Often times, marketers focus solely on getting their product installed by as many users as possible. Although high numbers of product installs are important, retaining users may be more valuable in the long run. W3i understands the importance of user retention and has a few different ways of finding the right user for your product using InstallIQ℠, the installation manager for smart software distribution.

One way W3i assists their clients with finding valuable users is through the Affiliate Feedback System (AFS). AFS is an optimization tool that gathers information on users’ computers compatibility that would show preponderance for an advertiser’s application. To implement AFS, W3i provides the advertiser with a unique ID for each install. The advertiser then relays performance data back to W3i for each ID. W3i uses this data to find common characteristics (similar traffic sources, browser versions, operating systems, etc.) among users and then recommends users for the advertiser’s application based on where the application performs the best.  Now that’s smart software distribution.

Another source that W3i uses to gain insight on users is the InstallIQ Updater (IQU). IQU is a resident application that provides users with an enhanced download and software usage experience. The benefit of IQU is that it tracks statistics for both installs and uninstalls, which can then be used to understand attrition, create a better user experience, and add insight into issues with installs/uninstalls.

W3i also allows full customization with the thank you page. The thank you page is the first experience users have with your product and W3i sees the value in giving clients the ability to customize it so as to see the most impact. A few ways a thank you page can be used is for remarketing, additional product information, or confirmation that the product has been installed.

How great would it be to make more money from each install? W3i has spent considerable time finding solutions to help clients make the most out of each install using InstallIQ.  When are you going to start capitalizing on smart software distribution by becoming part of the W3i Application Network?

Jessie Golombiecki, Marketing Specialist, W3i, LLC
Jessie uses her experience in internet marketing, graphic design, and testing to lead the charge in marketing management optimizing all touch points with consumers.

MinneBar 2010, an (un)conference aimed at getting Minnesota tech and design communities together, was held on May 22^nd at Best Buy Headquarters.  Here’s a short recap of the event and what’s new on the Minnesota tech scene:

Opening remarks were by MinneBar co-founders Luke Francl and Ben Edwards. They thanked sponsors, including W3i.

The first session I attended at MinneBar 2010 was “Legal Implications of Limewire on File-Sharing Business Models” by Ryan Miest of Robius Kaplan Miller Ciresi, which described how most of the copyright concerns involving file-sharing networks go back to the Sony BetaMax VCR law suit from 1984. No one thought Napster had a leg to stand on. Others like Grokster andLimewire were able to continue after learning not to be centralized like Napster. The Limewire decision is likely to be appealed with respect to the courts findings of personal liability of their CEO. I didn’t think they sufficiently covered veil piercing.

Graeme Thickins briefly introduced me to Rick Mahn founder of Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis and Myke Roventine. I joined about 75 others to hear Myke’s MinneBar session, “Social Web Design: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”. Myke pointed out what he felt were flawed design strategies by the market leading social media players like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo. Does everyone need to put their Twitter feeds on their blog? The Twitter feeds miss the context of the conversation, and aren’t making the web better when being on others’ blogs. He also commented that Facebook has changed functionality multiple times unnecessarily, such as moving the search box several times over the past couple of years. These unnecessary changes caused confusion for users. He also commented how Twitter’s “infinite scrolling” for tweets could be improved by adopting additional UI controls such as those found on BlipFM. He said the big guys are trying the changes instead of user testing. Phil Wilson remarked during the session how this was “try fast, fail fast.”  Also during the session Steve Borsch announced that he just deleted his Facebook account due to privacy concerns.

Next I went to “Bowling for Market Share- How to Grow Your Startup by Narrowing its Focus” by Curt Prins. Curt provided very good start-up marketing advice. Curt laid out his very pragmatic approach to B2B marketing for tech start-ups, and the developers in the audience definitely seem to embrace his methods.

Over lunch, Robert Stephens who was so gracious to advocate for Best Buy to allow Minnesota techies to use their space, briefly remarked on Best Buy’s strategy around digital televisions, and his recent trip to Google IO.

Next at MinneBar, I caught Aaron Kardell’s iPhone app marketing session entitled, “Getting started with iPhone & iPad Development.” Aaron is the founder of Performant Design and developer of the popular iGarageSale app.  Aaron shared his lessons learned in iPhone app marketing, such as the importance of getting on the top 100 lists, requesting app store reviews within your app, ideally after the user has been using it for about a week, some ideas on how to get noticed by Apple (such as taking out ads in Cupertino on Facebook), using roadblock ad campaigns at popular Apple/Mac blogs, using incentive app downloads to burst your downloads, and using vendors like Tapjoy and Flurry App Circle.  After the business discussion, Aaron coded an Italian food finder iPhone app using Yelp’s API and Mapkit.

The next MinneBar 2010 session I attended was “How to Measure P&L When Your Price is Free” by W3i’s Product Manager, Kristin Oberhaus. With users wanting free apps on the Internet, you need to balance the demand gained for free app versus paid app promotion.  Kristin pointed out various models to drive revenue for free applications, including cross-subsidy, three-party, freemium, and nonmonetary.  When free is your model, your P&L must be based on the value driven by your free app and not the price.   

Next I spoke on a panel of Minnesota tech thought leaders, and discussed “How Can Minnesota be Better”. Thank you to Jeff Pesek and Mike Bollinger for inviting me to participate. The session was largely centered on the culture of risk aversion in Minnesota, how Minnesota tech start-ups need to focus on home runs and not just niche singles and doubles, and funding. Jon Dahl, co-founder of YCombinator-backed, Zencoder said that if Minnesota was going to try an incubator concept like YCombinator or TechStars the incubator would need a lot more cash, given the lack of local angel funding and VC activity, and a mentorship program– both essential elements of YCombinator.

MinneBar 2010 proved to be a great place to network with top Minnesota tech experts. I spent a couple of hours after the sessions ended schmoozing with several new faces, including Derrick Shields & Dylan Petersson & of WebproLeads, Matt Bauer of Pedal Brain, and Thomas Grabowski, co-founder of LogLogic. I also listened in as the first ever Minnespark award winners were announced. 

Further, it was refreshing to hear a lot of buzz about Minnesota tech jobs. I gathered that W3i is not the only company hiring right now. It seemed to be a common theme that Minnesota tech jobs are in abundance as many of the companies present indicated they have positions available.  Minnesota Recruiters survey indicates that there is optimism for job growth in 2010 and an increase in personal job security. Minnesota’s tech scene has a large, highly skilled, and growing workforce demonstrated by the energy and attendance at MinneBar and the tech job buzz being generated there.

Thanks to the organizers and attendees, along with Best Buy for allowing us to use their campus (which is absolutely cool) to promote Minnesota tech and design.  As evidenced by the increase in attendance over the 2009 event, MinneBar rocks.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

So, you know you need to have a mobile app for your next campaign, but you don’t know where you should start. I asked Aleksey Cherfas, our top mobile app developer, to tell me what he thinks digital marketers need to know about app development, and he distilled his guidance around how to choose a platform, how to choose what type of technology to use, how do you determine what features to include in your mobile app, and how to drive continuous engagement.

One of the most important decisions in preparation for mobile app development is to decide which platforms you will target. Do you go for the iPhone OS, because everybody seems to be so hyped about the iPhone and iPad; Android, because you heard it is a promising open source platform; or the BlackBerry, just because this is what your boss uses? Regardless of whether you decide to cover multiple platforms right away or focus on just one from the beginning, you should start with analyzing your prospective users and the marketplace. Determine if you plan your app to have a global reach or focus on local markets and seek out device usage in those markets before committing to any particular device. A safe bet would be to single out one device to start with and then gradually expand to others, focusing on those that are more relevant to your domain.

Once you decide on the platform, you have at least three choices in terms of the type of applications you can develop. You can go for developing a native app, which takes advantage of platform specific functionality and design, arguably making it easier to operate for your users, though condemning your development effort to be very complex and technologically involved.

On the other end of the difficulty spectrum in the world of mobile app development are Web apps. These applications are Web pages that are rendered inside a mobile browser and capitalize on the browser’s multitouch technology for navigational interaction. Some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is usually sufficient to build a simple and effective application. There are even frameworks that allow you to harness the power of JavaScript in mobile browsers without much effort. JQTouch, a jQuery plug-in for mobile app development, is one such framework.

Your third option is a combination; kind of a half-native, half-Web app where you would create a native app that uses a browser engine for rendering your content as Web pages but requires you to develop your own navigation instead of using built-in mobile browser navigation controls. This option is a little more technologically involved than a simple Web app. Because you are using a browser engine for displaying your content, the effort is not quite as involved as with the native app.

At this point, it should be mentioned that there are several services that try to solve the multiplatform conundrum and complexity of native development, making your entrance to mobile app development a lot easier. These services will allow you to write your code once, in many cases using JavaScript and HTML, and they will take care of compiling applications into the native code for different devices. Some of the more prominent of them are Rhomobile, PhoneGap, and Titanium. If you plan to develop an app by yourself, do give high consideration to these services.

As you think about the design of your mobile apps, consider these options. You can either make your design very specific to the standards and conventions of each platform, or use your design from other domains (website, desktop software) and transplant it onto the mobile app. Even with the array of platforms out there, it’s possible to use blueprints that will nicely fit into different platforms without violating too many conventions for each platform. There’s no right answer when it comes to design. If you deviate from the standards, you should still stay within familiar metaphors so that the users don’t have to work too hard to learn how to use your mobile app.

The main difference of mobile apps from your other domains is limited display area, so keep it very simple and to the point. Don’t try to incorporate every single feature into the first version of your app. Start with a simple feature of essential functionality and let the user feedback drive your future functionality and application design. One way to keep functionality to the minimum is a product requirements document (PRD). In its simplest form, PRD is a list of application requirements (features) with a brief explanation and some weights attached to each feature. The commonly used weights are “must have,” “good to have,” and “may have.” Keeping these weights in mind makes it easier to set development priorities and move unessential application features into the next releases. Again, keep it simple – think in terms of “must have” requirements for the first release.

Even after users install your app, you are still only one of many that occupy their home screen and will constantly need to compete for their attention. Updating your app often is one approach to keep users engaged and interested. Many successful apps release updates at least once a month. With each update they address bugs and performance issues, but most importantly they try to come up with a small new feature that will keep users interested and prompt them to re-download and open your app.

With so many options to choose from when developing for mobile platforms, your decision should be based on your requirements and resources. If you are to remember one takeaway from above, it’s: keep it simple.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

With the App Store seeing faster growth than Apple’s iTunes due to devices such as the iPhone, iPod, and iPad it’s more important than ever for developers to get their iPhone app found by users in Apple’s App Store.

Enter iPhone App SEO strategies

Developers are recognizing the importance of traditional SEO strategies and how they can utilize some of these simple app marketing tips to gain visibility in Apple’s App Store.

Let’s break down Apple’s app submission form and look at how you can incorporate basic SEO strategies teamed with following good app marketing tips to launch you ahead of the crowd and improve App Store ranking.

Icon:

Think of your app’s icon similar to the Favicon for the web. What sets one Favicon apart from another and makes it recognizable in your favorites list?

You want to incorporate these same app marketing techniques to your iPhone app’s icon. This is a great way to capture the user’s eye and brand your iPhone app.

Title:

The Title should be easy to remember for the user and focus on branding.  If you can incorporate your keyword into the title of your iPhone app, it can help improve your app store ranking.

Description:

The App Store is no longer using your description when matching users search queries to results.

You will still want to incorporate your keywords into the copy because these pages do get indexed and ranked by the major Search Engines (Google, Yahoo! and Bing). This will enable users that are searching via their computer to have a better chance of finding your app.

Keywords:

This has now become the most important tag when submitting to the App Store. Apple started out using your iPhone app’s description in order to match apps to search queries, and has now moved to using the keyword tag.

Unlike traditional SEO where the keyword tag does virtually nothing, it appears that this tag is going to be making a comeback when submitting to the App Store. 

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Do not use your iPhone app’s Name or your company name in your keyword tag. By default users will be able to search for your app by either one of these, and this will free up some space for you to enter more keywords considering that you only have 100 characters to work with.
• Auto Suggest for targeted keywords. Using the auto suggest feature within the App Store is a great way to discover what users are searching for and improve App Store ranking. Incorporate these into your keyword tag.

Category:

Similar to traditional directories on the web, choosing the right category is key for App store classification and findability of your iPhone app.

Summary:

One thing to keep in mind is that traditional SEO strategies change as Search Engines evolve, and you can be sure that the App Store algorithm will as well. You can already see the first evolution with the introduction of the keyword list.

Improve App Store ranking with these basic app marketing tips and enjoy the fruits of your SEO labor.  See you at the top of the App Store results! 

Michael Liebelt, Sr. Marketing Manager, W3i, LLC
As W3i’s senior media buyer, Michael helps establish the company’s SEO and SEM strategies.

This article was written for app developers seeking distribution, however, if you have a website and would like to promote W3i’s applications, go to W3i’s affiliate sign-up form.

Pay Per Install Programs for All Platforms

Every market leading platform, including iPhone, Facebook, Windows, and even Internet Explorer toolbars, has at least one vendor who will sell a consumer app developer installs on a pay per install or pay per download basis.

Cross Promotion Typically the Method Powering Pay Per Install Programs

Most of the pay per install networks utilize some method of cross promotion to drive additional installs while users are installing or interacting with another app.

What Other Distribution Channels Don’t Want You to Know About Pay Per Install Programs

So, how do these pay per install networks, like W3i’s Application Network for Windows apps, iOS apps and browser add-ons, compare in cost to other channels for app distribution such as search, display, affiliate, and OEM?

To answer this question, I had W3i’s Media Buyers examine past campaign performance across these difference channels and tallied up our effective cost per install by channel. The following bar graph is based upon the actual campaign performance which was achieved.

Pay Per Install Programs the Lowest Cost Alternative

As you can see from W3i’s campaign results, pay per install programs can create a meaningful distribution channel while lowering an app developers costs by often as much as one third the cost of other alternatives!

Many app developers have tried search and affiliate programs to promote their app because they are more widely recognized tactics, but have failed to launch and optimize their apps for low cost pay per install networks.

Ask About Compliance & Review the User Experience

Make sure you ask your pay per install program how they adhere to industry best practices, and what care they take in establishing a valued user experience. The engine that powers W3i’s Application Network, InstallIQ, has received the Truste Trusted Download certification and is white listed by Truste.

Get your App on a Pay Per Install Program

Whether you have an iPhone app, a Facebook game, a Windows application, or a browser toolbar, contact W3i to learn how you can launch and optimize your app using W3i’s pay per install network.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

W3i Improves Ad Revenues with the Yahoo! Toolbar 

W3i searched for a way to offer consumers more value and to increase revenues through its free and trial computer applications.  The Yahoo! Publisher Network helped it do both by adding the Yahoo! Toolbar to W3i’s application network to monetize search ads and by partnering with the company to optimize user experience. 

Yahoo’s Full Case Study

Top search engine placements aren’t usually accidental. There remains a certain mystery related to how apps are ranked in Apple’s App Store search results. Determining what name, description and keywords to use for your iPhone app can make or break your chances for success in showing up high in Apple’s App Store search results. Follow these tips and you can increase your chances for iPhone app success:

SEO for Apps: Select the Most Popular, Relevant Keywords to Target

Since Apple isn’t sharing search data, it is difficult to gauge what users are searching for within the App Store. Thankfully, there are a couple of ways to get some idea of what people might be searching for in the App Store:

Auto-Suggestion Method- When any user begins to enter a search string into the App Store search box, ten auto-suggestion search strings are presented to help a user more quickly complete their search query. For example, when I key in “b” into the App Store search box, I receive the following ten search strings:

backflip studios
bump technologies llc
bump
backgrounds
bolt creative
bubblewrap
bluesky studio
bootant.com
bing
blackjack free

You’ll note that in this case, eight of the ten results are for registered trademarks. That leaves two auto-suggestions which are generic, namely “backgrounds” and “blackjack free”. Presumably these auto-suggestions rank among the most popular search queries within the App Store, and would make great words to target. This process of building auto-suggest lists could be repeated until a very lengthy list of popular generic keywords is compiled.

The auto-suggestion method is more time consuming than I would like, but it does allow you to extract search data from actual Apple’s App Store search functionality.

Google Keyword Tool- Google offers a keyword tool which ranks keywords for all web searches. Google’s tool allows for rapid prioritization and there is a mobile search setting in the advanced options. However, the data is limited and excludes smart phones and handheld digital devices with full Internet browsing capabilities.  Since the statistics are not just App Store mobile search queries, app developers should be cautious about how they interpret resulting data. For example, an app developer using the Google tool may want to throw out longer search strings given the unlikelihood of someone keying in a longer string via their iPhone.

Two additional tips from Apple’s “App Store Quick Reference Guide“:

• Try to avoid overly common keywords that make it harder to locate your app:
  • Game     App     Fun
• Try to use unique keywords that allow your app to stand out:
  • Flight     Galaxy     Starship

Submitting Your App’s Description & Keywords

Now that you have built a list of the most popular, relevant keywords for your iPhone app, you need to incorporate these keywords into your app’s description and keyword on iTunes. This can be done as part of your initial submission to Apple via iTunes Connect or on subsequent updates of your app.

A few additional highlights to consider before you click “submit”:

• Include the Operating System Version as a Keyword- Apple recommends including the version of iPhone’s operating system you developed your app for within your keyword list. For example, 3.1.
• App Name Not Required in Description/Keywords- Apple says in their “App Store Quick Reference Guide” that you do not need to include your app name and company name in your app’s keywords.
• Don’t Do Anything Against Apple’s Policies- As with all items related to your app’s submission, you’ll want to make sure everything you do with your app’s submission meet’s Apple’s guidelines. A few specific policies related to app descriptions and keywords:
  • Do not use registered trademarks.
  • Do not use well-known public figures.
  • Do not use unrelated keywords.
  • Do not use offensive or objectionable words/phrases.

For other ideas, check out Apple’s App Store Tips.

Getting high search placements for your iPhone app within Apple’s App Store is important; especially if you are on a tight budget and are relying on guerilla marketing tactics to generate downloads of your app. If you have a budget to increase distribution volume, you can expand your horizons and consider additional promotional strategies. 

Exciting new iPhone app opportunities from W3i are on the way.  Stay tuned in to the W3i site, blog, and newsletter for the latest iPhone app information.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

Picture this: you have all the beloved pictures from your first child on your laptop. You took the time to organize them by month and importance.  You renamed them from the archaic naming scheme that your camera uses to something like “babyname.FirstSteps.jpg”. The screensaver on your laptop cycles through the pictures for all to see. Then one day the laptop makes a dreaded noise and you see the lovely blue screen of death and POOF, your pictures and everything else on your laptop are gone or corrupted.  Devastating!  You need a backup plan.

Did you have anything backed up to another source other than your laptop? Did you put them on CD’s, DVD’s, an external hard drive, or the cloud? You need to think about these things in the modern age that we live in with digital media and our growing dependency on it. You can use cloud based backup services such as mozy.com or carbonite.com to back up your files. You can use external hard drives or DVD’s, but you need to keep them offsite at a trusted friend’s house or a bank deposit box. However, they need to be easily accessible so you can keep them updated.  I bet you are thinking “Why do I need to keep them offsite – that seems pretty inconvenient?”  A slight inconvenience will be worth it if your house burns down and your only backup goes with your laptop in poof of smoke and flames. Theft is another reason to backup your data and keep a copy in an offsite location.

Businesses also need to keep this in mind. You can backup data all you want within your data center but what if your data center disappears tomorrow?  Where are your backups? Ask your IT staff if your data is backed up and can be retrievable in the event of disaster. Ask yourself how important your business data is and how devastating it would be if it was lost.  An ounce of protection today can prevent a ton of pain tomorrow. I don’t care if your backup solution is a manual file copy from one office to another. The point is that you need to have a backup plan, so think ahead and prepare for potential disasters and how you would survive them.

There are numerous software packages and companies that specialized in enterprise disaster recovery tools. Commvault is one of the industry leaders that have a holistic backup solution. We, at W3i, utilize Commvault for our enterprise backups both in our data center and to copy data to an offsite location in the event of a disaster in our production data center. We test key systems on a quarterly schedule to ensure that we have full faith in our backups.  Our confidence level of our backups is extremely high. How high is your confidence level?

How would it feel to lose the precious pictures of your first born? How devastating would it be if your company lost its essential production databases? Plan for the worst, and you will be prepared if it happens.  If you have any other advice for backing up your data, feel free to leave it in the comments?

Matt Brauchler, System Administrator, W3i, LLC
Matt has over 7 years expirence working in Information Systems. He is a System Administrator for W3i with an emphasis on Enterprise Virtualization and Disaster Recovery Solutions. He is also a lawn perfectionist and enjoys learning new technology.