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Sammi's Marketing Guide

Hello folks!
I wrote this guide to help the many app developers out there who are looking for help with how to 'properly' market their apps to achieve their individual goals, be it maximising profits, awareness, market share and so on.
What's extremely important that needs to be realised is that marketing isn't only about advertising or promoting an app, but rather covers a whole range of aspects that may not seem very obvious at first. A brief description of these are listed below:
Product - The actual product that the consumer will have, in this case, your app
Pricing - The appropriate pricing strategy for your app
Promotion - How you will inform and persuade the consumer to download your app, either for free or for a price
Place - Also known as Distribution, this deals with how you get your app to your customer
What will be covered?
We will be covering both the pricing and promotion strategies of marketing your app. The reason we won't be talking about the product and place is because you've probably already got your app that you want to be marketed already developed and at hand, and the distribution channel will more likely than not be the Play store. The other reasons is that the success of your goals through marketing is largely dependent on the pricing and promotion of the app, especially in the mobile app market. I've seen plenty of apps that have so much potential, but are hindered and held back by the lack of appropriate pricing strategies or exposure to the consumer, thus hopefully I'll be able to help out a little in those two departments
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Pricing
Pricing largely consists of a base pricing method, and then fine turned with a pricing strategy.
Pricing Methods
Generally, there are 3 main pricing methods
Cost-based (mark-up) pricing - Simply putting a price that will cover the costs/effort of the development of the app and an additional amount that will provide a satisfactory profit margin. In our case, depending on how much time/effort/money you've spent on your app, you solely base the pricing on how much you think you deserve for your app. In all honesty, this wouldn't be the most smartest choice, especially for apps that have alternatives that are superior or free, or both. Even for apps that may one-of-a-kind or has a major differentiating factor that makes it stand out, a price tag alone may be enough to stop potential customers from downloading the app.
Market-based pricing - Putting a price on your app determined by the interaction between levels of supply and demand - whatever the market is prepared to pay. This may be quite hard to implement without proper market research, which will be expensive or time-consuming, so unless you are a big company, or are willing to fork out a bit of cash to conduct market research, this may not be a good starting point.
Competition-based pricing - This is probably the most common method of determining a price of an app. It's setting a price according to the prices of your competitors. However more likely than not, the most common price of your competitors is $0, and this is most likely the case for apps that have many similar alternatives on the market. However, this doesn't mean that you have to make your app free. Do a Play store search for 3rd party launchers, and you'll see lists of successful apps that are priced similarly and despite the price tag, still garner tens of thousands of downloads and purchases.
Pricing Strategies
Depending on your source, there will be a varying number of pricing strategies, but the main ones are:
Price skimming - This occurs when you charge a very high price for your app. Generally, this is used as a way of conveying a 'prestigious' and 'high class' image of a product, and in the case of apps, truly does not work. In fact, such a strategy for an app may even result in an unfavourable image of the developer. As 'The Most Expensive Journal' puts it, "the practice should be considered digital begging.".
Price penetration - Introducing an app for a low price (including free), building up market share and/or a customer base, and then hopefully introducing a paid/donate version. In all probability a more realistic approach that many developers take, it is probably the smartest and most appropriate pricing strategy that will not only get you that all-important customer base, but also a profit. Be extremely aware though, of having the appropriate balance of free/paid features - no one will buy an app if the free version is lacks the necessary room for testing and trialing, and having a trial app that basically does everything a paid version means that any profit will entirely be based on the goodwill of your customers.
Loss leader - Unlike for businesses, there isn't really much difference between this and price penetration for apps, because they both essentially do the same thing in actuality, that is, introducing an app at a low price (including free), and then garnering as much market share and customer awareness as possible. The only theoretical difference between price penetration and being a loss leader is that the latter approach is taken in hopes that the customer will download or purchase your other apps. However as already mentioned, in reality these theoretical terms won't actually matter because they both do the same thing.
Price points - This applies to in-app purchaes, such as upgrades in games. It basically means setting key prices or price points for the 'upgrades' or purchases in your app/game, an example being having certain 'upgrades' costing $0.50, a higher tier for $1.00, an even higher tier for $1.50 and so on. This is good at 'luring' your customers to purchase more and more 'upgrades' in your game because you start off with a really low price point, and then consistently increase the subsequent price points. Be mindful however to not go overboard with it, such as $1, $150, $300 etc. but common sense would have probably ruled that out already.
Promotion
There's a quite common misconception among many people - a misconception that promotion is the same thing as advertising. However in theory, promotion encompasses advertising to also include relationship marketing, sales promotion, and publicity and public relations.
Advertising
This is probably the aspect that many developers focus on nowadays - having as much flashy images as possible in order to raise awareness and achieve downloads.
Youtube - Youtube is a great way of advertising your app, its features, as well as creating a connection between you and the customer through dialogue. As DoubleP90 says, "watching a short video is way better than reading something, and as always if it's enjoyable it will be shared by people.". People are also more inclined to watching a short video that conveys information visually and aurally rather than reading paragraphs. Advertising in video form will also, more likely than not, provide more information about your app in the same time as a person reading your preamble and going through the help section and all that.
Ads in online magazines and subscriptions - Try to find online magazines and subscriptions that have an audience you think will be interested in your app. The great thing about this method is that your app will be given access and exposureto an already established target audience. Contact online magazines and subscriptions to see if they're willing to put have a banner of your app somewhere in their medium, either for free or a price. For example, if you have a children tracking app, find an online magazine/subscription geared towards parents.
Web ads on sites - Another way of providing exposure to your app, it'll be a good idea to find a website that has the same target audience as your app, just like the online magazines and subscriptions covered previously. There is not point in advertising your elementary spelling game on a website for the aurally impaired.
Direct marketing - This is an approach where you directly approach potential customers offering information about your app. Again, be smart with your time and efforts when choosing potential customers of your target audience. Forums are a good place to start, but be aware that this may create an unfavourable image of you and your app for many people
Relationship Marketing
This is more important than many perceive it to be. In our case, this involves keeping your app users up to date with the latest happenings regarding your app such as future updates, invitations for testing and suggestions, and so forth. It's main focus is to develop a long term relationship with your users through customer satisfaction. It provides a win-win situation where your customers are happy with your app and are more inclined to purchase more of your apps, and you get those all important ratings and profits from the additional sales as a result of customer loyalty. I've known and come across apps that excel in this area, as well as those who leave their users in the ditch and run with the money. How would I know? By simply glancing at the app comments on the Play store. This is probably the most important medium of feedback for you developers, so make sure to regularly check up on it and respond to user concerns.
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion is the use of activities or materials as direct inducements to customers, and aims to:
Entice new customers
Encourage trial download/purchase of your app
Increase sales to existing customers and repeat purchases
Sales promotion is primarily used in a complimentary way to increase the effectiveness of other marketing activities such as advertising. Examples include:
Discounts - Pretty obvious what this one is all about. If you have a paid app, you may want to consider having a promotional discount for a limited time to draw in customers to your app. Big companies do it all time with those $0.99 app sales in the Play store, and they do quite a good job at enticing customers to purchase your app, especially if they're going for pennies.
Premiums - Basically giving customers something extra for their purchase. Usually running for a limited time, you may want to reward all your first-week sales customers with a free download of another paid app, or an extended subscription period for apps like Evernote.
Refunds - Part of the purchase price is refunded back to the customer for a limited time. It's basically another method of discounting apps. Can be used in conjunction with coupons or vouchers.
Free download or trial - This is the most common way of promoting an app, and is used by small time developers and big corporate companies. It may be the best way of promoting an app, as potential users are more inclined to download an app that's free than purchasing a trial version, although this may not necessarily be the case for every app.
Publicity and Public Relations
Theoretically, publicity is any free news story about your app and:
Enhances the image of your app
Raise awareness of your app
Highlight the app's favourable features
Thus from the list, it's quite an important aspect of marketing to gain as much publicity as possible. Usually bigger companies have more ease in this department than small-time developers as they already have a substantial exposure and market share (Eg. Do a youtube or google search on Google Keep and see for yourself). So what does this mean for you guys? Try to contact possible outlets that have the same target audience as your app. tlovidiu has a list of sites that review apps for free.
Public Relations are the activities aimed at creating and maintaining good relations between you the developer and your customers. This can be done by donating part of your proceeds to charity, such as what Swype is doing, or not having any ads in your app, or at least, not having air-push ads (trust me, they get on everyone's nerves). Regarding ads, make sure you don't cross the line separating reasonable ads in your app and ads that literally pop up every 10 seconds, because the latter will most likely result in an uninstall, a bad Play store rating, and a 1 kilometer virtual radius from all your apps.
...aaaannd Bob's your uncle
Hopefully I helped out a bit. Any suggestions or fixes are welcome. If you would like to know a bit more, make sure to check out DoubleP90's "little guide to promoting your app"
Ciao!

Very well written article that covers pretty much everything. Thanks for sharing.
one question
Direct marketing - This is an approach where you directly approach potential customers offering information about your app. Again, be smart with your time and efforts when choosing potential customers of your target audience. Forums are a good place to start, but be aware that this may create an unfavourable image of you and your app for many people
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what makes you say that?

out of ideas said:
Very well written article that covers pretty much everything. Thanks for sharing.
one question
what makes you say that?
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People may find direct private messages advertising apps to be somewhat similar to junk mail in your mail box
Sent from my LT29i using xda premium

SammiSaysHello said:
People may find direct private messages advertising apps to be somewhat similar to junk mail in your mail box
Sent from my LT29i using xda premium
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oh yeah i would if my mailbox starting filling up with junk. lol.
i was thinking you just meant having a thread in general. not so in your face direct.

Well done, mate!
Great reading.:good:

Great article
Great job :good:

Mistakes Developers Make When Promoting Their Apps/Games

This is open discussion, please post your thoughts. Also I will be calling games "apps" too, for simplicity. I have released a game and I am now doing a couple of reviews now and then. This is all my experience. You can agree or dissagree and add your own experience.
This is the list so far
Make an app first and then seek to promote it
Promoting an app with bugs
Asking everyone for Google Play store rate&review without helping others first
Sending review requests without having proper materials for the reviewers and/or not replying to the reviewer
And my notes
This was my biggest mistake. I learned it the hard way and I can see many people do the same. You make an awesome game and nobody ever heard about it before. You need to have people already following your progress. Remember, everything you do is newsworthy to someone! If not, then your game is doomed anyway.
I got few games to review that I couldn't run on 2/3 of my devices. After some time I see the game in google play store with 20 ratings and 2 stars...
In indie "Pay It Forward" works. And it would work much better if everybody did it. The most popular truly indie game I reviewed on my site was from a guy who created an awesome series of tutorials and helped everyone else first. He gots tons of downloads immediately...
My personal favourite. It makes my queue of games to review much shorter. Seriously, people - promoting something is a hard work. Deal with it. And if someone can get you more downloads, it's a good reason to at least try.

Guilty x4
We have a flow chart stuck on the wall showing the app business development cycle.
* Application Planning: concept design, feature design, APIs available, prototyping, audience targeting, platform selection, form factor selection
* Develop and Debug: Platform IDE, SDKs, APIs,
* Market Readiness: developer reg, certification, beta testing, localisation, packaging
* Distribution and Monitization: App publishing, billing, virtual goods, in app advertising
* Retailing and Discovery; Curation, in-app pricing, advertising, promos, PR, Merchandising
* In-Life: Analytics, ratings, user support and updates
Lots of developers spent 90% of there time doing just the development. I think the reality of your success (or your business) needs to spend ALOT more time doing the other processes. Remember when we used to work for large companies that had an actual marketing department? :highfive:

App Monetization

Hi,
I would like to Introduce Ogury Ltd, a relevance based ad network dedicated to monetizing android apps in the utmost appealing way to your users and yourself.
Our founders have 6 years in the advertising business and during this time revealed there was a flaw in the mobile advertising market; the ads displayed are not relevant enough to the individual user, which has led to a lower click through rate and a lower CPM. This being noticed, they created Ogury.
Our solution shows only very high quality and global ad campaigns, which are relevant to your user regardless of where they are located in order to ensure they stay satisfied. We offer a guaranteed CPM of $15, the highest in the market. The reason we can afford to pay you such a high CPM is because our click through rate is very healthy. We work along side other ad networks as a top up service to maximize your revenue!
Integration of our SDK only takes 20 minutes and can be done very easily, not to mention we have an incredible tech team prepared if you have any questions. The Interstitials we show are full page and have two opt out options so your active users will not be aggravated.
We look forward to hearing from you

Ogury said:
Hi,
I would like to Introduce Ogury Ltd, a relevance based ad network dedicated to monetizing android apps in the utmost appealing way to your users and yourself.
Our founders have 6 years in the advertising business and during this time revealed there was a flaw in the mobile advertising market; the ads displayed are not relevant enough to the individual user, which has led to a lower click through rate and a lower CPM. This being noticed, they created Ogury.
Our solution shows only very high quality and global ad campaigns, which are relevant to your user regardless of where they are located in order to ensure they stay satisfied. We offer a guaranteed CPM of $15, the highest in the market. The reason we can afford to pay you such a high CPM is because our click through rate is very healthy. We work along side other ad networks as a top up service to maximize your revenue!
Integration of our SDK only takes 20 minutes and can be done very easily, not to mention we have an incredible tech team prepared if you have any questions. The Interstitials we show are full page and have two opt out options so your active users will not be aggravated.
We look forward to hearing from you
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Do you have any examples of advertisers that you guys consistently work with? With so many options for networks out there, there need to be more data points on average eCPMs by genre/geo and fill rates as integrating a new SDK is time consuming..

What is your payment policies? I am using Adsota - they pay me every 30 days no matter how much I earn.

Hey guys!
Saw that thread about your network http://forum.xda-developers.com/monetization/mobile-ad-networks/one-month-ogury-ecpm-25-t2882858 There were some weird things, but still have some questions: 1) How do you guarantee $15 CPM (how do you provide "healthy CTR" and what does it mean) 2) How does you payout system works, do you charge any fees and how does Ogury earn? 3) Do you support video ads?

$15 guaranteed CPMs sound pretty amazing.. can you elaborate a little more on how that works?

Best Type Of Ad To Promote Mobile Apps

Best type of ad to promote mobile apps
When advertising your app to other countries start from the grass roots level which is pinpointing the countries which you will advertise first. This is important so will have a much clearer picture on who you would will to sell you app to.
Once you establish the list of countries the next thing that you should do is to localize your app. English may be the medium where individuals from different countries understand each other but what else could you do to attract more people to your app? Incorporate their local language in your app. Not all people can thoroughly understand English and are drawn to pay more attention to things that they could understand.
Now after doing all those things, you need to find a DSP (demand side platform) which has self-serve RTB(real time bidding) capabilities like Bluagile and start creating mobile web and in app campaigns. This is the most affordable, convenient and efficient way to run your campaigns. Using a DSP lets you connected with more or less 30 differennt ad exchages which means accessing more traffic than you can ever imagine over 200 countries worldwide. The cost wouldn't be a problem since it's a self-serve RTB you can bid whichever rate you would think would be best suitable for the campaign. Another great thing about this is that they have a brand safe inventory which is accessible through static banners. DSPs usually providereportings on their platform which is far better than getting separate reports from various blogs, article and sites. Creating a buzz in the world wide web is the best way to get more people interested in something new and investing in CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) is the perfect fit to achieve that goal.
To sum it all up, you're creating a mobile campaign using static banners to ensure bot free traffic at a very cheap and affordable cost and you can view the reportings on one area which is very convenient. Learn more about Bluagile by visiting the site:
bluagile . com

Dear colleagues!
In this text below, I want to warn you about the scam danger from "Advertze" company.
We signed the traffic purchase agreement, made the prepayment of $2000 and after that Advertze disappeared.
I'll give you a summary of the situation that happened while negotiating with Advertze.
Our company, Hotger, is the user of MyMediaAds platform, which was the reason of finding and choosing Advertze.
We contacted Aaron Lopez, a manager of the company and the dialogue was started right away.
We have signed the document and received signed invoice for $2000. We did the payment for this invoice by bank transfer and sent the Swift payment confirmation, then we asked them to confirm the payment receiving. After that our partners disappeared, no one answered the phone or email.
We decided to contact Advertze the other way. Our manager added Aaron Lopez( the one who disappeared after payment) on skype. He answered surprisingly quick, started asking about work details and about prepayment!during the discussion Aaron Looez asked for email address. Because we all have same domain it was probably familiar to him. As soon as he saw the email address Aaron disappeared within 2 minutes and deleted our manager from skype and never contacted us again.
This second situation left no doubt, that Advetze is a scam company. They steal not only money but your precious work time.
This is why we want to spread this information as much as possible. Dear colleagues, our company Hotger is warning you, to avoid any contact with Advertze company. Beware of scammers never discuss any prepayments. We, Hotger company, strongly believe that this text should be spread as much as possible in order to avoid the same situation that happened to us.
Wishing you peace, happiness and good honest partnerships.

Low budget for marking

Hi all,
I have low budget for the marking of my new game that i will publish soon
I have only $200 , is that amount will effect or i will just spend for nothing ?
and how i can use them ?
Thanks

It would be very easy to throw that money away. It won't do a lot, all told. Focus instead on the app, encouraging people to review it positively, managing bad reviews, building up a good relationship with an initially small number of users so that they'll tell their mates and build your numbers up. Talk to people for whom your app solves a problem. They don't exist? Well, there's your problem and $200 of marketing won't help

Ryan.T.Student said:
It would be very easy to throw that money away. It won't do a lot, all told. Focus instead on the app, encouraging people to review it positively, managing bad reviews, building up a good relationship with an initially small number of users so that they'll tell their mates and build your numbers up. Talk to people for whom your app solves a problem. They don't exist? Well, there's your problem and $200 of marketing won't help
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Ryan has an important point: actually, adwords, facebook ads, *can* bring some result but at a too much heavy cost. I have tried them and my cost per install was like $5 to $10, for free apps...
Prompting users to review your app in your app works, but do it at moments when they achieve something positive with your app, like attaining a certain level in a game. Building a relationship is a key, i can't agree more to that

$200 is a low budget.
Try first the all free methods we all know are aware off (mailing, asking parents and friends to download and promote the app, posts on forums and so on).
Also try to exchange reviews with other developers (I'm always willing to do it, for instance).
And if your really want to boost the number of downloads of your games in order to look more attractive for users visiting your Google Play page, you can buy incentive installs from tapjoy (0.10 / install will give you up to 2,000 downloads (but I don't think it worth the effort, as vast majority will remove your app right after they get their rewards).

Here are some useful methods to increase downloads for consumer mobile apps:
• Application name-is unique
• Keywords-including related keywords, but be careful - don’t stuff every keyword into your app
• Make Facebook or Twitter page for your app and write story of your game there to attract every users
• Description. Your description is clearly the value of your App
Best of luck in your app business.