Do you think that you can make a lot of money because you know about iOS app development? Most people have heard about the break out success stories like Angry Birds and it probably seems like some type of magic trick when developers somehow turn computer code into dollars.
So, the question is
Can you really make money with apps?
The simple answer of course is Yes You Can! Over the past three years I’ve tried a few different entrepreneurial activities including making my own iOS apps and writing a book. Many things I’ve tried had a return on my investment and some didn’t. Most though required me to not only create the product but to really aggressive market and sell the product (even when the product was just my own time).
Here’s Why iOS Apps Are Different
The one huge difference between the apps I’ve had and the other businesses I’ve done is that apps are much more hands-off in terms of marketing. Apps either sell themselves or they don’t. But, apps usually sell at least a few copies each day or at least each week either way. Even my most mediocre iPhone apps would sell two or three copies a day. Of course, when apps cost a dollar or two that is chump change but even chump change is better than no change.
Apps either sell themselves or they don’t
This is not the case with other products – I’ve had products outside of the app store that I worked hard on and were great but they never sold more than one or two copies. I’ve seen others’ products make incredible sales even though they were mediocre but had incredible marketing.
I hesitate to tell you that marketing and selling is not important on the app store, but the truth is that the quality of your product trumps any control you think you may have over marketing. What matters most are the things that the customer sees when they look at your app on the app store: your app icon, the screenshots, the description, app name and the customer reviews.
the truth is that the quality of your product trumps any control you think you may have over marketing
Here are some of the marketing tricks that I’ve tried that just don’t work:
Advertising Sucks for Apps
This is what most people think marketing is: you put up an ad either on Google or a mobile app network. Users see it, click the link and sales inevitable follow right? Sort of, but not really. When you are selling a $100 dollar eBook or $50 per month subscription advertising online makes perfect sense. This is because you can buy traffic to a website where you are selling something and you can be reasonably confident that a fixed % of people will in fact buy it.
So you know how much money you can spend on traffic while still making a profit. Keeping in mind that one click using Google adwords will cost you at least $1 and assuming that you know 3 % of people who see your ad would buy your product (a very healthy conversion rate) you can be confident that that $100 eBook would benefit from advertising because it would cost you $33 to get that sale of $100 (a 2/3 margin).
I learned all this when I attempted to apply this advertising model to Tasting Notes, my app which at the time cost $4.99. Following the above logic, it would cost me $33 to make one Tasting Notes sale netting me a cool -$28 or so.
You can juggle the numbers all you want with different ad pricing and so on but the reality is that the numbers in advertising just don’t work out for iOS apps that typical cost an average of $2.50.
That Other Vague Stuff Is Just That – Vague
You will hear the drumbeat that a good press release will go a long way or that you should list your apps on review websites because of course customers spend hours combing review websites to find just the right $2 app that will fit the bill. I’m sorry that’s BS – most people will just buy the top rated app that interests them and likely buy a few apps from the same category until settling on the one that they like best period.
most people will just buy the top rated app that interests them
I’ve tried some of these other vague marketing tactics with my apps: chatting with the “community”, press releases, talking to bloggers and my apps have been features in major online and even offline publications. Not once did I learn of these features because of a sudden spike in my app sales. It was always just friends and family who happened to be reading the publication.
There is nothing wrong with any of the tactics I am thinking of above, but they don’t really have real world measurable outcomes. It is very hard to justify putting in all that time to court bloggers and so-called “influencers” when you really can’t know what, if any, the effect will be. In my opinion, putting a few more hours into polishing your app will be better spent.
Here’s the One Thing That Increased My Sales By 200% – Twice!
Twice in my career, I’ve been shocked to wake up to check my app sale stats and see that sales increased by 200%! What was the magic marketing spell that I used to pull this off? Well, I did nothing at all and it was totally out of my control.
I was featured in the app store – twice!
Simply put: I was featured in the app store – twice! Of course, once the high wore off and reality set in after my apps inevitably were removed from the app store feature a long great hang over set in.
More valuable than the extra cash was the direct proof that the one thing that matters for app sales is the marketing power and placement of the app store itself. Nothing you can do will ever match the ability of Apple itself to drive traffic to your app.
Nothing you can do will ever match the ability of Apple itself to drive traffic to your app.
Bottom Line Time
Ok – this post is getting long and somewhat rant-like so I’m gonna shut it down. Here’s the bottom line: you can make money on the app store and it’s actually a lot easier than in other businesses. Increasing your sales from whatever your baseline is at right now is very difficult, if not impossible, to do through marketing alone.
What I do and what I think you should do too is focus on what you can control: make the best possible app, make sure every detail of your business is perfect, make sure everything that you control on the app store looks great including icon and app screenshots (but, everything). This is the best marketing that you can do.
What do you think about this? Prove me wrong about marketing in the comments below.
Hey Matt,
I found your point of view on this issue very interesting. And I agree to a certain point:
- If you’re app is badly executed in terms of Design and UX, not amount of marketing will make it a best seller.
- If the app is well designed and comes through on what it promises, chances are the app itself, and not the marketing is what will get it noticed and kickstart sales.
I do believe that in some categories, some blend of marketing like content, social, online press releases and blogger outreach may help in attracting possible users to your app’s site or app store page without the financial cost of online ads. And these channels can be tracked and measured for ROI.
But ultimately, I agree with you that perhaps the most important thing is to create the best app possible to increase the chances of getting included in the app store’s Top Lists, or New & Noteworthy section.
Another benefit from the spike your app will get from that is Word of Mouth, which is of course a type of marketing as well. As you mentioned, it’s not something you can totally control, but you can influence it largely through social marketing. Assuming you have the ability to create an active community, and identify those happy users who may be willing to act as evangelists for your app or brand.
Easier said than done of course… But a well crafted app will go a long way to sell itself, as you said.
Well done. I think your article will make dev’s and app publishers think twice about where and how they allocate and spend their time!
Regards!
@Beny Schonfeld – thanks for the insights! Interesting ideas on using social media and ++ word of mouth marketing!
I agree – the best thing you can do for marketing is make a killer app.
I do think you need to do marketing, but it shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all answer to getting higher sales. Just a small part of your overall strategy.
@Dave – thanks for the comment. Just checked out your blog – looks like you have a few apps out there, nice!
Hey man.. great post!
Good to be hearing from someone who’se been there done that.
One question though – did you actually advertise your tasting notes app and noticed you got $1+ bids?
(or do you think that’s what would have happened if you did)
I did advertise on Google and yeah the bids were about $1 – no one really recommends that you do that though. Most people will say to use AdMob and if you do you will have bids of less than a $1 (or at least I did when I tested).
So, the AdMob ads seemed like a better deal but there was now way to target an audience with them so even though I got a ton more impressions the audience didn’t necessarily like wine. Google gives you ways to select the right audience.
Either way, the cost never worked out for me.
Has anyone tried AdMob or any other mobile advertising more recently and have any successes with them?
Interesting.
I’ve seen other app developers try admob too. Before dumping it for not having any conversions.
But the problem is – most of them abandon advertising at all!
I’ve been seeing ads all over the place for 4info’s advertising platform – adhaven. And the biggest feature they’ve touting is – targeting..
I’ll try it out as soon as my current app launches. Would you be trying it out too? If it works – good for you. If not – let us readers know so we won’t waste money either!
@Shariq – no, I probably won’t be trying out advertising at this point. I’ve moved on on this. If it turns out developers start to report conversions with this new service I’ll consider it. But, as someone who has used advertising to sell more expensive products I’m skeptical that the numbers will ever work out for my $2.99 apps.
Good point. Well then I’ll advertise and let you know