the appfarm

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…)

Tags: AppStore, indie developers, marketing, noise
Posted in Tips, blog, games, marketing | 1 Comment »

“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.

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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Tags: App Store, marketing
Posted in blog, marketing | No Comments »

If you are contemplating launching an application for your brand or business you will want to take note of how NOT to do it with the Dunkin’ Run app. Dunkin’ Donuts had an original idea that would help streamline the process of order taking for the office coffee “runner” (see video of how it works here).  In Dunkin’ Donuts’ press release they describe the service as “an innovative interactive web site and iPhone application that will enable customers to solicit and place Dunkin’ Donuts group orders in just a few clicks with unprecedented ease, speed, accuracy and fun.”  Sounds great, right? Dunkin’ Donuts was positioning itself on the cutting edge, as a more consumer friendly brand than the increasingly indistinguishable competition McDonalds and Starbucks.

The Pitch to Users

Dunkin’ Donuts had stumbled upon a unique opportunity, to further their customer engagement while actually delivering value to users through an iPhone and web application.  And the marketing team at Hill Holliday crafted a powerful narrative around the groundbreaking innovation.  Hill Holliday’s Chief Media Officer was quoted as saying the app “perfectly complements the ‘we’re in it together’ ethos of the Dunkin’ Donuts brand” and their site goes as far as to quote an internal employee who says that “Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t just serve coffee, it also fuels the “hope and ambition and energy and drive” of America”. Wow.

The Negative Response

The problem with such bold positioning and a large launch hype-fest was that the app does not actually work from a user’s perspective. So the narrative comes across as a naive oversell and a typically “corporate” attempt at marketing.  What has followed has been UGLY – I have seen very few iPhone applications with such poor ratings and reviews.  Users are angry, at the time of writing this 225 of 376 (60%) ratings are ranked 1 out of 5 with 298 out of 376 being 3 or below (79%).  User rejection has been nearly unanimous. So why did the application fail?  Because its designers ignored the very thing that it was offering to users, “speed, accuracy and fun.”

“What Did I Do Wrong?”

To describe the problem all you have to do is look at the first screen input screen of the app.  Imagine you are a user who has read about this revolutionary app that will help make your life easier, and then you open it and you wonder what to do next.  You think to yourself, “Do I have a password? Maybe I can just enter one and it will work. Who knows?”  So you try and it says invalid password, and you look for clues as to what to do next but there are none.  Most users just deleted the app at this point (probably most of the 225 1-star ratings happened at this point through Apple’s ratings prompt that occurs upon app removal).  In 10 seconds Dunking Donuts had managed to anger and alienate some of its most loyal customers.

What is worse is that the web experience for those who do go the extra step is even more frustrating, where the problems can be summed up with this one review: “You have to register from your computer which is stupid.  Secondly, why does it need my address, phone number, and mother’s maiden name?  We are talking about a dough nut order here, not banking information.” Well said.

The shame here is that the application, once you get past the sign-up hurdles is actually nicely thought out.  This is not worth anything though if the most important step, the first one, is made so cumbersome that 60% of your users decide to delete your application and give up.

The Solution: Talk Less, Deliver More

The app store is all about user expectations.  And in a place where reviews and ratings come all too easily, you need to be careful that you actually deliver on your what you offer.  And while the Dunkin’ Run idea is a great one, it was oversold too soon and that only contributed to the user backlash.

The point is that you can deliver value and create a truly useful application for your users without risking your brand, and the way you do that is to launch something useful and complimentary to your business but first make sure it works!  Good app design has little to do with a huge project or marketing budget and more to do with listening to your users.  Whether it be through Beta testing before launch or iterative improvements after a soft launch, it is a fundamental step that can’t be ignored if you dare to claim you have created the next big thing.

To check out the latest ratings/ reviews for the Dunkin’ Run app press here to be directed to iTunes.

Update: The app has been updated to 1.1 and now includes a prompt at the bottom of the screen (shown above) that allows the user to sign-up.  Still the reviews appear to be very poor (as of 7/18 34 of 76 ratings are still a 1 with an average of 2.5) and the comments reflect that the app is still more work than it is worth.

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Tags: branding, Dunkin Donuts, marketing, poor design
Posted in blog, marketing, reviews | 7 Comments »

The question you have when you first hear about the Pocket Agent app is, “Just how often would users use an app like this?” The hope is that rarely if ever would it be needed, but for those users that do need to file a claim the State Farm’s app is actually quite an innovative tool.  From it you can begin the claim filing process, take pictures to document an incident, describe the damage involved, as well as contact a local agent or find the nearest repair location.

The Pocket Agent app implements its features well, and provides a much more efficient process for filing claims or staying in contact with State Farm than ever before.  As for whether you need to install it beforehand, the beauty of the iPhone App store is that it can be downloaded in just a minute or two in the event that something does happen.  Of course such a rare frequency of use application like this requires recall on the part of the user that such an app exists, but State Farm has done a good job so far of spreading the word to its customers.

While this is one of the more niche uses of the iPhone’s capabilities, it is representative of a larger trend hitting mobile where companies seek to enhance customer engagement by leveraging the powerful feature set of mobile devices such as the iPhone.  By offering solutions that utilize the touch screen, accelerometer, GPS and camera, companies can prove to their costumers that they are innovating and staying ahead of their competition.

See the slightly random but effective State Farm video summary below:

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Tags: App Store, iphone, marketing, Mobile device, utility apps
Posted in Tips, blog, marketing | 1 Comment »