Five Big Changes In The iOS 6 App Store (And What Developers Should Do) Some developers are complaining that since the introduction of the Chomp-inspired App Store redesign in iOS 6, sales have noticeably dropped. Others say the changes are good for indie developers. Is the new iOS App Store a step forward or step back for mobile app developers, users, and the app economy? Whichever side you’re on, there are a number of reasons why developers are feeling the effects. It’s difficult to parse the legitimate gripes about user interface and its subsequent impact on the long tail app developer community, but from the complaints arising from second-rate developers we know that less popular apps have lost ground and visibility. 1) The Shift To Horizontal Scrolling And Cards The most noticeable, and also most critical, change is the way users are meant to navigate through search results. Now, search results display one card (one app) at a time on iPhone. 2) Using Descriptions & What’s New To Attract Users 3) Stuffing Keywords Into Titles Won’t Help Users
Fiksu nabs $10M to boost app downloads for clients Fiksu , a mobile app user acquisition platform, announced Tuesday that it raised $10 million in a Series B round of funding. This second round of funding comes from Qualcomm and Charles River Ventures. The Boston-based company has plans to use the funds to expand to meet the surge in global customer demand and wants to increase its footprint in both Europe and Asia-Pacific. With just about everyone coming out with an app, the barrier of entry is extremely low but the challenge is to get users to know about the apps and download them. Fiksu for Mobile Apps is focused on lowering the cost of getting new users on both iOS and Android so that companies are better able to grow their services. Fiksu helps improve the cost per user investment through a Web-based portal where users can get paid apps for free if they try out apps from others, thus increasing the number of apps downloaded across the board and letting more people experience possible apps that can improve their lives.
21 App Marketing Resources Worth Knowing I know what you’re thinking: why would I need to read anything else than the Apptamin App Marketing Blog ? Seriously though, even if we do our best to provide you with thorough and useful posts we can’t cover everything and we’re certainly not experts in all domains. So here is a nice list of resources dealing with how to market your app. We actually follow others than these, but most of what we share on our Facebook page, twitter account and Scoop.it app marketing curation comes from there. This list is meant to evolve, as some resources become more relevant and others become less pertinent. Blogs Let’s start with the blogs. AppClover - Marketing and Making Money with Apps What AppClover has been doing over the last few months is pretty impressive. The articles already published (and there are many more to come) cover various topic already: app design, app development, monetization, marketing, promo videos…I could say I’m biased since I contribute, but seriously it’s worth checking out.
Flurry Flurry AppCircle empowers companies to efficiently build high-quality audiences for their apps. Powered by consumer insight that Flurry Analytics gathers from 1 billion mobile users per month – creating the world's largest app audience data-set – Flurry AppCircle uses advanced targeting to find the right users for your app and keep them coming back. Whether your goal is to launch an app with maximum velocity, grow the user base of an existing title or increase engagement among existing users, AppCircle can help. why choose appcircle acquisition case studies Among the world's largest mobile ad networks, Flurry AppCircle reaches more than 250 million smartphone and tablet users per month. AppCircle is equipped with powerful targeting capabilities for advertisers to reach the consumers they want to acquire. Flurry targeting options include: Age Gender Flurry Persona (Interest) Language Country, State and City Platform Operating System High-Performance Ad Units AppCircle Display Learn More
Developer Tips for the New iOS 6 App Store We've known for several months now that big iTunes changes were coming, it wasn't just clear exactly when. Well, the time is now and developers have to make sure they adapt. Of course there are the optimizations for the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 that users expect you to do, but there are also changes in the new App Store that you need to be aware of. Some of these changes you can see right away when navigating the redesigned App Store, others take a little more digging and the rest are really only known by Apple but are affecting your game or app too. A Redesigned App Store One of the nice things about that redesign is that users now pretty much get the same experience whichever device they use. Search results are now displayed "Cards-style". Categories are now "hidden". Apple bets on Genius for app discovery. A Redesigned App Details Page Several things have changed in the way a specific app is displayed, which are impacting App Store Optimization. A Modified Search Algorithm
How to Design App Store Screenshots that Sell Do something. Real quick. It will just take a sec. Open the App Store on your iPhone or iPad. You there? Ok let’s pretend we want to buy a “to-do” type app. Step 1 – your eye totally ignores the apps with 3 or less starsStep 2 – you visually weed out the crap icons thinking the app must also be crapStep 3 – you tap into comparably priced and reviewed apps to see which one looks the best Did you catch that? I’ll repeat it “You tap into comparably priced and comparably reviewed apps to see which one looks the best.” Which one “looks the best”. They are not reading your app description. They are not reading reviews. They are looking at your SCREENSHOTS. Watch how people shop See the below image? 3 out of 12 apps make it past this review cycle, then the screenshot comparison begins. Tell your potential customers what they’re looking at. iOS6 Loves Screenshots On the newly released iOS 6, comparing screenshots has become a LOT easier. Don’t Miss a Selling Opportunity Apple’s new Screenshot Specifications
How to Email Successful People (9 Tips to Thrive) If you want to get in touch with influential people (aka: BUSY people), you need to know how to email them. Despite the buzz around social media, far more people use email to communicate than any other online medium1, and business today still gets done over email, not through tweets. Today, I’m going to show you the elements of the PERFECT outreach email, and how you email busy people the right way in order to make things happen. You’ll also get exact scripts and email screenshots to journalists that landed me big features (worth 200,000+ hits). That said, let’s dig in! Why This is Important to Know Knowing how to write outreach emails might seem like a “no-brainer” or maybe even an unnecessary skill to have, but I can assure you the opposite, on both accounts. If you’re serious about networking and building your platform/personal brand, you MUST know how to email important people, and important people are busy people. Avoiding the Dreaded Trash Bin (“Bin-bound” Outreach) 1.) 2.) 3.) 1.) a.)
iOS App Review Sites – 168 Sites To Promote iPhone And iPad Apps Welcome to the updated listing of iPhone and iPad app review sites listing in iOS development that was first posted over four years ago and has been updated many times since. The list has grown since the last update and includes sites that post reviews for both iPhone and iPad apps. Updated August 27th/2014 This list is posted sorted by Alexa traffic rankings and have been checked to ensure each of the pages are working. The best way to use this list is to look for sites that have reviewed apps similar to yours. Sites higher than that, especially sites in the top 10k could make your app a sensation. Sites in the 50-300k range are getting some traffic, but if they’re asking you to pay for reviews then I would avoid them. I’ve placed submission pages/contact e-mails wherever possible, otherwise I’ve posted contact info or in some cases nothing was found. Before going on to the sites, please help us keep this list up to date and share with your Twitter followers by clicking here.
Implementing Smart App Banners iOS 6 introduces a new feature to Safari that should help app developers clean up their websites and convert more visitors into customers. Apple calls it Smart App Banners. The goal of this feature is to provide app developers with an easy way to direct visitors of their website to their app without having to resort to awful and clumsy pop-ups. Here is a smart app banner as implemented for the promotional site for my Audiobooks apps (audiobooksapp.com). Adding this to your website is incredibly straightforward. Replacing the value for app-id with the iTunes identifier for your application. If you have an affiliate code you can add it to the link by filling in the affiliate-data field. You can also go a step further and add another parameter to your tag called app-argument. The value is passed to your app as the url parameter to this UIApplication delegate method: That’s it.
Tapstream’s Review Bar Helps Mobile App Developers Get Feedback From The Web Need more positive reviews for your smartphone app? Well, you can always interrupt your users by inserting one of those annoying review requests when they’re inside the app itself, but analytics startup Tapstream is offering a different approach — the Review Bar, a “Rate this app!” prompt that sits at the top of your website. “We want to encourage developers to use the Web,” says Tapstream co-founder Slaven Radic, arguing that too many mobile developers don’t bother to do anything worthwhile with their web presence. So with the Review Bar, developers can convince users to write a review at the right moment — not when they’re pissed off at the app (which can drive someone to write a review without prompting), and not when they’re trying to use the app itself. The bar asks for a rating between 1 and 5 stars. One possible drawback: Once someone downloads the app, they never feel the need to visit your site, so they never see the bar.
Making money in a crowded App Store: it's dog eat dog and Spy vs Spy I'm annoyed by this. Now, please note that this is not a complaint about sale pricing per se. As it happens, I bought Spy vs Spy a few hours after it launched (I'm a sucker for a well-done 8-bit remake) so I paid $2; I suppose from a miserly point of view I'm out a buck. I'm fully capable of spending seven times that for lunch without blinking, however, so I can't claim with a straight face that I'm annoyed about the money. I'm annoyed because Robots and Pencils has just taught me a lesson: don't buy iOS games for $2+ because they'll be cheaper soon. App Store consumer valuations: hopelessly broken? So here's my hunch: I think the constant sales are training consumers to avoid "expensive" apps, where "expensive" has taken the seemingly ludicrous definition of "anything more than a dollar." Before I detail my reasoning, a quick poll: please be honest with me now. This is perfectly rational, Economics 101 behavior: experience has taught all of us that apps do, frequently, drop in price.
Introducing New Mobile Ads for Apps - Développeurs Facebook Today we're announcing a new way for mobile app developers to grow their business with an ad unit that helps them reach and reengage their users. We're beginning to test the ad unit with a limited set of beta partners. If you are interested in participating in the beta program, you can sign-up here. Driving installs to mobile apps Facebook has increasingly become a way for iOS and Android developers to grow their apps. Mobile ads are an additional way to drive people to apps. How it works Designing, launching and monitoring your mobile app ad campaign takes place within the App Dashboard with a simple flow. From within the App Dashboard, choose your app and audience: Next, set your budget: Choose your payment method and start your ad campaign.
How to Successfully Pitch Your App And Make Sure It Gets Reviewed – Interview With Erica Sadun | iPhone App Design Templates - Get Custom Designs for your iOS Apps I did an interview with Erica Sadun and she delivered with lots of tips that will definitely help you. If you don’t know Erica, she wrote the iOS Developer’s Cookbook series, Writer at TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) and iOS Developer. Most of your pitches to review sites get unanswered and that is because of some tiny thing you left out. She gives you tips on how you can make sure your email doesn’t get ignored so your app gets featured on a review site. Apps that get featured on TUAW see a lot of downloads, so you don’t want to miss this interview. Download the interview here She even gave a sample pitch that will almost guarantee success, if you follow the pattern, Download the Sample Pitch here Important: Please leave a comment to thank Erica. Get the Pitch Perfect Book Erica and Steven Sande have launched a book that goes into more detail on the getting reviews for your app. You can buy it from Amazon or the iBooks store. Transcript Tope: Hello, everyone. Erica Sadun: OK. Tope: OK.
7 App Marketing Burst Campaign Services Compared | Daily Mobile Report One of the toughest challenges app developers face is figuring out how to push their app to the top of the app charts, and more importantly stay there. But there’s a secret weapon all top app developers know about called burst campaigns. Just about every major app development studio has used a burst campaign service at some point to increase their app’s ranking. These services promote your app through their user base, mostly through targeted push notifications. It has been suggested that 70%+ of users do not look passed the top charts when searching for new apps. The important questions you should ask bust campaign service providers prior to launching a campaign are… How big is their install base? Below are 7 of the best app marketing burst campaign services. ChartBoost Chartboost is a platform for internal cross-promotion, direct cross-promotion with other apps, or promoting across a wide network. TapJoy MagicSolver AppTurbo FreeAppaDay (FAAD) Burstly AppsFire LeadBolt