So you want to join the mobile app craze? We’ve all heard the iPhone app rags-to-riches stories. With over 200,000 Android devices being activated every day, targeting your app to the Android Market may be a wise choice. But with almost 100,000 apps in the Android Market and 250,000 in the Apple App Store, how are you going to get your app noticed? Doing nothing and hoping people will find you is not enough. Building a web site is not enough. You need strategies and techniques - and you need to build your app to align with your strategy. The “freemium” model is becoming quite popular, but how do you apply it to your app? What can you do to get noticed? Can you build multiple app “properties” and use them to your marketing advantage? How can you use social media to your advantage? How can you tell if your efforts are paying off? These slides are from a talk I gave on Marketing and Monetizing your mobile app and Measuring the results.

1. Getting
Your
Share
of the
Mobile
Dan Syrstad
SyriousGames.com
App
Presented at Twin Cities OTUG 2010-10-20 Market
Copyright 2010 Visual Systems Corp. All Rights Reserved.

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3. How Many of You Have App In...
?

4. What This Talk Is About...
● How to get your app noticed (Marketing)
● How to Get Paid (Monetization)
● How to determine if it's working
(Measuring)

5. What This Talk Isn't About
- How to write an app
- How to publish an app
- How I can do it for you

6. Who Am I?
Software Industry: 28 years
Founder of Visual Systems: 19 years
Independent Consultant (Day Job)
Android Developer (by night): 2 years

7. What I've Done
Custom Software
Commercial Software
Marketing

8. My Android Games:

9. What I Haven't Done...
I haven't implemented
some of the ideas I'll talk about.
But others have, and I'll talk about that.

10. State of the App World
Smart Phone Sales
Source: [1]

11. Smart Phone Sales
Source: [1]

12. Apple App Store
- Launched 6/2008
- # of Apps: 250,000
as of 8/28/2010 [2]
- ~12,500 New Apps/Month

13. Apple App Store
Source: [3]

14. Android Market
- Launched 10/2008
- # of Apps: 80,000 (official)
as of 9/9/2010
- Or maybe 140,000 [4]
- ~17,000 New Apps/Month
- 1.8 billion downloads
(2010-10-13 androlib.com)

15. Android Market
Source: [5]

16. Apple vs. Android - Fight!
iPad Released
Droid Released

17. State of the App World
Source: [4]

18. Now What Do You Do?
- It's hard to get noticed by chance
- How do you stand out in a crowd of
100,000?

19. Ready for the Fire Hose?
- Not just one thing – No Silver Bullet
- One thing is for sure:
You need a polished, engaging app
- Some things will work for your app,
some might not.
- Test, tweak, repeat...

20. Getting Your App Noticed
Leverage your launch momentum:
Figure out your strategy ahead of time
Create a buzz at launch

21. Get App Store/Market Visibility
This should be your ultimate goal
Visibility Here = Free Advertising
You get here by being highly rated
- OR -
On a new launch
- OR -
On an update (Just In - Android)

22. App Store Visibility

23. Android Market Visibility

24. Be Searchable
- Include keywords which might be
used in app description
- Example: Word Game, Puzzle
- A similar game name

25. Your Icon and Title
- Should give good impression of what
your app is and what it does

26. Human Sharing – Word of Mouth
- We're talking face-to-face here
- Many apps are “found” this way
- Ask for it! Ask users to tell friends

27. Electronic Sharing
- In-app features to Tweet, Facebook,
share via email, SMS...

28. Cross-Promotion
- Promote your other apps to established
user base
- Spread the cost of user acquistion
- Extremely effective

29. Cross Promotion

30. Cross Promotion
Different Flavors:
- House Ads
- More Games option
- Flurry AppCircle
- AdMob Download Exchange
- Social Gaming (coming...)

31. Lite Version
- Lite/Free version sells the Full version
- Low barrier to getting on the phone
- Make sure to have prominent
“Buy Full” option
- More in the Getting Paid section...

32. Get Reviewed
- Contact app review sites and get reviewed

33. Social Gaming
Put social features in your game
to get a viral effect:
- Global Leaderboards is a simple one
- Challenges
- Multiplayer

34. Social Gaming
Some free third-party SDKs do this:
- OpenFeint (iPhone & Android)
- Scoreloop (challenges, can earn $)
- One profile for all games
- Friend strangers
- Leaderboards, challenges, achievements
- Tweet/FB post scores
- Shows friend's games (cross-promo)
- Which one??

35. Social Gaming

36. Get Featured
...on Google, T-Mobile, Sprint, & others

37. Social Media
- Companion web site: Blog, screenshots,
leaderboards, etc. Update content often.
- Submit site to Google
- Facebook Page
- Twitter account for app/company
- YouTube Channel – app videos
- LinkedIn – join groups and announce
releases

38. Social Media
- Announce releases to blog, Twitter,
Facebook, etc.
- Think of things to tweet about: high
scores, new features, sales...
- “Like” plug-in for web site
- Keep talking about it!

39. Social Media
There are services which
help you manage social media:
- HootSuite.com (free & paid) – also has
analtyics and mention tracking
- Ping.fm (free)

40. Have a Sale!
…and promote it!
(another thing to talk about)

41. “Pay” to Share
Allow users to unlock features, get
achivements, etc. if they share
with another user

42. Advertise Your App ($)
- Google AdWords (+)
- AdMob, MobClix, etc.
- Facebook (don't bother)

43. Advertise Your App ($)
Advertise your
YouTube video channel
on YouTube

44. E-Mail Signature
Every chance to talk with your users is a
chance to tell them something they might
not know.

45. E-Mail Newsletter
- Only if the user opts-in
- Might be good for some apps,
maybe not for games

46. QR Code
- 2D Barcode scanned by iPhone & Android
- URL to web site or market
- Takes user right to it
- Efficacy info in URL
- Dedicated app biz card, on web site...

47. E-mail Auto-Responder
- Corporate app?
- Links in outgoing emails
for support, etc.
- “Here are other apps...”

48. Getting Paid (Monetization)
- If you're in it for a hobby, don't bother
- If it's a business, your monetization
strategy should be part of your app design

49. What's the Right Price?
- Test, tweak, test
- Test the business model, not the product
- Start low, move higher – slowly [6]
With apps, easier to raise price than lower
- Price must be low enough, but no lower

50. What's the Right Price
- People must be willing to pay for it
- Your intuition is likely wrong,
you must test
- Remember: 10 sales @ $.99 = 5 @ $1.99

51. Freemium – Lite & Full Apps
- Lite version – free – restricted from Full
- Full version – $ – has everything
and NO ads!
- Just getting rid of ads is not compelling
reason to buy Full version

52. Freemium – Lite & Full Apps
- Users don't pay for features, they pay for
the value those features provide (USP)
- Lite/Free version can limit
Capacity (levels, play time) and/or
Features (global leaderboards)
- Observation: Users don't like time-
restricted apps (trials)

53. Freemium – Lite & Full Apps
User Roles in the Free version:
- Understand functionality
- Invite others
- Data participation (encourages others)
- Can be indirect revenue from Free
(cross-promo, socialization, ...)

54. Freemium – Lite & Full Apps
- Not everyone will buy – That's ok.
- Conversion rate: 3-5% depending on $ [6]
- My observation: 6.5% ($2.99) – 8% ($.99)
- It's a numbers game:
Your goal is to push the free version, not the
paid version

55. Freemium – Lite & Full Apps
- Conversion from Lite to Full is
Hard for user
- Download lite, decide, purchase full,
download full, delete lite
- Would be better to have one unlockable
version with in-app purchase

56. Freemium – Lite & Full Apps
- Lite app needs prominent
“Buy Full” option
- It's ok to ask at various points in the flow
- Make sure to explain the value,
then ask to buy
- Unique Lite & Full icons and titles

57. Freemium
- There's a acquisition cost for both
Free and Paid users
- You should know both
- You should capitalize on an acquired user
- Don't just sell to the user once
- Don't make the user think hard

58. Freemium – Other Options
- Free-only app with in-app
purchases (buy features)
- Possible & Easier on iOS
- Possible on Android (PayPal has SDK)
Might violate dev agreement

59. Freemium – Ads
- Free-only, or Lite with Ads & Full
- Google AFMA, AdMob, MobClix, iAds …
- Try AdWhirl (AdMob, open-source)
- Test, tweak, test

60. Freemium – Ads

61. Freemium – Ads
- Ads worked great 4Q 2009 and 1Q 2010
- Have since been underwhelming
- Easy to add, but don't make it your only
monetizing strategy

62. Freemium – Player Challenges
- Social Gaming like Scoreloop
allow paid challenges
- Sketchy

63. Freemium – Loss-Leader
- Make a full-featured, useful, free-only app
- Maybe even no ads
- Promote your other apps in it – low-key
- If your company sells other things,
Free app can drive those sales

64. Is it Working? - Measuring
- Analytics is a MUST
- You must know more than who
- How often
- User retention
- Session length (engagement)
- Every second of use is a second for
user to refer to someone else

65. Analytics
- Also track feature usage
- Button clicks
- Time in game, section
- My games: “Is it too difficult?” Score
trends, levels reached, ...

66. Analytics
Analytics SDKs for iOS and Android:
- Flurry
- Google Analytics
- Both are very similar
- Tried both and now back to Flurry
- Google Analytics' Android SDK has issues

67. Analytics

68. Analytics

69. Measuring – Download Stats
- Android Market Developer Console
- Currently limited – have to manually track
- Google Checkout – track detailed sales
for Paid only
- iOS? iTunes download counts

70. Monitoring
- Google Alerts – setup canned searches.
RSS or e-mail feed
- Twitter mentions (HootSuite can help)
- Watch Twitter #Andriod #iOS #iPhone
#app #game

71. Measuring – Get Feedback
- In-app feedback (email) feature
- App Store/Market Review Comments
- Get a thick skin
- Your app won't be right for everyone
- Most important: Listen and evaluate

72. That's all there is to it!
Contact Me:
Get: http://SyriousGames.com
Talk: dan@SyriousGames.com
Follow: @SyriousGames
Like: facebook.com/SyriousGames
Watch: youtube.com/SyriousGames

73. Mentioned
[1] http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/android-most-popular-operating-system-in-u-s-among-recent-smartphone-buyers/
[2] http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/08/28/apple-app-store-250000-and-counting
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store
[4] http://www.androlib.com/appstats.aspx
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Market
[6] http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/sessions/freemium-vc-panel-enterprise.html (Great panel video!)
Android Market Resources Mentioned:
http://cyrket.com
http://androlib.com
http://appbrain.com
http://www.android.com/market
Get: http://SyriousGames.com
Talk: dan@SyriousGames.com
Follow: @SyriousGames
Like: http://facebook.com/SyriousGames
Watch: http://youtube.com/SyriousGames

74. Interesting Links
App Store Stats:
http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/
http://www.148apps.com/10000/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store
Android Market stats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Market
http://androidcommunity.com/android-market-growing-exponentially-now-with-more-than-80000-apps-20100909/
Android vs iPhone / Smartphone marketshare
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/android-gains-market-share-everyone-else-loses/
http://www.spetnik.com/a/news-story/id:800102399,story:android_tops_blackberry_ios_in_smartphone_sales_for_first_time
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/45404.php
http://www.androidcentral.com/android-becomes-top-selling-mobile-os-us-past-6-months
Software Marketing Now
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/10/the-business-of-software.html
Android Eating Away:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/06/comscore-android-continues-assault-on-rim-apple
http://gigaom.com/2010/10/05/nielsen-android-surges-to-no-1-in-recent-sales
Scoreloop/OpenFeint/Ngmoco:
http://www.girlsintech.net/2010/09/24/smartphone-games-summit-the-changing-face-of-distribution-living-with-apple/
There’s a bubble?
http://www.fastcompany.com/1684020/the-great-app-bubble
Interesting market analysis
http://www.slideshare.net/pinchmedia/iphone-appstore-secrets-pinch-media?type=presentation (esp page 19)
http://www.slideshare.net/keithahern/how-to-get-ahead-in-the-apple-app-store-by-mogeneration-for-mobile-monday-sydney-04052009
(page 13)

75. Interesting Links - 2
http://www.slideshare.net/misteroo/appsfire-app-store-market-real-data-insights (stats - older)
Monitor with Google Alerts
http://www.slideshare.net/misteroo/how-to-market-your-app
Returning to the Purpose of the Original Game
http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Highlights-from-the-Social-Gaming-Summit-2009/ba-p/1470 -
http://www.androlib.com/appstats.aspx - Look at free/paid downloads. esp <50.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217302 - Gaming Upstarts article: “freemium" goods -- free products that upcharge for optional
upgrades on the back-end -- is designing every user action with monetization in mind from the beginning.; “understandable at a glance”;
“it's essential for small companies to produce multiple products, seize opportunities for exposure and build ways to connect directly with
customers. For Appy, it's all about building a running dialogue with fans,”; “Pangea's most effective publicity tactic has simply been text
announcements within its current games “
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/15/how-to-build-a-better-smart-phone-app.html “Most settle at $1.99, but WordWise, a game he
invented, draws about 40% more downloads a day at 99 cents than at $1.99.” -- From a revenue standpoint, this is a strange statement -
$.99 * 1.4 < $1.99 - he’s losing 30% revenue. However, he is building download count, which helps in positioning. But don’t target
positioning by dropping price - you’ll get there by other means.
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/10/gdc-2010-ngmoco-justifies-the-freemium-model/ “We're just finding that, with paid, you can't make any
money. There's only a handful of companies that are able to charge more than three dollars for a game. Gameloft, EA, Square Enix.”
http://www.zdnet.com/videos/events/tech-execs-talk-up-iphone-freemium-models/408811 :
Freemium Talk: “...charging money once, largely once, for that single transaction in the paid space just wasn't gonna get us to the level of
scale”
From Google I/O Freemium panel (http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/sessions/freemium-vc-panel-enterprise.html)

76. Interesting Books
Best Android Apps Best iPhone Apps The Social Media Marketing 2.0
Marketing Book