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7 Massive Marketing Mistakes GUARANTEED To Even Kill Killer Apps

John — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:53:18 +0000

Editors Note: I received this submission, and I was reluctant to look at it since there seems to be a flood of marketers trying to cash in as app marketing experts. I decided to accept this one as it is somewhat different, and didn’t simply provide a simplistic list of tips such as take good screenshots, start a blog, or sell internationally. Please comment on whether you’d like to see more content on app marketing in the future. – John

In my time working with software developers I’ve been able to pick up on some common mistakes that ultimately lead to lower sales or even bankruptcy. Accept them as the ultimate truth or accept failure. The choice is yours.

1. Not accepting that it is all about money. Money is the measure for app success. It doesn’t matter if your app gets rave reviews, a million free downloads, or iPhone and iPad users love it. What matters is that it makes money. Even if you’re just branding or building a portfolio. If it doesn’t make money in the end then what was the point?

2. Thinking app store sales are the only way to succeed. There are many possible business models. Look around, you’ll see many businesses making money from iPhone apps that aren’t even selling them.

3. Misunderstanding the importance of marketing. Marketing is at least as important as development. If you don’t believe that then you haven’t been watching the app store very closely.

4. Not building anticipation for your app. You want to hit Apple’s top download lists, and the easiest time to do that is when your app is first released. Copy the techniques of those having multiple successes in the app store.

5. Not doing any of the marketing legwork. Many developers seem willing to spend thousands of hours on an app, yet none on marketing. You know you have to leverage social media, find good keywords, send your app to reviewers, take good screenshots, create a video, do some market testing, defining your market, finding your purple cow… but are you doing it?

6. Not being willing to spend any money. The $99 that you pay Apple to join their development program is not going to cut it as a marketing budget. If you’ve got an app making money try reinvesting some of it in one of the many ways such as ads in other apps, search ads, ads on app review websites.

7. Not tracking advertising results. Advertising an app is all about selling. I have seen developers burn their marketing budget on ineffective ads that they have no clue whether they are working or not.

How many of these mistakes are you making? Agree or disagree on the importance of marketing? Discuss.

Ed has been marketing software for nearly 15 years, and has recently turned to iPhone and iPad app marketing. For now you can follow Ed Wang on twitter. In the future he will be providing more information on iPhone app marketing.

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2 More Open Source Apps – reMail and RobotFindsKitten

John — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 04:59:17 +0000

I’ve added two more apps to the open source iphone app store apps listing.

The two apps are reMail, a popular e-mail client that was purchased by Google that provides quick searching, and RobotFindsKitten, a classic DOS ASCII type game ported to run on the iPhone.

reMail is pretty slick, it downloads all your e-mails, and allows you to search them at a very high speed vs. the iPhone’s mail app, apparently it was good enough for Google to buy.

Thanks to Bunnyhero for mentioning Robotsfindkitten.

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Traffic Ranked Listing Of iPhone App Review Sites

John — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:07:09 +0000

This is a ranked listing of iPhone application review sites that accept applications submissions from developers. Getting listed on these sites can be a good way to gain exposure for your app, and every little bit helps.

I have filtered out sites that simply track iTunes feeds and list everything in the store.

The listings are ranked based on traffic given by the Compete.com rank.

http://toucharcade.com Compete Rank: 18,238
http://www.appsafari.com Compete Rank:27,893
http://appadvice.com Compete Rank: 38,515
http://www.appcraver.com Compete Rank: 39,759
http://iphoneapplicationlist.com Compete Rank: 56,764
http://www.appstoreapps.com Compete Rank: 88,622
http://www.gamestooge.com Compete Rank: 121,583
http://theapppodcast.com Compete Rank: 174,360
http://www.freshapps.com Compete Rank: 201,486
http://www.nativeiphoneapps.com Compete Rank: 345,031
http://www.iphoneblog.de Compete Rank: 1,141,082
http://www.apptheater.com Compete Rank: 1,171,181
http://www.appgallery.org Compete Rank: New
http://iphoneappgirl.com Compete Rank: New
http://www.theipodkid.com Compete Rank: New

If you know of any other good sites that accept app submissions for review please post them here. Thanks.

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Big List of Youtubers Who Will Review Your iPhone App

John — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:35:50 +0000

As many of you may have noticed, I have been updating my older resource lists with updated links that have been shared with me in the last few months since starting this site, and I’ve been uploading tutorials/other videos to Youtube.

One resource which I didn’t really think about was Youtube. I wasn’t really a Youtuber before uploading my videos, but something I noticed was that there is a massive number of people on Youtube doing app reviews. Usually developers will upload a usage video to Youtube, and ultimately that’s the end of things, it’s hit or miss, and most videos get very few views.

Why not send the App reviewers your apps? Many of these reviewers have already established a subscriber base of 10,000 or more on Youtube (along with nearly as many on Twitter), and I’m sure would be flattered if sent a promotional code. A couple who I have contacted seemed very excited about the idea. Also, many of these videos end up being shown on other sites so the effect can multiply.

I wouldn’t be turned off it appears that many of these viewers are members of the younger set, after all this is a large segment of the App market, and especially if you’re developing an entertainment app this likely is your market.

Don’t forget to mention if you have/know of an active channel in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

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Designing Your First Apple iPhone App

John — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:31:58 +0000

This is the second part of the Developing Your FIrst iPhone App video series that I am creating, specifically in this video I go through the simple design process i use in order to cut down on my development time. It is important to know exactly where you’re headed before you write your first line of code, it’s been said that at least 1/3rd of your development time should be spent on design.

While I don’t believe in any hard and fast rules as to how much time you should spend on design coding blindly is usually a bad idea.

Basically for simple apps I go through a 4 step process which involves creating:

1) An Objective Statement
2) A List of Features
3) A Basic Scenario
4) A Definition of the Class Structure

Check out the video:

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

If you missed the first part in the series it can be found here:
Your First App Store App Step-By-Step – Part 1

You can find the simple soundboard I created using the same code that we will be using in these tutorials in the app store here (it’s free): Example App

Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions please post them below.

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Your First App Store App Step-By-Step – Part 1

John — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:20:54 +0000

This is the first in a series where we will be building a simple app based on the soundboard app that I created which is in the app store that can be found here.

Check out the video:

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

We’ll be learning:

1) Simple App Design

2) MVC Basics

3) Interface Builder Basics

4) Playing Music Files

5) Basic Accelerometer Use

6) Objective-C Collection Basics

7) Submitting Your App

I hope that you enjoy the series, come back for Part 2

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iPhone 3GS Will Be All About The Apps

John — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:10:48 +0000

There have been alot of complaints about the new iPhone being too expensive for what seems like a small incremental update. While the camera update may be a large factor to the buying decision in the European/Asian markets many who already have iPhones feel there really aren’t any new features worth the money. There is already some excellent voice control provided by apps in the app store.

So with the 3GS it’s really all about the apps.

It was stated that on average the new iPhone is about twice as fast, and while the compass may seem useless it will be integral to creating improved gaming controls. Right now tilting the phone forward and back has the same effect as turning (try it in your favorite driving game). An improvement in speed will have a dramatic increase in the quality of released apps. As of yet no 3D specs have been officially announced, but if they are improved this will bring the iPhone closer to Sony’s PSP. The memory limitations of the 3G are also somewhat of a bottleneck in app performance, and may be improved also.

I’m looking forward to even better apps.

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Access Native Objective-C Code In Javascript Iphone Apps

John — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:10:17 +0000

Yesterday, I told you how to execute Javascript code on a page showing in a UIWebView using Objective-C. That was rather trivial as Apple has messaging functionality built in to allow that. Executing Objective-C code from within a Javascript application is not trivial. I highly suggest using one of the three frameworks I mentioned in a previous post.

Now, this is something that I haven’t coded myself because I haven’t run into a situation where I was using a web app that needed to add functionality not already implemented within Phonegap when working with Iphone web app code. However, the author of QuickConnect has an excellent tutorial on doing this here.

Basically what you do is write to NSLog from your Javascript code, then iterate through that log and extract the commands and variables to be used by your Objective-C code. Overall, it’s not a very complex process, but a rather tedious one.

Thanks for reading this series about turning Javascript web apps into native ones for the Iphone app store, tommorow I will talk a bit about OpenGL ES.

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How can I develop iPhone app store games quickly for free? Part 2

John — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:52:41 +0000

This article is about quickly developing 3D games on the iPhone using free game engines and with CoreAnimation, for information about free 2D iPhone Game engines please check the Previous Article Here.

If you are determined to get into developing a 3D game there are a couple of free engines. The first one I’ll mention is the SIO2 Engine. I haven’t explored this engine in detail, but from running the examples and going through a couple of the tutorials it looks to be well made, it is written in C, but the learning curve is easier than you would think especially if you have used Blender. The second engine is the Oolong Engine created by well known graphics programmer Wolfgang Engel from Rockstar Games. I’ve been messing around with this engine for awhile, and find it to be excellent, be warned though it is extremely low level, and has no documentation so you will be learning simply from example. It is basically the PowerVR 3D SDK optimized for the iPhone with added memory management, 3ds loading, and a math library, and is essentially meant for programmers with an understanding of OpenGL ES, which probably makes it fall into the “not quick” category of development, but I thought I should mention it for those wondering what I would use.

The final alternative for “quick” game development on the iPhone is just to use CoreAnimation, from what I understand game development using CoreAnimation can lead to performance issues, but if you’re developing a game that doesn’t include any fast action such as a board or card game then it may be your best bet. I’d suggest looking at the GeekGameBoard example from Apple. While the example is a Mac OS X the syntax is very similar, and you should be well on your way to coding a game in CoreAnimation. There are a few missing features, but you can certainly develop a non-action oriented game using CoreAnimation. I left CoreAnimation for last simply because from what I’ve read on the iPhone boards it really is only viable for specific games.

Thanks for reading, and if you know of any good free iPhone game development tools that I haven’t mentioned then please comment about them below.

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How can I develop iPhone app store games quickly for free? Part 1

John — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:52:29 +0000

I’ve been asked by several visitors to my videos as to how one can develop games quickly on the iPhone, and I understand that learning OpenGL ES and building your own game from scratch can be a daunting task.

Then when I respond talking about some of the commercial frameworks out there that cost $500 a seat per developer, the next question of course is there anything that can do it for free.

In all honesty you won’t find anything at the level of say, iTorque for free. However, there are some good free frameworks out there.

In my opinion the easiest free framework is Cocoas2D. This is an excellent open source framework for creating 2D (yes, sorry just 2D) games. In my opinion this is probably the best starting point for someone who is fairly new to game development on the iPhone and just wants to jump right in without having to worry about learning OpenGL, or even having to learn any of the finer points of iPhone development. You will need an understanding of Objective-C however as the documentation is somewhat minimal you will be learning how to do things mainly from the given examples. What I’ve found Cocoas2D great for is as a means to learning OpenGL ES, I was able to see from looking at the source code how to translate several OpenGL tutorials, and quickly learned how to do what I needed.

Some of the games created with Cocoas2D can be found here . You’d be surprised with how many games in the app store were created using this framework.

That’s all for today, check back tommorow when I get into a couple of free 3D engines for iPhone game development.

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