Meet Matthew Maudlin, the founder and CEO of Memo Marketing Group - a strategic marketing agency dedicated to developing and launching cutting-edge marketing strategies that help businesses thrive.
Matt has a passion for all things tech, and he's constantly exploring new and innovative ways to assist his clients. One of the latest innovations that has caught Matt's attention is app technology. He's particularly fascinated by tools like Adalo, which allow anyone, regardless of technical expertise, to build their own apps. With Adalo, Matt has been able to dive headfirst into the exciting world of no-code app development.
Matt is a strong believer in the power of ideas, and he brings this passion to his work with clients. He's always on the lookout for new and creative solutions to problems, ways to automate processes, and opportunities to improve communication.
“How about an app for that? That’s feels like my default question when I’m speaking to clients! And interestingly, I usually get the same answer – there's no way I could afford an app. Now I have the opportunity to tell people, “Hey, no, you might be wrong about that. Let's dig in and let's start looking at this differently!”
Matt has extensive experience working with companies that seemed to face a common challenge: Communicating effectively with their internal and external audiences. He noticed that different roles within the same company often require different communication tools. That’s where mobile apps came inhandy as a versatile and effective marketing tool that can serve multiple purposes.
“Your website can’t live in someone’s pocket the way that a mobile app can,” he says. “And unlike websites, mobile apps can provide a unique, personalized experience for each user without the hassle of logging in every time they visit.”
According to Matt, there’s usually a good amount of education and vision-casting that goes into the process. It’s important to help clients see what you see when it comes to the many ways that mobile apps could solve their problems. But once the vision is cast, it’s like a whole new world opens up before them.
Connecting a school community through a mobile app
Memo Marketing’s main project, Covenant Connect, is a powerful app designed for Covenant Christian High School, and it has had an enormous impact on the school community. With nearly a thousand installations, it's clear that the app's usefulness and user-friendliness have made it an indispensable part of daily life at the school.
When Matt began this project, the school had several crucial needs. They wanted a platform that could keep everyone up-to-date on events like sports games and concerts, and they wanted to sell tickets directly from the app. In the midst of a pandemic, with all its challenges and restrictions, the task of creating such a platform was far from straightforward.
“If you could imagine a school in the midst of the of COVID, there were a lot of challenges that they were trying to deal with. We had to completely rethink how they did events – no more cash, no more paper tickets. That's where Adalo came in,” says Matt. “We created a digital ticketing system that was totally touchless and cashless. All you had to do was buy a ticket through the app and then show the QR code at the event.”
There were many roles involved: students, ticket scanners, the athletics director. Matt would to make sure that everyone had the right permissions and access levels. That way, it would be possible to track helpful backend information like ticket sales and game results, and report back to the community. Despite these challenges, Covenant Connect has emerged as a shining example of how technology can transform even the most complex of problems!
Launching the ‘One Card’ system
A new upgrade for the Covenant Connect app was: the 'One Card'. This cashless payment system for students made lunch money go digital. This feature quickly became a staple of the app.
“Parents can use the app to load money onto their kids' One Card, and then students just have to show a QR code at the lunch line to pay. Parents loved it! They could sit at their place of work or at home, log into their Covenant Connect app to fund their kids’ cards, and then not have to worry about it.”
For the past six years, Matt and his team has been working closely with the school to help them better communicate their achievements to the wider community. He quickly realized that some of the most inspiring stories from the classrooms and sports fields were going untold, and that needed to change.
To address this issue, they turned to the Covenant Connect app and developed a powerful new feature that allows faculty and staff to capture these moments and share them instantly with the community. With just a few taps on the app, users can snap a photo, write a story, and share it with the world. This feature has been a game-changer for the school, helping them to showcase their many achievements and bring their community closer together.
“Adalo has been a really good platform for us to direct all of these communication, automation and management efforts for the school on a single platform. Now that the administration has seen how the app is used, it’s exciting to hear how often it comes up as an opportunity, or a solution to a problem. All this to say, if you have an idea for an app that can help solve a problem, don't be afraid to pitch it to a potential customer - with commitment and a clear vision, anything is possible
“The support I've found within the Adalo community has been extremely helpful. The Adalo forum, the videos and tutorials on YouTube, and the many resources available online have been an amazing source of troubleshooting support. What's truly remarkable is that many of these Adalo users aren't even experts - they're just passionate about what they do.”
We always need Adalo experts!
When talking about the Adalo Experts, Matt says, “While I am never short of ideas, I don’t always have the ability to turn them into a reality. If there’s an idea that I want to execute that I can’t build out on my own, I turn to the Adalo experts for help. There’s an amazing, diverse set of makers from around the world that have been nothing short of incredible with helping me build out my ideas.
What gives me confidence about using Adalo even in the future is how broad and diverse the use cases are. It’s reassuring to see all the incredible stuff that can be done on Adalo, that others have done already.”
