10 Tips For Getting Your App Found & Downloaded

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© apphappening Pty Ltd. 2013 | 10 Marketing Tips V1.0 page 1 Marketing wisdom has it that you need to be talked about in seven different spheres in order to build any kind of successful profile. We’ve upped that ante and are going to show you Ten Marketing Strategies that put your app at the centre and make sure the wheel of profit and success keeps turning. Plus you’ll find advice and tips about the crunchy side of marketing – setting and measuring targets so you can really ramp up your ROI. Research So before we start rolling the Marketing Wheel of Success we all have to take a step back and focus on preparation. Research is the foundation of any marketing success story. Research, research and, did we mention – research. Don’t step blindly into the app market place. Get active and find out what is out there already. If someone else has already taken your unique, no-one-will-ever-think-of-this idea … then it’s best to know before you begin. This kind of knowledge is not a hindrance – it’s a gift. The more you know, the better placed you will be to create an app and a marketing approach that finds the exact right audience for it. 1. What apps are available that are similar to your idea? List them. Try them if you can. 2. What kind of feedback and reviews do these apps get from users? This can give you a goldmine of information about extra functionality people are seeking. 3. It’s a good idea to create a table and rank the Top Ten Apps similar to yours. Include features, design, platform, category, user reviews and industry reviews. 4. What is the market size for your app? Is it everyone in the world (which will create a challenge for your campaign)? Or can you narrow a bit (music lovers who use iPhones, are highly social and download a lot of music – this could be a description of the perfect Shazam user)? 5. What price point will gain optimum sales return? Account for both volume and per unit price. And of course be realistic about what the market will pay. In 2011, nine of Apple’s top ten free apps were ‘functional’ and nine out of their paid apps were games. Is the market more willing to pay for entertainment than usefulness? Perhaps so. 6. What business model works best for your app? Free, Paid, In App advertising, In App Purchases, Sponsorship or a combination of these? Giving apps away can be part of a valid income generating strategy. 7. Create a marketing budget and either take charge of this yourself or make somebody responsible for delivering it. See our notes at the end of this guide on ROI for assistance with calculations. And now … the fun begins. How Not to Disappear – 10 Marketing Tips to make your App Visible

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Ten Marketing Strategies that put your app at the centre and make sure the wheel of profit and success keeps turning. Plus you’ll find advice and tips about the crunchy side of marketing – setting and measuring targets so you can really ramp up your ROI. Visit us at https://www.apphappening.com/ to get your app built now!

Transcript of 10 Tips For Getting Your App Found & Downloaded

Page 1: 10 Tips For Getting Your App Found & Downloaded

© apphappening Pty Ltd. 2013 | 10 Marketing Tips V1.0 page 1

Marketing wisdom has it that you need to be talked about in seven different spheres in order to build any kind of successful profile.

We’ve upped that ante and are going to show you Ten Marketing Strategies that put your app at the centre and make sure the wheel of profit and success keeps turning.

Plus you’ll find advice and tips about the crunchy side of marketing – setting and measuring targets so you can really ramp up your ROI.

ResearchSo before we start rolling the Marketing Wheel of Success we all have to take a step back and focus on preparation.

Research is the foundation of any marketing success story.

Research, research and, did we mention – research.

Don’t step blindly into the app market place. Get active and find out what is out there already. If someone else has already taken your unique, no-one-will-ever-think-of-this idea … then it’s best to know before you begin.

This kind of knowledge is not a hindrance – it’s a gift. The more you know, the better placed you will be to create an app and a marketing approach that finds the exact right audience for it.

1. What apps are available that are similar to your idea? List them. Try them if you can.2. What kind of feedback and reviews do these apps get from users? This can give you a goldmine of information

about extra functionality people are seeking.3. It’s a good idea to create a table and rank the Top Ten Apps similar to yours. Include features, design, platform,

category, user reviews and industry reviews.4. What is the market size for your app? Is it everyone in the world (which will create a challenge for your campaign)?

Or can you narrow a bit (music lovers who use iPhones, are highly social and download a lot of music – this could be a description of the perfect Shazam user)?

5. What price point will gain optimum sales return? Account for both volume and per unit price. And of course be realistic about what the market will pay. In 2011, nine of Apple’s top ten free apps were ‘functional’ and nine out of their paid apps were games. Is the market more willing to pay for entertainment than usefulness? Perhaps so.

6. What business model works best for your app? Free, Paid, In App advertising, In App Purchases, Sponsorship or a combination of these? Giving apps away can be part of a valid income generating strategy.

7. Create a marketing budget and either take charge of this yourself or make somebody responsible for delivering it. See our notes at the end of this guide on ROI for assistance with calculations.

And now … the fun begins.

How Not to Disappear – 10 Marketing Tips to make your App Visible

Business
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1. Blogging Start a blog about your app idea.

It’s a good idea to first see what other bloggers are in your space, what they’re talking about and are interested in.

Presumably if you are creating an app in a particular area you’re genuinely curious about what is going on in that sphere.

You can start fairly low key – make it a conversation, not a sales pitch.

Ask questions of bloggers who are already experts – people online like sharing knowledge.

If you have an existing data base, reach out to them via your blog and ask for suggestions and ideas. Many people are concerned about giving away their idea at this early stage and that’s understandable.

The blog is more about creating conversations around the topic of your app, building up interest and cultivating a community of people who may be willing to help test your app once it’s ready and/or who will be ready to install it.

The other area to focus on is the platform you’re intending to use. Make contact if possible with influential people from the platform – if it’s Apple, then find out who in Apple might be interested in your app, similarly with Android – who at Google can you reach out to?

Building kudos through bloggingYou may have heard of Benny Hsu, whose app Photo 365 shot to success in 2011. Benny had a personal development blog prior to creating his app and was actively involved in the blogging community. In fact, he attributes a large part of his success to reading another blog: The Smart Passive Income blog (Pat Flynn).

Now Benny had a killer idea, did a lot of research and worked hard to develop an app that the market place was demanding.

But his involvement in the blogging community definitely went some way to generating and upholding the interest in him personally online, which in turn continues to lead to interest in his app. That’s one way the marketing wheel turns.

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2. Website There are many good reasons to create a website for your app but we’re not going to list all of them.

The Number One Reason To Create a Website for your App is to help people find it.

The Apple App Store does not have a great reputation for search. We don’t know why this is so and no doubt Apple will fix the problem one day, but for now: users are more likely to find your App searching on Google than in the Apple Store itself.

By building a website and doing some basic SEO (search engine optimization) you can make sure that when people search for your app via its name or category or function, they have a good chance of finding it.

Bottom line is, if you can rank for the terms connected to your app, your sales will increase.

Ingredients for app successHave you heard of 4 Ingredients? It’s a well known brand with a clever name, because even if you’ve never heard of it, you now can probably guess what it’s about.

A strong, simple idea: how to cook great meals with just 4 Ingredients.

The smart people at 4 Ingredients sell recipe books, do television appearances, have an interactive website and since its release in 2009, their app has been in the Top 25 in the iPhone lifestyle category.

4 Ingredients – easy to remember, easy to search. And where does the search take you – to the Apple Store? Of course not – straight to the 4 Ingredients website with links directly to iTunes where you can purchase the app and along the way maybe join the website, like the Facebook page, recommend it to a friend …

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3. CRM If you don’t have one already, now’s the time to get a simple Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application in place.

The thing you want to do is build a community around your app before the launch date. From there you engage users and reviewers who will then have a vested interest in your app. You start to build buzz around the launch. The bigger your list, the better chance you have of a successful app launch. If you can create a lot of buzz and sales when you launch – you might even get to be featured in the app store; which in turn will then drive even more sales.

But how are you going to manage the database? Will you segment it so you can target different messaging to different groups? You can possibly tie this in with your existing CRM or database but that might get messy or confusing.

A CRM app will help you create a solid data base, community and target launch audience that is solely dedicated to your app. You can categorize as you go and this will give you a solid way to track and communicate with your valuable contacts.

A selection of CRM apps to choose from:Sugar CRM and Sugar MobileGistKickappsInTouch CRMInfusionsoft

Mobile specific apps:BatchbookBox.net Mobile

Product or platform specific apps:Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant and Oracle Mobile Sales ForecastCWR Mobile CRM (for Microsoft Dynamics)Resco MobileCRM (for Microsoft Dynamics)Salesforce ChatterRapportive (for Google Gmail users)

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4. Public Relations PR FirmsNot so very long ago, Public Relations was dominated by exclusive PR firms. And the right kind of PR agency might be able to do wonders for your app’s profile.

If you have an existing relationship with a PR firm or have had one recommended then by all means, use their skills and contacts. Just be aware that there are no guarantees when it comes to PR. And if you are paying a firm at premium cost, you can burn through cash very quickly with little return.

Approach media directlyDo you have an existing contact at a major TV network or newspaper? Are you interested in cultivating one? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, then cultivate this relationship – key people within mainstream media can push your publicity to the top of the pack.

Don’t forget local media. This is often an easier route as local papers and community radio or TV stations are always on the look out for local stories. This can give your marketing campaign a real kick start.

You’ll need a well written and punchy press release and a bit of time to call each publication or organization and find out who to send it to. Then follow up with a polite (and not too pushy) phone call.

Use the communities you’re already part ofAre you a regular contributor or well known user of an existing social network site such as www.digg.com? If people already know and respect you they will respond positively when you start talking about your app. Be authentic. Avoid being overly sales-y and keep generating and exploiting the great existing energy of online communities.

Have you heard of Dark Marketing?This is a method where a PR campaign is launched but the company behind stays in the background. You would never do this in a deceptive way, it’s more a way of capturing an audience that may resist your brand at face value. You’re looking to create an alternative way to reach them. It’s used particularly in relation to big corporate brands trying to reach a ‘hipster’ audience that ordinarily steers clear of them.

A highly successful dark marketing campaign in recent years was McDonald’s The Lost Ring. The Lost Ring was an Alternative Reality Game that crossed media and invited participants to collect a series of clues that unlocked an epic adventure. It ran for six months.

It’s hard to say if the participants in the game ended up as McDonald’s converts. What can be quantified however is the huge amount of publicity this created for the brand. It was seen as innovative, positive and a genuine attempt to provide a fun and meaningful experience for users.

You may not have the budget or resources for a campaign of this scale, but you can use the idea and approach as inspiration.

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5. Video Did you know YouTube is fast overtaking Google as the primary search engine? For any product or service that has a visual element, it’s getting crucial to have a form of video communication.

Lucky it’s so easy – and free - to set up a YouTube Channel and make good looking videos at a pretty low cost.

You need to create your own YouTube Channel, in the name of your app.

The first video you need to create is an explanation of how your app works, what it does, the problem it solves, why people should buy it – all of this in less than a minute. Put in some screen shots, a voiceover and you’re done.

Note: your app doesn’t have to exist yet. The video is a teaser so people start to think about how your app will add value to their lives.

From an industry stand point, having a video is essential to connecting with app reviewers. It will prompt them to download the FREE version you are offering them. It must be compelling! The video is going to help you sell the app as well, so put some thought into it. This is an area where you will benefit from allocating some budget so you can brainstorm ideas and make a snappy video that looks great.

Will It Blend?Do you remember this series on YouTube? It was a phenomenal success based on a very simple idea.

The company was Blendtec, the product blenders. In this series of short videos (all around 1 min 30 seconds) the company’s CEO Tom Dickson puts a number of unlikely items in a Blendtec blender. The premise is kind of ridiculous but highly entertaining and it took off like wildfire.

The Will it Blend: Glowsticks episode has had over 9 million views to date. The campaign reportedly led to a 500% increase in sales.

This is out of the box thinking that could work wonders in the app world. What unique take can you give your app that will bring it to live in video form?

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6. Social Media When it comes to social media you’ve got to find that happy meeting place where your target audience goes and where you have the time and resources to also go.

The more genuine your engagement the more likely you are to build a community of interested people. So if you are already active in a space, tap into the people you know there and start engaging them in a conversation about your ideas.

How your target audience consumes social media will influence both the channels you focus on and even the kind of app you develop.

Obvious front runners are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You also need to consider Google Plus and Four Square. Do your research and learn about your target group, this will guide you in the selection. Again start early, build a following – use the crowd to influence development and you will have a better app as a result.

Can you be creative? Twitter and Facebook are good forums for running small competitions, asking for contributions and providing incentives for people to share information.

You have a lot of freedom, especially in the early days of your marketing campaign, to cast your net wide and in places you otherwise wouldn’t go. You never know what unexpected and intrigued audience you will find.

Smart tweeting The great thing about Twitter is that it is a constant conversation. Joining or starting conversations using #hashtags is an effective way to reach out to a community that may be interested in your app.

By keeping in mind what your target audience is interested in you meet them on their terms and start to provide value.

A few companies creating strong Twitter communities in this way are:

Cisco Systems – an IT company that tweets about a huge range of technology, social and environmental issues rather than just updates about what the company is doing.

Bergdorf Goodman – the iconic New York retailer adopts the identity of New York in their tweets, creating a buzz that includes fashion, trends and quirks about the city.

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7. Paid Traffic To pay or not pay – that is the question. Paid traffic is definitely an option worth considering as long as you follow these golden rules:1. Do your sums first 2. Track all results so you can monitor and adjust3. Don’t risk too much or put all your eggs in this basket

The main risk with paid traffic is that can quickly drain your coffers. If you don’t keep a sharp eye on the cost per conversion, what you are forking out can quickly outweigh what you are raking in – especially if your app is selling for $0.99 and you only get 66% of each sale!

Now you’re clear about the potential drawbacks, here are the different areas you should research to ensure you benefit from this strategy.

Pay Per Click (PPC)You pay each time a user clicks on your ad. Google Adwords is the clear market leader here but you can also place ads on Yahoo and Bing. Do your keyword research and find out how and what people are searching for in your space.

Cost Per Thousand (CPM)This is a variation on the PPC theme. You pay for the number or impressions of your ad on the page, not the number of clicks. This method is usually favoured by traditional media selling banner ads.

Facebook AdvertisingTargets users via their profile and interests (as opposed to keywords they are searching on). So if you have a specific target group in mind this can be one way to get your app in front of them (eg: boys aged 15 to 17 living in urban Australia).

Mobile AdvertisingThere are a few platforms now for mobile advertising and since you are selling a mobile app, chances are that this can be a successful avenue for you to trial.

Nestle’s unique approach to advertisingIn 2009 Nestle launched an interactive advertising campaign for a new juice product on the internet. The ads took the form of live tweets. Twitter users could populate the ads, answering questions about things related to parenting. So the ads were co-created by Nestle and its audience. Nestle vetted the responses. In conjunction with this, people could just click on the ads (and not get involved via Twitter). Rather than directing the user to a website, the ads sent them to a YouTube channel that had parenting tips and (of course) promotional videos for the product.

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8. Affiliate Sales An app gives you a unique opportunity to expand your existing community and network.

Where your business, website and other collateral may be specifically tied to your core products or services, creating an app allows you go sideways and perhaps tap into a market you had never even considered.

This is because an app is something quite separate from a core business offering. Apps are designed to be fun or at least a bit left field. Their express purpose is to fill a gap in somebody’s day – either by entertaining them OR giving them the information or functionality they need in that gap!

Affiliate sales work wonders in the app world for this very reason.

If someone already has done all the hard work and built a community and you develop something of value to that community – a golden opportunity awaits all parties.

You get access to a new market. You are not directly competing with the owner of the community asset (be it blog, forum, website or database) because your app is something outside the sphere of ‘usual business’.

If you can cut a revenue deal with the owner, you minimize risk as you only pay for successful sales – rather than punting on the success of an expensive ad campaign.

The art of refining and tapping a target audienceLSAT is the North American Law School Admission Test. The LSATMax is a study tool app.

The app marketplace appbackr ran a promotion in 2011 where they created a targeted Twitter campaign to promote the LSATMax app. Appbackr knew that the target audience for LSATMax were students, mostly aged 20 to 26. Running a promotion for the app would be a good way to alert this demographic to their service.

The campaign was mostly run via Twitter, with users getting a range of attractive discounts and add-ons if they purchased the app from appbackr, including pre-purchasing a wholesale version of the app and getting retail revenue back once the app hit the Apple App Store. It resulted in a significant increased in Twitter followers for the company.

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9. Traditional Media There is good reason to be wary of traditional media. In terms of attracting attention for your app, you’re much better off trying to get some free PR via traditional media than paying for advertising.

An interview or promotional spot on a radio or television show may go a lot further than advertising in either print or electronic media – as at least the audience who sees and hears you will already be a specific demographic.

The big problems when it comes to traditional media are how expensive it is to advertise and how broad the audience is.

One traditional media outlet that may be worth pursuing is trade shows – either setting up a stall or paying for advertising. This can be targeted to either your business industry or the industry your app is targeted at (which may be one and the same thing).

If you do intend to target a trade show, follow these tips to avoid frustration:• Try and attend the trade show in advance of booking a stall so you can get a real sense of who attends and what

they are interested in• Consider partnering up with an affiliate so you can double the target audience you will attract• Plan, prepare and test everything so you have a seamless video presentation, demo app, interactive product that will

grab people’s attention and give them a reason to remember you• Collect contact details to build up your data base

New ways to connect with old mediaAs you’d expect, Apple has a number of success stories when it comes to marrying the digital world with traditional media.

In 2011 the company launched Newsstand as a feature of the iOS 5. This program sits on the desktop and provides a funnel and hub for the user’s newspaper and magazine subscriptions, sends updates when new issues are out and also includes a built-in store for buying subscriptions.

By making the information so easy to access Newsstand resulted in huge surges in digital subscriptions for a range of newspaper and magazine publications.

If you want to access or utilise traditional media you’ll need to employ this kind of alternative thinking.

NOTE: Newsstand is not an app – it’s a built in

feature of the iOS 5. But it’s a great example of how

the constantly innovating Apple created a new way

to engage with, support and promote traditional

media.

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10. Customer Service How you engage with prospective and existing customers will have a huge impact on app success.

Given the app world thrives on recommendations, sharing and buzz, it’s crucial that the human face of your app is genuine and responsive. You can learn a lot of lessons from big brands doing great work in social media and adapt that to how you create and monitor customer service.

Pre LaunchCan you use the knowledge and enthusiasm of your existing customer base to help build, test and sell your app?

People love having a sense of ownership and identity with a brand or product so if you already have a data base and plenty of customer good will – use it!

Don’t forget about the simple but very effective strategy of giving your app away for free for a limited time. Customers who get it for free will feel special and more inclined to purchase subsequent versions or new products as well as recommend your app to their friends.

What do Kostas Eleftheriou, Ethan Nicholas and Steve Demeter have in common?They are all App Millionaires and they all either gave their app away free for a limited period of time, or released a free (lite) version that promoted the paid (full) version.

Post LaunchAre customers loving your app and posting great feedback and reviews about it?

Rule # 1 – always acknowledge positive feedback, preferably personal acknowledgement from an actual person within your organization .

Are customers frustrated with your app and posting criticisms?

Rule # 1 – always acknowledge negative or critical feedback, preferably personal acknowledgement from an actual person within your organization .

You also need to record and evaluate all feedback that you get so you can track this in terms of impact on sales, cost to implement, future budgeting etc.

Probably more than any other existing technology, app upgrades based on user feedback can make or break sales. If you can show that you LISTENED and RESPONDED to what customers asked for – this will help build not only short term sales but LONG TERM LOYALTY.

There are several tools available to manage these responses should the volumes get to a point where they are difficult to manage.

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Targets and MeasurementWhat does success look like for you? Setting targets and measurement will depend on the goals you have for app and how it is going to interact with your business.

1. Entrepreneur with a Killer IdeaIs your app going to change the world? Do you want it to change your income? How will you make sure it’s the next big thing?

It might be wise to follow the lead of the millionaire entrepreneurs we talked about in Tip 10 Customer Service and give a first version away for free OR make your app available free for a limited time.

You’ll also need to do a whole of planning and crunch some serious numbers.

How big is the market for your app? What % of this market do you need at what price point to:• Break even• Make a living• Make enough to retire on

Click here to access

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2. Business Providing an App for free to clients This is an excellent business strategy that can significantly improve customer loyalty and increase engagement with your brand.

A great example is the Foxtel app. Available free to all Foxtel customers it allows users to remotely set programs to record. It provides a single, powerful benefit to customers. For Foxtel it gives them an easy to track method to measure success – which extends beyond the app itself and can be used for a range of other customer and market testing purposes including:• Number of app installs• Number of active users• Number of programs recorded

Break the Numbers DownThe numbers you have decided on above are the most important, but you should have a second set of numbers that you need to reach in order for you to succeed with these big numbers.

Set up measurements and tracking for each of the following and keep adding to it as new areas of relevance occur to you:• If you are creating social media assets, how many followers do you need for a successful launch of your app? • What level of activity do you need on your blog? • What is your content production schedule to feed these channels? • How much traffic do you need to your website? • How many review sites will you be submitting your app too?

As you can see, when you start to plan out the numbers it is much easier to gauge the effort required and therefore resources you’ll need.

The final question you’ll need to ask is: Can you do all of this in-house? Do you need to outsource some or all of it? Factoring in external expertise when it comes to targets and measurements can be a small cost outlay that brings in substantial benefits.