Launch an app, tell everyone about it, hope for an Apple feature, and spread the word. The three key promotional aspects of marketing your app are Launch Blitz, Apple Features, and Word of Mouth. A developer has the most control with the first, very little control with the second, and indirect control of the third. All three feed each other, and using the 4 P’s of Marketing: Product, Place (Distribution), Price, and Promotion will help in working these three aspects, which I’ve covered extensively in my seven part series, Applying the 4 P’s of Marketing to Apps. This final post […]
App complete, check. App tested, check. App submitted to Apple, check. Pre-launch promotion prep work done, check. Now what? It’s all about the timing. Based on our experience in the AppStore, there are three things that contribute most to sales numbers: 1) Getting noticed by Apple (and being featured) 2) Word of mouth and 3) Launch Blitz. I discussed the strategy for getting noticed by Apple in previous 4 P’s posts: make a great product, include new iOS tech, follow the HIG, have a polished icon and screens. Word of mouth is just the snowball effect—the more people own (and […]
Developing mobile apps is a business. Many mobile devs are one- or two-person shops, so in addition to the coding hat, other hats must also be worn, to be successful. Great apps won’t sell themselves, especially in the sea of apps that have come to fruition in the most recent three+ years. When we learn to develop, we read books, we self-teach, we take classes, we attend conferences. Marketing is another side of the business that must be learned, in the same manner. As a dev, you usually have a game plan and timing plan for the development process. A […]
My brother is always calling me with app ideas. One day, way back in late 2003, he suggested writing a calculator that took recipe ingredient amounts and adjusted them by changing the serving size. My husband, our developer, is an avid cook, so the idea intrigued him. He wasn’t satisfied with just a multiplier, so he started creating a complicated algorithm for the Palm PDA that would also factor down the result into the simplest amount of steps. So, if you size up a recipe calling for 1-1/2 teaspoon from 4 servings to 14 servings, the little app would tell […]
Your gut reaction is “Hey, I put in a lot of time and effort into this app, there’s no way it’s only worth 99c.” Yet in many cases, if it’s not 99c, especially a game, it’s dead-on-arrival at the AppStore. You can rant and you can rave, but market pricing rules in the mobile universe. On the plus side, the “wealth” is spread amongst many developers as consumers consume more apps than they would have if they had spent $35 or more on one game or app. The trick is to get more of them to consume your app! But […]
Because the AppStore is the only store that we are allowed to actually sell our iOS apps directly, many developers choose to only list their products in the AppStore. However, by doing so, a developer has ignored many distribution channels where an app can be marketed. In addition, if a mobile developer is on a different platform, many app stores exist for which to list apps. In my last post I covered designing the shelf space of the Place “P” of marketing. In this post I’ll suggest various first tier (app stores) and second tier distribution channels in which to […]
The structured approach to marketing should appeal to most technical people. Marketing can seem like a magical black box, but the 4 P’s: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place (aka distribution) are what’s inside. The best marketing plan can be broken down and addressed in each area. Let’s tackle Place—anywhere your app has a virtual space on a shelf, with a link to buy. Foremost is the AppStore, but it’s not the only Place. Place is everywhere your product is listed from your website, aggregate app listing websites, and perhaps inside app-listing-apps. Free apps have additional areas where they can be […]
Many developers are using a “shoot from the hip” approach to marketing their apps, if anything at all. It’s not that developers don’t want to market, but the question often is, where to start? As an engineer, I was always excited when encountering a formula or a structured method in my business classes. In marketing, there IS a structured approach—the 4 P’s: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place (aka distribution). Often we think of Promotion as the only form of marketing, but three other areas can also be tackled. In order to have a strong marketing plan, each area must be […]
Last week I attended 360iDev, an iOS developers conference, in Denver. In my last post I covered all the great things that happened as a result of attending conferences. Not only are they valuable education, but also a indirect marketing benefit. Nearly every person I spoke with at the conference this week agreed that the return on investment, although unmeasurable, easily covers the cost of attending the conference. 360iDev is not only a conference focused on technical sessions for developers, but also runs the gamut of sessions from UI/UX design, to graphics design, to management, to great business-side information from […]
Next Sunday I’m traveling to Denver for the 360iDev conference. I’m looking forward to learning some new tricks when I attend the design and business tracks (my responsibility in our partnership). But better than the sessions is the networking. Through the eight years we’ve been in this business, I’ve attended several conferences and each one [...]
