Comments on: Is Marketing Key to Mobile App Store Sales?

By: David Card

David Card — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:41:42 +0000

At least the way it works now, Ping recommends only based on your iTunes Store music purchases, not your whole library. Most of my and my friends’ music libraries are not from Apple’s store, but all of my iPhone apps are. So Ping would probably recommend apps more effectively than songs.

By: Colin Gibbs

Colin Gibbs — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:28:44 +0000

That’s a good question, Celeste. I think it’s a better fit for music than for apps because there’s a huge overlap between music and social — most of my close friends like the same kinds of music I do, but we typically use very different mobile apps. That said, no single bullet will kill the discoverability problem, and I can see Ping (or others like it) playing a role — especially when it comes to community-focused apps.

By: Celeste LeCompte

Celeste LeCompte — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:12:53 +0000

If Ping expands beyond music, could it be another way to attack the discoverability puzzle for apps?

By: bobgallagheruk

bobgallagheruk — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 09:09:18 +0000

Discoverability is certainly the key gripe of app developers. Therefore it is good to see some interesting businesses being started to try and tackle this issue.

Free App a Day is one such company, providing a platform for developers to promote their applications to a significant user base via web as well as an iPhone app. You only have to check the top free apps in the US App Store to see how many have rocketed into the charts thanks to FAAD.

Another company is Chomp, who is positioning itself to be the leader of search within the apps niche. Rather than purely matching words found in the app title or description as the app stores’ own search functions do currently, Chomp is working to make its engine perform more semantically, as well as using social recommendations to prioritise results.

I have just written a blog post considering how the continued growth and gradual maturation of the app market will impact developers and brands. One conclusion is that high sales figures are going to become more and more dependent on effective marketing. As more big brands enter the market it is going to create more noise and stiffer competition. Thus it will become harder to achieve the same levels of success that many indie developers have done previously without a significant budget. My article is available here: http://su.pr/2VGigZ

By: Colin Gibbs

Colin Gibbs — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:04:51 +0000

Thanks for the comments, Sal. Two responses:

1) By branding the app wisely, I mean that developers/publishers should try to give users an indication of what the app does, especially when the app addresses a specific use case. Bento, for instance, appears to be a solid productivity app (I haven’t tried it), but the name doesn’t give me a clue what it does or who it’s designed for. Bond YTM, on the other hand, explicitly informs its target audience (financial types) of its purpose. (The fact that the name means nothing to me is OK, because I can’t balance a checkbook, much less calculate bond yield to maturity. YTM. Who knew?)

2) Every time I talk to one of my contacts in mobile advertising, I’m more amazed at how effectively they can target ads to very narrow segments of the population. I know that developers usually aren’t marketing wizards (those seem like very different skill sets to me), but I think it’s important to identify the audience specific apps are built for. A first-person shooter, then, could be advertised on a mobile site for hardcore gamers who own a handset that supports the game, while Bond YTM ads could be delivered to users with high-end, business-type handsets visiting Bloomberg.com.

By: sal

sal — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:07:57 +0000

Colin, very good points. Discoverability is key and getting harder. Seems like the top 25 apps list is fairly static with perhaps a few new break-ins mainly in games, etc. for non-game apps its hard to break in.

BTW what did you mean by “Brand the app wisely and back it with targeted advertising”

By: Colin Gibbs

Colin Gibbs — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:42:19 +0000

I agree that this is the biggest challenge for Apple, Michael, and for all the other app stores coming to market. The first to effectively address the discoverability problem will have a substantial edge on the competition — and will likely be copied by the others post haste.

By: Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:17:44 +0000

I would guess most people are like me and simply look at top 25 lists to see what apps are being adopted before downloading. I think the long-tail is great in theory, but there needs to be a better way to sort through the clutter. I think this will be Apple’s biggest challenge going forward, trying to figure out how to keep developers interested in a market where the vast majority aren’t really recouping the costs to make a app.