How to get ahead in the Apple App Store by mogeneration for mobile monday Sydney 04/05/2009

Pick me! Pick me! Getting ahead in the Apple App Store Mobile Monday Sydney May 4th 2009 Keith Ahern Co-founder mogeneration.com @pubzak (personal) @mogeneration (business) We put big ideas in small devices - mogeneration.com Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Background ‣ Keith Ahern co-founded mogeneration in September 2008 with Tom Adams. ‣ Chairman is Ilkka Tales who founded VOIP company engin and has a long history with mobile companies. ‣ Graham Dawson is a mogeneration shareholder and developer. He created OzWeather, the most your successful paid App with company Australian content. here Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Overview ‣ interrobang ‽ ‣ how to get your app noticed ‣ iPhone 3.0 - does it change anything? Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Interrobang ‽ A sentence ending with an interrobang expresses excitement or disbelief in the form of a question For example: ■ They did what‽ ■ WTF‽ ■ Excess data charges cost how much‽ Source: wikipedia The mobile industry is full of interrobangs. so is this presentation. Tuesday, 5 May 2009

MoGeneration update due to the fall of capitalism... Tuesday, 5 May 2009

mogeneration update due to the fall of capitalism... MoGeneration Tuesday, 5 May 2009

mogeneration update‽ due to the fall of capitalism... MoGeneration ‽ Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Mobile survey ‣ In the last month: ‣ Who bought content paid for by Premium SMS? Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Mobile survey ‣ In the last month: ‣ Who bought content paid for by Premium SMS? ‣ Who bought content paid for by Carrier billing? Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Mobile survey ‣ In the last month: ‣ Who bought content paid for by Premium SMS? 1 ‣ 3 Who bought content paid for by Carrier billing? 30-40 ‣ Who bought iPhone apps? (results in red, approx 150 people surveyed) Tuesday, 5 May 2009

iPhone App Stats as of May 2009 ‣ 1 Billion apps downloaded in 9 months since July 2008 (source Apple) ‣ 35,000 apps available (source Apple) ‣ 500K iPhone OS devices in Australia (source mogeneration here- say, conjecture and eavesdropping on carriers) ‣ 33 apps on average per iphone‽ ‣ 1,000 new apps released per week. ‣ Surge in iPhone developer applications since 3.0 announced (source Apple) Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Golden days of app store marketing - there was no marketing. “if you build it they will come” Some guy from the movie “Field of Dreams” ‣ From July 08 until around October 08 an app would stick around on the “recently released” list for a few days and sell. ‣ This suited most developers just fine, they didn’t need to put effort into marketing. Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Rising to the top ‣ Cross promotion ‣ Advertising ‣ Word of mouth ‣ Blogosphere ‣ Review sites ‣ “Lite” (free) vs. Paid ‣ Analytics, feedback ‣ Apple publicity Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Cross promotion ‣ Tell your existing users about your iPhone app, especially if they are on the iPhone! ‣ m.news.com.au had a 28% increase in traffic when mobile users were directed to the mobile version automatically. ‣ You can detect an iPhone user anytime they consume web content including rich HTML emails and calling web services. Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Advertising ‣ Apps can be installed from a link in an email or on the web. The link will start iTunes. ‣ leverage existing online ad networks ‣ Links work on both PC and iPhone. ‣ Considered ‘rude’ to start iTunes/App Store on a device without a landing page ‣ Affiliates - get 5% commission for selling your own apps! ‣ Problem: CPC often too high for $0.99c apps Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Admob Download Exchange •! Show ads for other apps in exchange for promotion of your app •! Ads are automatically created for you and targeted based on the App Store profile •! You choose to serve more paid ads or more exchange ads in your app Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Admob Download Exchange ‣ >80% of AdMob iPhone publishers are participating in the app exchange ‣ Currently averaging >15K app exchange derived app downloads per day. ‣ >300K apps have been downloaded via the exchange since launch (April 09). ‣ 10 apps have >10K downloads each. ‣ >10% conversion rate after the click. Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Word of mouth ‣ iPhone apps are possibly the single most demonstrable (and resellable) products in existence - all you need is an iPhone. ‣ Make it easy to send to a friend. Integrate with the address book - allow friends to engage ‣ Obama app - phone a friend ‣ millionaire - phone a friend ‣ Aesthetics. “boring” apps have been given new life with great sexy sexy aesthetics business weather search Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Word of mouth - urban spoon ‣ One of the top iPhones apps ‣ iPhone version of urbanspoon.com (they have a website‽) - low profile until the iPhone app ‣ urbanspoon (company) recently sold for > $10M USD ‣ Launched widget version of iphone app UI online. sexy restaurant search Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Word of mouth - flight control ‣ Melbourne based firemint ‣ “warm up game”, dreamt up and coded by CEO. “fixed up” by the designers. ‣ 500K unit sales in 4 weeks @ $1USD ‣ 700K unit sales to date ‣ => 700K USD = 960K AUD ‣ less apples share (30%), GST (10%) ‣ => $576K ‣ less estimated production costs $50K ‣ => $526K AUD profit (estimated) Tuesday, 5 May 2009

blogosphere ‣ blogs ‣ twitter ‣ youtube etc. ‣ monitor with google alerts Tuesday, 5 May 2009

review sites ‣ 10-20 significant sites ‣ send a press release ‣ app coupons Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Lite vs. Paid ‣ Android model ‣ 24 hours for a refund. One top selling game “Kenny Rogers Blackjack” - has 40% of sales refunded. ‣ In general free but limited apps help sales of paid apps. But there have been many exceptions. ‣ Apple lite apps must be functional, they can not be called ‘demos’, they can not be crippled with: ‣ time limitations ‣ “upgrade to full” prompts on disabled functionality Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Lite vs. Paid ‣ Lite Success story: iShoot Via Wired When iShoot launched in October, business was slow for a while. And then Nicholas found some spare time to code a free version of the app — iShoot Lite, which he released January. Here’s how that helped: Inside iShoot Lite he advertised the $3, full version of iShoot. Users downloaded the free version 2.4 million times. And that led 320,000 satisfied iShoot Lite players to pay for iShoot. The game soared to the No. 1 spot. $800K USD in 6 months Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Lite vs. Paid ‣ Lite Sob story: Dabble $35K USD to develop $535 USD revenue first month. The lite version had no effect “Lite” on sales ‽ Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Analytics & Feedback ‣ Analytics tools for iPhone rapidly maturing ‣ How are your users interacting with ‣ Providers your application? ‣ admob ‣ Where are your users coming from? ‣ pinch media ‣ What do they love and hate about ‣ your application? mobclix ‣ ‣ Google analytics* How long are they spending on your application? ‣ What device types are they coming from? Are they coming from wifi vs carrier? Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Commbank iPhone App ‣ Lousy app, launches web browser. ‣ Terrible reviews. ‣ #1 free app for several weeks ‽ 237 “*” Tuesday, 5 May 2009

App abandonment ‣ Pinch media: ‣ quot;20% of people only use free apps after the first day they download itquot; (30% paid) Tuesday, 5 May 2009

App abandonment ‣ Pinch media: ‣ quot;20% of people only use free apps after the first day they download itquot; (30% paid) ‣ quot;20% of people only visit a bookmarked webpage after the first day they bookmark itquot; ‣ Nobody would really be bothered by the second stat on a PC. ‣ Push in iPhone 3.0 will help Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Apps are possibly the primary content discovery mechanism on the iPhone ‣ Hamish and Andy is both the #1 podcast and a popular free app ‣ The app is simply the podcast content, without all the podcast goodness‽ (background, desktop sync etc) ‣ Most app users do not know about the podcast Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Apple publicity ‣ You don’t call Apple, they call you. ‣ App Store ‣ staff picks ‣ featured apps ‣ “special” pages in iTunes ‣ Retail Store ‣ Pre-installed on iPhones / iPod Touches ‣ Genre listing table signage‽ ‣ Big shiny icon ‣ Print Male model (‽) Mick Liubinskas ‣ full page ads in SMH, The Australian pointing to OzWeather icon in ‣ TV Ads Apple Store Sydney Tuesday, 5 May 2009

iPhone 3.0 ‣ Apple had a surge in iPhone developer applications for 3.0 ‣ 1000 new APIs ‣ In app purchases ‣ time based: subscription models (magazines, books, video) ‣ content based: game levels, game weapons ‣ Push ‣ real time updates: badge, alert, sound notification Tuesday, 5 May 2009

How mogeneration can help ‣ Strategy ‣ Business models ‣ Development ‣ Marketing your ‣ Training company here Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Contact Keith Ahern Founder mogeneration +61 415 618 993 keith@mogeneration.com twitter (company) @mogeneration twitter (personal) @pubzak Ofﬁces in Sydney (Surry Hills) and Brisbane Tuesday, 5 May 2009

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How to get ahead in the Apple App Store by mogeneration for mobile monday Sydney 04/05/2009

by Keith Ahern on May 04, 2009

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How to get ahead in the Apple App Store by mogeneration for mobile monday Sydney 04/05/2009 — Presentation Transcript