February 2011

5 Ideas How to Create a Top Grossing iPhone, iPad, or Android App

by Mike Vallez on February 21, 2011

app marketing

Creating and developing a top grossing iPhone, iPad, or Android app is not easy. Or is it? Not to take anything from the developers at Rovio Mobile or the now iconic iPhone app “Angry Birds” but who every would have that that pissed off birds being shot out of a slingshot at incredulous pigs would turn into a multi-million dollar app and more? The developers created an app based on their unique idea (story line) providing unique graphics and game play in a simple to grasp app that is becoming a household name. Here are 5 ideas on how to create a top grossing iPhone app:

1) Uniqueness- Although there are almost 500,000 iPhone, iPad, and Android apps for sale there is still plenty of room for your top grossing app. One sure fire way to create an app that sells is to come up with a unique, fresh, different app that provides entertainment or solves a problem. Sounds easy, but it is not. A few tips on how to do this, use your imagination, go with what you know (hobbies, sports, work, etc), find an app niche that has not yet been exploited, be creative. A final word on uniqueness, developing an app that chronicles your Grandmother’s farts, while unique is not gonna do it, so don’t go there.

2) Social influence- The world has turned social and there is plenty of room for exploiting the social movement with apps. Twitter, Faebook, YouTube, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed, Quora, and the many other social sites offer API’s to use their social network in your new app idea. Take advantage of this and see what gap exists with information from these social networks. One caveat, do your competitive research to ensure you are not duplicating another app.

3) Build your app for all platforms- Once you have your app idea, be it for the iPhone, iPad, or Android I suggest you develop it for all platforms to maximize your revenue potential. If you do not have the talent in one development style, seek another developer you may be able to barter with for like services. The more platforms your app is for sale, the more potential you have for profit.

4) Build a feature rich app- Pick your app genera and do competitive research to see what certain targeted apps have feature wise. Then up the ante and add better, newer, or increased features and functionality that the competitors do not currently offer. This would make your app better than the competition and potentially make your app better seller.

5) Build continuing content- One of my favorite app models is the continuing content model. This app development model is directly related to community building. The idea is to have a long range vision with your app in the early stages. You do not have to know everything, but have a concept that will allow you to offer 4 to 6 updates, easily for your sanity, over a period of 2 to 6 months after initial launch. You can market this to your customers from the very beginning and potentially hook customers due to the offer of free increased content. A classic example is the iPhone app Pocket God. The developers at Bolt Creative are on episode #36 and probably never dreamed in the beginning that Pocket God would become this popular nor their community as involved. This is probably one of the most underused methods to develop a top grossing app, but one that works because people love FREE stuff.

These 5 ideas may work alone or in combination with each other. Be creative and see if you can create a top grossing iPhone, iPad or Android app. If you have any specific app marketing questions please leave me a comment and I will do my very best to answer your questions. Thanks for reading my blog. MV

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How to Use Self Serve Press Release Services to Launch Your App

by Mike Vallez on February 17, 2011

app marketing

Every iPhone, iPad, or Android app launch should include a strategic press release campaign distributed to multiple press release services to get the word out about your awesome app! You have worked countless hours on your iPhone, iPad or Android app and you do not want all that work to have been done in vain. Press releases give you the opportunity to tell the world (selfishly) why your app “kicks ass” and why everyone in the world should buy it. That is a little over the top, but not really. This is truly your opportunity to wordsmith your way to the top of iTunes or the Android Market. Now it is not quite that easy and I don’t want to overstate the use of a press release, but don’t underestimate press releases. Take for example this scenario, you submit your press release, decently written and it gets picked up by Wired Magazine. This single pickup of your press release could shed some serious exposure i.e. traffic to your website, iTunes, or the Android Market and increase app sales. But how do you write a press release?

Press releases should not be considered rocket science. You can find free resources by Googling the words “Free Press Release Examples” and you will get several decent examples of how to write a press release, some even provide instruction and explanations as to what goes where. There are also numerous sites such as PR Web and PR Mac that provide low cost do it yourself press release solutions. Each site also has an up sale product where they will write your press release and it is not overly pricey. PR Web has a huge reach to some 250,000 websites and over 30,000 journalists and bloggers. PR Mac’s real value is that press releases distributed by this site go almost strictly to Apple type blog sites and journalists (sorry Android folks) maybe someone should start PR Android press release services (domain taken, but not valid).

A press release must be used for the launch of an app and would also be well used in a pre-launch campaign to build momentum. But beyond pre-launch and launch there are other great opportunities to use press releases such as: 1) App Price Drops 2) App Update 3) Media Pickup of your App 4) Company Milestone and any other news worthy event to get your app out there on the web and on the top of mind of relevant bloggers and journalists. Another understated use of press releases is for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. By this stage of the game you should have a website to market your app. You use the link from your website, your app, and any other link relevant to put into the press release. Be sure to have the press release on your website already and at a minimum you will effortlessly build back links to your website, sorry if this is advanced, but this will help you trust me.

Press releases should not be considered only the area of the full service PR firms, at least not anymore. Use the low cost services of the press release sites and get your message out about your app. Be creative, use your imagination, and craft a press release that gets picked up my a major news website and it may be the best $100 you spent. MV

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4 Tips on How to Use YouTube to Market Your iPhone App (iPad/Android)

by Mike Vallez on February 15, 2011

app marketing

YouTube’s tag line is “Broadcast Yourself” for your app marketing purposes it needs to be “Broadcast Your App.” Why is YouTube so critical to your app marketing efforts? YouTube is the worlds 2nd largest search engine, only behind the worlds largest search engine, which is also owned by Google. YouTube is also the worlds largest video social networking site, with unbelievable amounts of video uploaded each minute, to be exact 35 hours a minute which is over a month old and surely larger than this metric now. You may ask yourself with so much video uploaded a minute how does my app have a chance of even getting noticed with so much video content. One word, “VIRAL.” While not technically a viral video, the video below is a silly iPhone app review I did a little over a year ago of the app “Talking Carl”:

This video, which I did with no script, no planning, has reached 120,778 views. This video does not meet the viral video definition, which is a video that receives over 1 million views. Give me a couple of years and It may be viral. All joking aside, cutting a demo of your app or a video review can really leverage and quite possibly help your app sales out tremendously. I have created to date 1,038 iPhone video app reviews on YouTube, with hundreds of them in the thousands of view range, many in the 10′s of thousands of views. I have also become a YouTube partner, which means I have achieved a preferred status with YouTube that allows me to make money off my YouTube channel. I have no video education nor professional video training, I just picked up a camera and went with it. I have learned numerous tips, below are 4 key tips to shooting an iPhone

1) Keep your video short- Most viral videos are between 10 and 30 seconds, yes you don’t have much time. I suggest between 30 to 45 seconds for a demo video set to music that plays well with the demo. If reviewing the app I suggest a time frame of 1 minute 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The stats for viewer drop off begin to increase after 30 seconds.

2) Leverage Humor- Probably the number one way videos go viral is through humor. Usually, the humor in viral videos is spontaneous and not planned, but thinking up some clever humor can definitely help your viral chances.

3) Take numerous takes and retakes- While your video will not be a Hollywood production, remember others will be watching it so take a few takes until your satisfied. The video above was a 1 take video and it shows, yet, people are entertained by it, just saying. Today, it typically takes me 5 to 6 retakes unscripted before I get a clean take I am happy with.

4) Use a microphone- A Lavalier microphone costs about $30 including shipping and will work with any video camera that has a standard audio input jack. I just purchased one and it works great. Nothing worse than a great video, with horrible sound, we have all watched these videos.

A few more pointers in regards your app video (demos usually are recored to music). Do not be monotone, pay someone to do a voiceover if you cannot pull this off. Explain the features, but don’t explain everything, leave a little to the imagination and tease the viewer, and be sure to name the app, the developers name or company name, and any other top of the mind information you want the viewer to remember.

Creating a video app review or video demo of your iPhone, iPad, or Android app may be the vehicle that launches your app into the iTunes App Store or the Android Market. Making a video is cheap, relatively easy, and may be the best marketing strategy to get your app noticed. MV

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How to Build A Community to Launch Your iPhone/iPad, or Android App

by Mike Vallez on February 14, 2011

app marketing

Your great app idea does not mean squat without a customer base that is going to buy it. So how do you build a customer base or community to launch your app? Actually, you can begin to build your app’s customer base early in the development cycle, preferably in the brainstorming stage before any coding begins. Once you have your app named or brand nailed down it is time to get busy with your web 2.0 infrastructure.

Start by creating a website, build a blog (that you will actually blog on), and establish all relevant social media profiles to leverage the ability to market your product directly to your customer. I suggest at a minimum establishing a Twitter channel and Facebook fan page in the name of your app or developer company name. This is the infrastructure you will use to market directly to your customers.

Now it is time to begin to build momentum about your new app. Start by blogging about what it is exactly that your app will do (if possible), your apps functionality, the importance your app is going to mean to your customers, basically tease your customers all throughout the development process to build interest. This process should not be overlooked as it is here you begin to build relationships with potential customers. Communicate with them, answer their questions, ask them questions about what they want in an iPhone, iPad, or Android app. Any relationships you can make here may payback big dividends when you launch your app. This is the beginning of your community.

So far all of the suggestions on building a community have been pre-launch, now it is post launch and this is where you have to have a long range plan. You need to look beyond your current app or at least ahead to the update of your new app that has not even launched yet. This is counter intuitive, but necessary. You have the opportunity to build an email list through your iTunes or Android Market app descriptions. Take advantage by providing customers an email address to contact you for any issues whatsoever. An additional opportunity is to put an email capture function right into your app. The email list you build here will be huge in future app launches or other sales opportunities you want to market to your customers. Tips to create, increase, and keep a happy customer base (community) are: 1) answer customer questions in a timely manner 2) Fix any bugs ASAP 3) provide updates with customer provided feedback in mind 4) provide new content at no charge, additional levels, new functionality, but give them customers more for their money. These tips will most definitely keep your customers happy and your community growing.

Building a community for your new iPhone, iPad, or Android app does not need to be a monumental task. Plan on spending a 1/2 hour a day to complete your marketing functions and to begin building your community. Yes, there may be days you need to spend more time in this area, but I have seen this pay off and pay off big. I will provide a case study on developers who have build successful communities and have reaped the monetary rewards from doing so. MV

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Does Changing Your iPhone App Price to Free Increase Paid App Sales?

by Mike Vallez on February 13, 2011

The iTunes App Store is a highly competitive environment with hundreds of thousands of competing apps for customer purchase dollars. No one has found the “secret sauce” to get an app charting (selling) in the top 200 with repeated success. Some bigger developers are able to realize charting success by shear numbers and quality of their highly developed app, However, for the regular mom and pop developer outfits getting their iPhone app to chart well is a monster challenge. One technique certain websites use like http://www.freeappaday.com/ and http://www.freeappcalendar.com/ are to help developers change their app price to free for a set period of time, then the app price is switched back to paid in hopes to increase paid app sales. A look at the last 14 days of FAAD’s featured free apps reveals only 2 apps that have charted into the top 200 paid overall and both apps rode the coattails of apps by those developers. (see the charts below via www.appshopper.com)

app marketingapp marketing

app marketing

The charts are not very easy to read, but show each app is flat, or out of the top 200 paid overall or paid category (app specific category) while free. Once the app goes back paid, in the case of both these apps they charted well, for a short period of time and then dropped. The reason Backbreaker Football and Stenches did so well when dropped free, then put back to paid is there are additional/newer apps by the developers of these apps that are charting better than these apps. Stenches was the Halloween version of Trenches and Backbreaker Football has a newer second version called Backbreaker 2: Vengeance. A look at the last 30 days of FAAD featured apps show no other apps that have made it in the top 200 paid. There are numerous apps in the top 200 free, but unless you are working an advertising revenue model this is of little consequence. As far as Free App Calendar, of their last 30 days featured free apps not one shows up in the top 200 paid at the time of this blog post.

Cutting your app price to free or reducing your app price has benefit, but only if you are leveraging that price cut with another strategy. Another strategy like a new app rollout, an update to the app, or a giveaway. There are other strategies that may help your app chart (sell) well when cutting the price, but remember one thing. Your apps best chance at charting (selling) is the initial launch, which is why it is so very important to plan a thoughtful strategy around each and every app you launch.

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4 Ways To Better Market Your iPhone/iPad/Android App

by Mike Vallez on February 12, 2011

app marketing

Planing your app marketing efforts for your iPhone, iPad, or Android app is critical. Marketing your app is not as daunting as one would think. That being said there is still a process or strategy that should be put into place to give your app a chance at succeeding in the very competitive world of iPhone/iPad and Android apps. There are 316,229 approved iPhone apps, 67,931 iPad apps (via http://www.appshopper.com) and 113,124 (via http://www.androlib.com/) at the time of this post, indicating that there is a lot of competition in the app world. According to Gartner the industry leader in market research, app sales will approach 15 billion dollars in 2011 (via TechCrunch). With the increases app sales there will be increased development and more competition. Here are 4 ways to better market your iPhone/iPad or Android app to success.

1) Start early- Before you start coding you should develop a marketing plan around your app idea. Determine who you are targeting, the branding, genera, niche market, how are you going to get your app noticed and incorporate this into the development process. A check of the competition is also a good idea before development starts. For example if you are making a “Flashlight” app you may want to see what the competition is in this utility category so you can add a feature or concept to make your app stand out from your competition.

2) Create A Web Page- Developing a web page for an iPhone app is mission critical. You should look at your app as a product, if you look at any different then you are short changing yourself. In this day and age if you have are selling a product and have no website are not meeting the consumer where they are looking for information, which is on the web. The cost to set up a website is 0, so the decision to do so is a no brainer. A developer outfit that has a great blog, which can suffice as a website is Bolt Creative, the creators of the hugely popular “Pocket God” iPhone, iPad, and Android app. (link to website: http://pocketgod.blogspot.com/). A couple of important features you should include in your website are 1) upcoming news about your app release, updates, improvements, etc and 2) contact information for customer service. A third bit of information that would be useful on an app website are FAQ’s (frequently asked questions) for users to solve their own problems without having to contact you.

app marketing

3) Create Social Media Profiles- Once you have determined your branding before you app development or during app development (lets be realistic) you need to create profiles in all the major social media networks. The social media networks to concentrate on are Twitter, Facebook (Fan Page), Friend Feed, Touch Arcade, YouTube, MySpace, and any other social network where you can disseminate status updates about your new app. One of the social networks that is grossly under used by developers is YouTube. If you can develop an app you can do a short video trailer for your app to some cool and post to YouTube. Another tip is to use your friends and your own personal social footprint to help grow your new app branded social media profiles.

4) Plan Your Launch- Keep it simple stupid is the best plan of attack here. Here is what my simple plan would include: 1) send out a press release using prmac, which costs about $20. 2) Hold a giveaway by using your Facebook profile, Twitter, etc to get people to share that your app has launched. You can giveaway promo codes, iTunes gift cards, but giving away and iPad or iPod Touch will generate some buzz and you want all the buzz you can get. A few tips, for giveaways, keep the time frame of the giveaway short like a day to no more than 7 days and make the requirements for winning easy to do such as “Please like my fan page” to win.

The 4 tips in this blog post will help you to get a handle on planning to market your iPhone, iPad, or Android app. While these tips are but a few they are meant to give you a better chance at making your app chart to success and higher revenues. MV

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