages -- pool's closed, trainer sick, room changes, Bank Holiday times...

News is shown with the most recent articles at the top and you can schedule multiple Push Notifications to remind users as an event approaches.

Users love timely, relevant news -- you only need to save a family one wasted trip to the centre and they'll be hooked for life. Many apps use a second News module for Offers. 

What's so great about Push Notifications ? They drive users to your News -- see the video below to see this in action:

The immediacy and volume of responses to news can be seen in the report below -- the club published new with push notifications at 9:00 and 15:30 -- within an hour, hundreds of app users had seen the news.

It's tempting to publish news for service messages only, but use it for marketing promotions as well, it's a great way of boosting participation as the gyms below have discovered:

Finally you may already publish news on your web site and Facebook and want to avoid having to duplicate the entry:

• Firstly, once you've done a few, it's really no more than a 5 minute job to copy and paste images from your Facebook or web post to a News article in the cockpit.
• Secondly, your web team can call the new cockpit Content Syndication APIs in the cockpit so that any news posted in the app cockpit appears automatically on your web site.

All apps should use the News module, it delivers huge value to your business !