Your iPhone and iPad App Marketing Strategy: Grand Slam or Base Hits?

Date: Nov 3, 2011

The Apple App Store has matured very quickly, and you have to develop a solid marketing strategy to realize success. This chapter shows several potential strategies and outcomes from your marketing plans.

There are several reasons why it's hard to make it big. First, the sheer number of apps for sale on the App Store has made it much more difficult to stand out from the crowd. Instead of just a few similar apps in your category, there are likely hundreds, even thousands if you are selling a game, vying for the buyer's attention.

Secondly, the intense pricing pressure causes many developers to start off at a low price or quickly drop their prices to $0.99, a figure that makes it extremely difficult to break even much less make any profit. According to the website 148 Apps (www.148apps.biz), almost 42% of all apps (games included) are priced at $0.99. Figure 1.1 shows a range of apps, from free to $9.99, and their percentage totals on the App Store. You'll notice that 77% of all apps sold are at $1.99 or lower.

Figure 1.1 iPhone app prices tend to be bunched around the $.99 and $1.99 level and lower.

Source: www.148apps.biz

The large number of competing apps may seem daunting; however, these statistics are not presented to be discouraging. Rather, this chapter is designed to point out that the App Store has matured very quickly, and you have to develop a solid marketing strategy to realize success. The App Store is not running on Internet time—it's on mobile time! Your marketing strategy also has to be tuned to work with your buyer.

We've Seen This Movie Before

The iTunes App Store is much like your local supermarket. In the 1980s, the average supermarket carried about 7,500 items. Today, that same supermarket carries upward of 52,000 items! Every vendor is fighting for shelf space so more people will buy their products. Amazon.com is no different; booksellers are trying to stand out in a very crowded market. Not counting other items, its bookstore alone boasts well over 250,000 titles. Many authors hope to achieve fame and fortune by landing on the top 100 list on Amazon's book home page. Other authors had hoped to get their big break by being mentioned on Oprah or some other television show. The App Store has exploded from its introduction of fewer than 1,000 apps to well over 435,000 apps at the time of this writing. Just like the supermarket vendors, every app developer is vying for that eye-level virtual shelf space. They are either hoping to make it into the top 100 sales for their categories in the App Store or get a mention in the "Staff Favorites," "New and Noteworthy," or "What's Hot" sections of the App Store. Table 1.1 shows the breakout of the highest selling categories of apps available on the App Store. Approximately 500–600 apps are posted to the store each day! According to Apple, almost 7,500 apps per week are still being submitted for the approval process. Although it may take another year or so, the App Store could see over a half million apps!

Table 1.1. App Store Percentages for the Most Popular Categories on the App Store

Type of iPhone/iPad App	Percentage of Total Apps
Games	29%
Books	24%
Entertainment	22%
Travel	13%
Education	12%

As the store has grown, it has necessitated reconfiguration numerous times to further segment the apps into logical groups where buyers can more easily connect with sellers. Apple continues to improve the search capabilities of the store, adding more home page app categories such as "Made for IOS 4" and "What We're Playing" in the Games section. All of these groupings help your app to get more visibility if it's rotated in for one of those groupings. As shown in Figure 1.2, the top paid, free, and grossing apps are shown in the right column on the App Store's home page and are displayed on the home page of the App Store.

Figure 1.2 Top Paid Apps, Top Free Apps, and Top Grossing Apps are shown to the right of the App Store's home page.

If you drill down into a category such as Lifestyles, you see that there is also a breakout of the top 10 paid apps and the top 10 free apps along with a newer category for top 10 grossing apps as shown on the right side in Figure 1.3. Notice that this particular category has 70 pages of paid apps (12569) at 150 apps displayed per page! If you add in free apps in the Lifestyle category, there are over 23,000 total apps at the time of this writing! If your app manages to sell enough copies to make it into the top 100, you will see your sales climb dramatically (as long as you stay on this coveted list.)

Figure 1.3 Each category on the App Store has a listing for paid and free apps.

You can also sort the apps within each category by Name (A–Z breakouts) and by Release Date and Bestsellers as shown in Figure 1.4. Searching by Name is helpful if you're searching on a particular name of an app or your best guess as to its name. Release date is the default. Searching on some of the other categories such as "What Hot" allows you to search by name alphabetically or by when the app was featured. Newly featured apps are first on the list.

Figure 1.4 The App Store allows you to sort by Name, Release Date, and Most Popular within each category.

The App Store will continue to make improvements to help strengthen and refine the search process and showcase apps in the best way possible. In order to create a winning sales and marketing strategy for your app, it's important to understand the dynamics of the App Store and understand that there are several strategies that you can employ.

There are three pillars of your app's success as shown in Figure 1.5. Failure to address all three of these areas means the likelihood of your app succeeding in the market is slim. I know there are stories of some apps seemingly not addressing these areas and yet achieving wild success. This is true. There are always examples of people achieving success in books or movies that, for some odd reason, defy all understanding and lack of marketing. I wish that success for all of you.

Figure 1.5 Three pillars of iPhone/iPad app success: a market, well-written app, and deliberate marketing

The same goes for iPhone/iPad apps. But even the successful apps that achieve (perhaps) undeserving success have done at least two of these three things right. They definitely have a market for their apps, regardless of how stupid or pointless the apps might be. They may claim to have done no marketing, but word of mouth (a form of marketing) has propelled them to success.

Most developers are trying to knock their apps out of the park. They want the grand slam and think anything less is failure. A number of developers give up, thinking there's only two possible outcomes to selling their apps: the Big Win or No Win. But there are actually three possible outcomes: the Big Win app, the Steady Win app, and the No Win app. All apps fall into one of these three categories. Over time and without marketing or product updates, all apps will eventually slide from one category down to the next one below.

The Big Win—Grand Slam

The Big Win apps or Grand Slams are generally characterized by explosive sales from their launches. Games, by far, make up the majority of the Big Win apps. Why? Because games take advantage of the impulse buy that occurs directly from an iPhone. Games are the most likely app to be bought on impulse. The impulse buyer cares about what's hot right now and what looks like the most fun to play.

Sometimes a community of people is familiar with a particular development company and is hungry to purchase its new app. Some companies have made their apps successful by porting an already successful PC or Mac game over to the iPhone platform. But I am also seeing small up and comers making big names for themselves. Who can forget Tiny Wings (Andreas Illiger) overthrowing Angry Birds for at least a month!

Big Win apps have also been positioned by large development companies with huge followings. Their aim is to achieve quick sales on apps that are priced in the games sweet spot from $0.99 to $1.99. At this price point, the impulse buyer is looking for something to occupy her time. The longevity of this type of app may be short, lasting only several months. Then the same company releases another app and focuses its attention on that. Some winning apps are designed in such a way to bring the customer back over and over again with paid add-ons or frequent updates. One of the most popular game apps to provide frequent releases is Pocket God shown in Figure 1.6. Pocket God refers to its updates as "Episodes" and has built a very strong community of users that keep the game in the spotlight. User suggestions for new features keep the game fresh and exciting.

Figure 1.6 Pocket God has done a very good job keeping customers engaged with its frequent new "Episodes," or product updates.

Another common element for Big Win games is that they are usually very simplistic in their premises. The masses of iPhone users purchase games that are easy to learn. Low on learning, high on enjoyment is the rule of thumb for the quick win Big Win games. Think of Tiny Wings. It is easy to learn but challenging and incredibly addictive. The typical game buyer doesn't want to learn tons of rules to a new game. They want to understand the point of the app immediately and start playing right away.

Just when we think only big development houses can win in the iPhone/iPad game business another Tiny Wings comes along and steals the show. But the stakes are high. Think about how great the music, graphics, and game play are in Tiny Wings. It's no easy feat to do all of those things well. And it's costly to hire outside expertise to help you create the pieces of the app where you may lack experience. Larger companies have the development staff that can bring apps to market more quickly without sacrificing quality. It simply takes an independent developer longer to create a high powered, high quality game app. However, when a following is created and the app is updated frequently, you will continue to attract customers and positive reviews as shown with Tiny Wings in Figure 1.7.

Figure 1.7 Positive reviews continue to roll in for the infamous Tiny Wings App.

The last characteristic of the Grand Slam apps is that they often get a big break from the press or large review sites as being an app to look at. Think of Touch Arcade, a very large game review site, which is a must-have review if you are to succeed with your app in a big way. You not only need to post your app on this site, but also get them to review yours. Tom Clancy achieved remarkable success with his book The Hunt for Red October when Ronald Reagan praised the book after he read it while on vacation. After Reagan's comments, sales of that book skyrocketed. If an iPhone/iPad app gets a lucky break from a major review site, it can serve as the catalyst to get sales moving in a big way. Word of mouth takes it from there. This is the holy grail of app marketing.

Some other apps that fall into this category are shown in Figures 1.8 and 1.9. These apps have achieved phenomenal success. Angry Birds continues to stay on the best seller list due to its amazing graphics, simple play premise, and huge following. Fruit Ninja also hit the mark with its amazing graphics and addictive game play. And who can forget Doodle Jump and its New York developers, who are brothers, that hit it big as shown in Figure 1.10.

Figure 1.8 Angry Birds has achieved Big Win success with well over 1.3 million downloads. They also offer an add-on pack for additional play, adding to their revenues.

Figure 1.9 Fruit Ninja achieved early success with its incredible use of graphics and simple premise of design.

Figure 1.10 Doodle Jump is the runaway best selling game from Lima Sky, Inc. It is on Apple's Highest Grossing App list.

The Steady Win—Base Hits

The next category of iPhone/iPad apps is the Steady Win, also known as base hit apps. This category may be overlooked by some app developers who focus solely on the Big Win. The majority of new iPhone/iPad apps land in this category even if the developer has intentions of his app making it into the Big Win group. These apps rely on app reviews, positive blog posts, advertising, and making it onto the App Store's "wall of fame" where the app is placed in the "New and Noteworthy" or "Staff Picks" or "What's Hot" sections for a short period of time. These placements are definitely helpful and will boost sales noticeably while you remain on that list.

These apps also rely on good, old-fashioned, consistent marketing. The revenue with this type of app can be more predictable when the seller understands what marketing activities work for him. With a well written app, the right marketing mix, and product updates, this type of app can achieve success on the App Store. It may not be multimillion dollar success, but it can be decent. It may be enough to compel you to write multiple apps, build a brand, and truly make a business out of your efforts.

Some apps that have achieved solid success that are not necessarily iPhone games are shown in Figure 1.11 and Figure 1.12. These apps have been achieving a steady revenue stream for their developers albeit not millionaire levels. They have strong value propositions, and their products resonate with their intended audience. These apps are focused on finance, saving money, getting healthy, travel, and other topics that interest almost everyone.

Figure 1.11 Save Benjis is an app that allows you to do price comparisons. They also offer an upsell to their product, a newer app with the popular barcode scanner feature.

Figure 1.12 MLB.Com is a long-time selling app that provides immediate access to scores, stats, video highlights, and live audio.

Given that most apps fall into the category of Steady Win, the bulk of this book is focused on helping you achieve ongoing success through a complete marketing approach. Although with this revision we have learned considerably more about the Big Win apps and will share these tips with you throughout the book. Utility type apps (almost anything that isn't a game) generally command a higher selling price and can have more predictable revenue streams. Independent developers will most likely be playing in this category whether they realize it or not.

The No Win—Strikeout

Sadly, a large number of apps on the App Store are DOA. After working months and months or paying someone else to write your app, you post the app to the App Store and anxiously await its review and approval. After a few weeks you get the word back that your app has been approved. The app is posted within a few hours of approval, and your expectations soar! You can see the checks rolling in from Apple. You've already bought the swimming pool (remember Christmas Vacation). Then, you wait. You check your sales stats each day. A few sales here, a few sales there.... What has happened? Where are all the buyers? What happened to the 10,000 daily downloads? You thought people would be breaking down the doors to get this new app. You are discouraged and think you've wasted your time. You've probably thought about dropping your price. Surely there must be something wrong with the App Store to cause this.

Sometimes, even very well-written apps end up unnoticed and ignored. An app that sees 0 or 1–2 sales a day is not going to cut it to reach your break even. At the time of this writing, there are over 78,000 apps that are inactive and no longer for sale on the App Store. So what does a person do who finds himself in this predicament where his app is not doing well? It's time for a total app makeover. Ask yourself the following questions and be brutally honest:

Is there really a market for my app? Did you come up with your app idea while sitting around with a bunch of friends and thought you had stumbled onto something that was incredible? Or did you do some solid competitive research to see if there were similar apps already posted, especially in the Free app categories? Nothing wrong with creating a competing app if you can make it better, but it's got to be better! Often whenever we think we have a great idea we need to really analyze whether it's viable or not. Ask some family, friends, or coworkers if they would be willing to pay for such an app. Find out if you have a market (and its potential size) for your app before you start coding or launch into an expensive project with a developer.
Is your app extremely well written? A number of apps on the App Store are poorly written. They have bugs, or some of the features don't work too well. This is a surefire way to get a one-star rating on the App Store by a disgruntled buyer. Even at $0.99 people will take the time to point out that your app is crap and not worth the money on the customer reviews. One of the outcomes of competition is that prices fall and quality goes up. Customers expect an app to work just as well at $0.99 as they do at $29.99.
Have you done any marketing yet? As I mention time and time again in this book, marketing is not posting your app to the App Store. You've had your app approved by Apple, and that's a great accomplishment. Now the second half of your work starts. Selling iPhone/iPad apps is not a passive activity if you intend to make money at it. A few other questions to consider: Does your app's icon convey what the app does? Icons that don't convey what the app does or at least what category the app is in are missing a marketing opportunity. Does the name of your app communicate the value of your app or help tell the story of what it does? Does your web copy match your product website in terms of crisp well-written content? All of these things combined help you to tell the story of your app and communicate its value. Figure 1.13 shows some sample icons that do a good job of communicating their value.

Figure 1.13 These icons communicate very nicely what the apps do such as a sports app a professional team may have built. This is an important part of your overall marketing.

There is always an explanation as to why an app is not successful. The answer is always there with a little digging.

If you should decide that your old app should rest in peace, at least you can have a better understanding of what you can do the next time around to help you achieve success. Don't kid yourself when you answer any of these questions. If you truly believe you have a great idea for an app and you've done your homework, then go for it. If you have written a great app and know it without a doubt, then apply some marketing and get those sales moving.

Benefits/Drawbacks of the Big Win and Steady Win Strategies

The App Store is not a perfect democratic society and never will be. No matter how many changes Apple makes to the App Store, there will always be unhappy participants. So you can whine about what's wrong with it, or you can figure out how to work the system to your best advantage. Table 1.2 illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of the Big Win strategy. The App Store is not for the faint of heart. Table 1.3 shows the advantages and disadvantages of the Steady Win strategy. Again, it's more likely you'll end up in this category than the Big Win.

Table 1.2. Big Win Advantages/Disadvantages

Advantages	Disadvantages
Make lots of money quickly.	Customers expect high quality at a crazy low price like $0.99.
Deliver apps quickly to market.	Usually requires development team to get app created quickly. Time is of the essence.
Games are extremely popular with this market strategy.	Extremely competitive, very fickle.
Charge a low price to attract customers.	Highly price-sensitive customers, promotions have limited impact, no pricing flexibility.

Table 1.3. Steady Win Advantages/Disadvantages

Advantages	Disadvantages
Make money slowly but more predictably.	Developers who get discouraged easily don't see their efforts through to success.
Apps build a customer following for add-ons.	Must build updates on a frequent basis and respond quickly to customer feedback.
Almost any app can participate in the Steady Win category.	Games are a challenge here because of their short lifespan. Developers must build in add-ons to keep the audience coming back.
Apps can achieve access into the Top 100 (or other categories) with consistent marketing.	Income drops off dramatically if steps are not taken to keep the consumer in front of the app. Marketing is a full-time job.

If you haven't started developing your iPhone/iPad app, you are at an important decision-making point. Making a strategy decision now will help you make important marketing decisions as you get closer to launch. Having clear (and realistic) expectations of where your app will be positioned on the App Store gives your app purpose and will help you avoid the No Win bucket.

Summary

iPhone and iPad apps fall into one of three categories: Big Wins, Steady Wins, and No Wins. The Big Win is what every independent developer tends to go after. However, you should also look closely at the Steady Wins category of selling as this affords the best opportunity for most developers. Good marketing can make the difference between no revenue (No Win) and steady revenue (Steady Win).

Decide now what your iPhone selling strategy is going to be, and you'll have an easier time defining a marketing plan and sticking with it. It will save you a lot of heartburn too if you look realistically at your app and its market and set realistic expectations on your success. Don't get me wrong, I want you to be wildly successful in selling your app. I hope you hit a grand slam into the parking lot, but I also want you to realize that it's hard work to get there and takes some very positive reviews from very powerful review sites. Even getting base hits is hard work but more likely, especially when you apply some marketing to it.

For those of you who think you've got an app lost in the No Win bin, it's never too late! You can resurrect your app from the No Win status to the Steady Wins status as long as your app is well written, has a strong premise, and gets some good marketing. Are you prepared to rewrite a poorly written app? Does your app really have sales appeal? If so, then roll up your sleeves, put your marketing hat on, and keep reading.