Archive for July, 2009

July 29 2009 The App Keyword Surprise: Apple Makes iPhone Devs Feel Helpless, Again

This morning saw the addition of keywords for applications in the App store, and right now most developers are confused.  Without explanation, Apple has implemented a change that most developers only discovered when trying to check their daily sales reports in iTunes Connect.  Without so much as an e-mail, developers are scrambling to update their applications but don’t really know where to begin.  Currently, there are inconsistencies in the instructions and no recourse for seeking clarification (see developer Owen Goss’s confusion and David Barnard’s frustration on Twitter here and here).  A screenshot of the source of confusion is below:

iTunes connect prompt

The biggest question with the change is the last sentence of the above, which could mean that the only way to change keywords for an app is to submit to Apple an updated version of the app for approval. This may not sound like a big deal but if indeed app updates are required it could open developers back up to the pschizophrenic app approval process and only further delay the approval process (currently at 12-14 days). Traditionally everything but the binary (app summary, price, icon image, etc) can be changed without resubmitting an application so that should be the case here.

The addition of keywords will be another filter separating actively developed versus abandoned apps (as was the 3.0 compatibility update) but it will simultaneously bring back the topic of keyword optimization. This keyword marketing strategy has been around for quite some time so we will see if Apple does anything to curb outright app name poaching. For example, a developer could choose to put the top 10 app names as keywords instead of words relating to the type of app being marketed.

Hopefully the additions of keywords will help discoverability but Apple needs to still do a better job of keeping developers in the loop. For anyone who takes app development seriously as a business, Apple’s poor communication only serves to further alienate developers from the platform. No one wants to be reminded they have a gatekeeper to their business, and Apple does a great job of making developers feel helpless almost any chance it gets.

Update: It looks like Apple has resolved some of the confusion around the keyword character limit as well as the keyword submission process.  As with all other app description features developers can change their keywords from within iTunes Connect without submitting a new build – this however only applies to the first time.  Once keywords are set, developers will have to resubmit their app to change them.  This clearly will not help with app approval delays.

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Posted in App Store, apple, blog, marketing | 3 Comments »

July 28 2009 Just How Much Does a Lite Version Help Boost App Sales?

The day after we launched iCombat lite (iTunes link) I wrote a post about how we had waited months longer than we should have to launch a lite version.  Looking back the delay was caused mostly by a fear of cannibalizing our potential user base and concern for giving away our iCombat’s secret sauce in the demo version. After a month live in the app store, the evidence for doing a lite version is compelling proof for anyone looking to launch an app on a small marketing budget. See below the 1 month conversion stats as well as some of our key takeaways:

iCombat Lite conversion rates

Conversion rates well above 5%

Most developers report conversion rates between 0.5% and 2%, and while Ethan Nicholas of iShoot fame at one point claimed (see comments) a conversion rates of 8% (200k sales off of 2.4MM lite downloads at the time) we didn’t think that was a reasonable expectation given the increased competition in the App store since (and in the gaming category more specifically).  And since there is no way of knowing where users are coming from we thought at minimum we should break out the conversion rates controlling for the previous month’s sales average.

iCombat iconI was surprised when I found our conversion rates in the control case close to 7% percent for U.S. sales.  Even when iCombat was clearing over 2.5k lite downloads a day our conversion rate was peaking at above 9%. While the early high conversion rate could be attributable in part to iCombat’s update that also occurred during the period, the averages trended steadily around this rate both before and after the update went live.  Aside from the new release it is worth noting that most other conditions were controlled for as there was no press, no features by Apple, no reviews, advertisements or anything else that might have spiked sales (a real marketing coup we know).

As for the big surge in monthly sales (5x), this is a bit skewed due to the low average volume of sales iCombat had experienced in the month prior to the launch of the lite version.

Some lessons learned:

1. Should have released lite version from the beginning – There was no point to waiting and sacrificing the initial new release buzz.  Since it is harder to get featured once your app is launched, say for app updates, it is important to strike early and hard with your app release.

2. Lite does NOT cannibalize sales – If your app is a gimmick then it might not make sense but in all other cases it only helps to increase sales (see our previous post on this topic)

3. Get the bugs out for your lite release – users churn lite apps and are fine giving you 1 star if they don’t like the experience.  This is especially bad because the App store prompts users to rate an app when they try to delete it

4. Lite sales trail off too but paid sales remain higher – if you don’t have the x-factor that is needed to spread the word your lite downloads will fall as they have for iCombat, but in our case paid sales have continued to sell at a minimum rate several times higher than the pre-lite period

5. Frequent releases do juice downloads – Pocket God and other frequently updated apps have benefited from a weekly sales bump as they show up in the new releases section of the app store (users also like this episode style model)

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Posted in Strategy, blog, marketing | 9 Comments »

July 28 2009 Multichannel Marketing in an App Store Full of Noise

The post below is an excerpt of a larger post I wrote during the launch of iCombat (iTunes link). The post is worth reading if you are an indie developer thinking about launching an iPhone application on your own:

I came across an interesting post on “How to use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to market your mobile games” and it reinforced what I have noticed since readying to launch iCombat – there are too many channels to manage when it comes to reaching the end user! This may sound like a high class problem to all of the game and content developers that have faced the gatekeepers of distribution over the years but the sudden blossoming of dozens of channels to reach users has created its own set of problems. Now the burden of brand management and marketing has fallen into the lap of the indie developers, where they must become “marketers” of their product if they hope to get noticed.

The rise of the fractured, multichannel market has created dozens of sites that developers now need to visit to build goodwill and help gain exposure, something that is fundamentally different from what they probably want to be doing. In our case this translates into 18-20 hours of work a day since launch to manage the marketing effort. While we have a dedicated team for this, most developers don’t have the luxury of even dedicating all of their own time to managing their launch.

I have compiled a list of some of the tools and sites I think necessary to run a solid app marketing effort:

Top Down channels – kissing the ring

  1. Bloggers – aka the “digital influencers” – sites with major traffic like Gizmodo, Techcrunch, GigaOM
  2. Targeted review sites – Touch Arcade, 148Apps, Pocket Gamer, etc. – we have counted 60+ serious ones in all

Bottom Up channels – connecting with your users

  1. Facebook – both personal status and group page
  2. Twitter
  3. MySpace
  4. App/ Development/ Gaming Forums - Touch Arcade, maybe iPhonedevSDK, etc.
  5. Product website & blog – here you need to have a demo, maybe a news section and your blog
  6. YouTube – a great way to communicate with avid gamers
  7. iTunes App store summary

Analytics Tools – monitoring usage, downloads, buzz

  1. User downloads – iTunes Connect – Heartbeat App or AppViz (super easy to use but less flexible than Heartbeat)
  2. Usage behavior – Pinch Media – gives you uniques, geo data, version & device stats, as well as unique data by action in your App (very cool)
  3. App ranking – AppRanking by Michael Dorn or Mobclix
  4. Web traffic - Google Analytics or Wordpress Stats
  5. Affiliate data – Linkshare – here if you are an Apple affiliate you can earn back 5% of your 30% cut that goes to Apple – and monitor clickthrough conversion data from your site
  6. Brand management – ScoutLabs or Google Alerts – Scout doesn’t really seem to work for small apps or early on in a campaign as it is, for these smaller apps Google Alerts is a great basic filter

While this list is not comprehensive this is basically everything we are using for the marketing of iCombat. I didn’t realize just how many channels and tools this involved until trying to post an urgent piece of news. When iCombat was reviewed in Gizmodo’s weekly roundup of iPhone apps we quickly wanted to update every channel we were using. (more…)

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Posted in Tips, blog, games, marketing | 1 Comment »

July 18 2009 What’s Next In Mobile…

“There are so many new apps a day, it is hard for any human being to consume the amount of change that is going on in the space”

- Raven Zachary, Founder Small Society

The 2009 Creativity and Technology event featured an excellent panel discussion on “What’s Now and What’s Next in Mobile” (for video see here).  While the title should have been what’s now and next for the iPhone, the truth is that this year mobile as been almost all about the iPhone.  And for good reason, the statistics are astonishing – with over 40+MM devices sold, 1.5Bn apps downloaded and a feverish growth rate that does not seem to be slowing down.

App Store
Image via Wikipedia

The most interesting part of the panel occurs when Raven Zachary, founder of the iPhone strategy firm Small Society begins to talk about the general trends in the app market (go to minute 12 in the video here).  His conclusions are bold and bright, pointing to the accelerating trend of brands and companies coming into the app store.  Zachary wisely suggests that brands though should be less concerned about speed to market and more concerned about a clean, quality 1.0 user experience as it ultimately ends up being far more impactful.  The balance of delivering utility or entertainment with branding, takes time to get right and too often the rush to be first is at the cost of a quality experience (see my rant about the prematurely launched Dunkin’ Run app here).

Perhaps the most insightful comment Zachary makes is that the “the app store is not a marketing vehicle but a distribution vehicle.”  Companies should approach the App store “as you would approach any product or marketing effort” and “drive people to the app in the same way you would drive people to anything you create in the company”.  The idea that applications can be developed overnight and with little additional marketing, product launch or strategic thought is outdated because the size of the app store makes organic discovery difficult.  And as the novelty effect of the iPhone wears off (where blowing and pouring are enough to drive downloads) the utility and entertainment components of apps will come to the fore.

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