My Business is Small, Medium, or Large: Do I Need a BDA?

We all know what websites are and we all know we need them, but have you considered adding a BDA, or Branded Desk Top Application to your site?

You know what they are. If you've been to the Weather Channel and downloaded their desktop weather application, that's a BDA. But BDA's are growing more and more sophisticated. They are the tool you need to interact with your guests, keep them coming back to your site, and to engage in play and information exchange with your guests.

Historically, BDA's have been used by only the largest of the companies--such as weather.com, snow.com (Vail), and various Airlines. BDA's are used to book lodging, skiing, airline tickets, and to provide up to the minute weather. But BDA's are also increasingly being used by small-medium sized retailers to grow their business.

Moosejaw.com is a prime example of how they're use of a BDA has turned their company from a collection of specialty outfitter stores in Detroit and Chicago into one of the nation's Top 50 E-tailers and an international marketing success.

Having a BDA can bring the following to your business:
1. Data collection. When guests download your BDA, they provide basic personal data, including their email address for marketing purposes.
2. Pre-Qualified guests interested in your product. If guests are downloading your BDA to their desktop, they already are your raving fans and want to interact with you. Use the BDA to turn them into your apostles with special offers, discounts, promotions, news just for them.
3. Fun. BDA's can incorporate very cool graphics and video applications that kids love. Check out Vail's Trevor--an animated character you control--switch back and forth from skiier to snowboarder and watch Trevor do tricks all over your desktop, run a halfpipe, ride a chairlift or gondola, and even wipe out--all with attitude. Also, check out Moosejaw's quirky sense of humor and photo gallery--the best on the internet.
4. Advertising. BDA's can pay for themselves with sponsored advertising as they push content directly to the guest's desktop. If Sysco wants to advertise with you, or Minute Maid Orange Juice, they can. Use BDA Advetising capabilities to leverage wholesale discounts on food products you use to lower your food cost.
5. Personal Guest Service and Marketing Data. With a broad array of functionality, BDA's give your guests the ability to contact your company directly without having to get on the web and look up your website and find the contact information area. Through live chats, instant polls, and virtual comment cards among others, BDAs give your company the ability to give your guests instant responses to their questions and issues and allow you to get instant feedback concerning menu changes, service, special promotions and essentially anything you'd like.

Intrigued yet? Do you want to know more? Do you want to be cutting edge? Leave your comments right here!

Cheers!

0 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of FohBoh to add comments!

Join FohBoh

Comment by Jeff Tenut on March 27, 2008 at 3:37pm: Google has the instructions to build them in HTML. XML and Java script which offer you a variety of options. http://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/docs/gs.html#Scratchpad I built mine in Adobe Flash because we already have Flash E-Learning templates. To answer your question Amanda, Matt mentioned some very large companies that probably invested in the $100K range. The average web developer could do the Google tools for an hourly rate. Same for Adobe Flash. With all things, I'm sure it really depends on what you want to build.

Comment by Matt Urdan on March 27, 2008 at 3:01pm: Amanda, I'm glad you asked that question....the price is 15K-75K. High end ones like Moosejaw's and Vail.com are nearer the 100K level. But they can be developed and implemented in stages. And it just so happens, my friend Adam Ford, who did the BDA for Vail, Moosejaw, and others is now a member of FohBoh...

Comment by Judy "the foodie" Asman on March 27, 2008 at 2:58pm: Very cool, Matt, thanks for sharing.

Comment by Ken Burgin on March 27, 2008 at 2:54pm: Actually, I think creating your own Google Gadget that people could install on their Google page would have a much wider reach and more impact. See http://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/index.html

Comment by Amanda Hite on March 27, 2008 at 2:46pm: Great post Matt.... Truthfully I don't know which I got more excited about the BDA's or the Northface gear I found on sale at moosejaw.com.... Yes I bought some.

BDAs are perfect for consumer brands because, at the most fundamental level, they don't need a browser, creating an interactive presence separate from any behavior attached to the browser space. Add the ability of push technology (instantaneous communication) and seamless versioning (changing content without interrupting the user experience) sooo cool.....

What I'd really like to know is who in our world has played with them and how? What are the cost?

Comment by Matt Urdan on March 27, 2008 at 2:46pm: That's awesome Ken....yeah, and check out the youtube video that Amanda just posted in front of you!

Comment by Matt Urdan on March 27, 2008 at 2:42pm: LOL! Thanks for that Amanda! I guess that's a resounding endorsement of the concept and validation of the post!

Comment by Ken Burgin on March 27, 2008 at 2:41pm: Cool - got my little Snowmate installed now. Going to the beach this afternoon so not sure how urgent it will be right now, but I can see how it works.

Comment by Amanda Hite on March 27, 2008 at 2:36pm

Comment by Matt Urdan on March 27, 2008 at 1:28pm: Ken, not aware of any restaurants using the BDA's yet...But checkout hawaiian airlines, vail.com, moosejaw.com, weather.com for their branded desktop applications....I would recommend that you install moosejaws, use it a for a week or so to see the functionality of; and vail.com's for the fun and the full-featured potential of it, then after a week or so, if they're annoying and you want to get rid of them, they're easy to uninstall.