With the proliferation of mobile applications, the age-old marketing problem of discovery is now paramount.    A major element of success is getting top iPhone apps.  

W3i conducted mobile application research with both B2B mobile app developers/marketers and B2C mobile app users, in an effort to understand the successes and challenges developers face when vying for the top spot in various app stores.  The results are useful as you develop your plan to develop top iPhone apps. 

This article will cover the results of W3i’s B2B Mobile Application research; and the results of the B2C mobile application research will be covered next month.

B2B Mobile Application Research Summary

Method
This data was derived from 33 survey responses to our Mobile App Monetization and Business Model research.  The survey was hosted online with links distributed through 3rd party sites and personal emails.  Recipients of the survey link were asked to participate in the survey and received a whitepaper as an incentive.

Purpose
The purpose of the application research was to uncover app marketing techniques employed to drive mobile app discovery and downloads of native apps developed for the top mobile platforms in the US. 

Criteria
A respondent was required to be a developer of native mobile apps for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and BlackBerry devices.  Each of these platforms offer a proprietary “app store” to developers for managing the discovery, download, and monetization of apps developed on their respective platforms. Most respondents to our survey were iPhone app developers (53%) that develop native iPhone apps as their primary business (47%). 

App Store Rankings
Tip:  Learn how rankings in each app store work and how they affect the number of installs an app receives.  Many of the top apps are using mobile app advertising campaigns to get them to the top of the ranking.  Try flighting—run promotion to get to the top and then stop promotion and let it ride until the app drops below the top rankings, then run promotion again.  Other app stores to consider:  Handmark, Handango, GetJar, and carrier app stores (long approval time).

Each of the 3 app stores addressed in this application research (i.e. Apple iTunes App Store, Android Market, BlackBerry App World) have specific methods for ranking mobile apps.  Only half of the respondents to this survey had a clear understanding of how rankings impact the number of installs they receive.  Most BlackBerry and Android developers do not know their peak popularity ranking in their respective app stores.  iPhone developers have a better understanding of where they fall within the various rankings.

iPhone
50% of iPhone developers have achieved peak popularity in the App Store for a free iPhone app. 28% have made the top 100 list for a paid app.

Android
36% of Android survey respondents have achieved peak popularity in the top 100 rankings for a free Android app.  Most Android developers (90%) don’t know their peak popularity ranking for a paid app and 63% don’t know their peak for a free app.

BlackBerry
2 out of 9 BlackBerry respondents have achieved peak popularity rankings in the top 100 for both free and paid apps.  78% do not know what peak popularity ranking they have achieved.

Business Model
Tip:  Make sure you understand how pricing will affect your demand.  Offering a mobile app for free can rapidly grow your user base; however, to sustain your business you must have a source of revenue. Charging for your app is one option, other options include:  ad supported, selling virtual goods for micro payments, and sponsorship.  Run tests to optimize pricing. 

Revenue from paid apps is the primary business model of most of our respondents (43%), followed by ad-supported free apps (22%).  The three most important factors in determining the business model of their apps were: user acceptance/experience (81%), revenue-per-install (71%), and quality reporting (33%).

For the majority of respondents (81%), user experience, and not revenue-per-install, was the more important factor in determining the business model of their app.

Advertising Techniques
Tip:  Paid search is only one option.  Because mobile advertising is experiencing slow adoption from major brands, much of the mobile ad inventory is affordable (think remnant).  Also, once you have an application with a large user base, use cross promotion to introduce a new application.  Cost effective tactics are PR, blogger outreach, social media and the elusive, viral marketing. 

Most survey respondents have tried at least some form of advertising.  The three most common practices were: offering ads within another mobile app (35%), mobile keyword search (26%), and ads on a desktop website (22%).

A significant number (30%) of respondents are not using any of the common advertising techniques to drive demand for their mobile  apps.  This could mean that they either are not advertising at all or are experimenting with entirely new and different techniques altogether.  However, if we take into account that 42% indicated that they do not spend any money on advertising, we can safely conclude that this 30% simply does not advertise.

Although survey respondents have tried most of the common app advertising techniques, most (52% of ad techniques) yield average results.

Engagement
Tip:  Don’t forget that retaining the user is as important as acquiring the user—depth of content and fresh content are both important to engage users.  It is easier to plan engagement features into the development of the app than to try to retrofit.  And you can’t improve what you don’t measure.  How to measure:  segment subscribers by multiple variables, prioritize segments, determine variables to measure, run a/b tests, roll out across segment, and continue to optimize.  Reports can include:  device reports by vendor and model, traffic reports on how content is being consumed, destination reports to identify potential partners or places to run ads.

Most respondents are satisfied (52%) with how their apps were rated in the app store.  However, 48% see that their ratings either need improvement or are not important.

When we asked app developers what they valued most, increased usage ranked highest (48%).  Given the option of increasing usage of an app by 10% or increasing the number of installs by 10%, developers would rather increase usage.  This is consistent with earlier responses which indicated that 81% of developers value user experience and user acceptance over revenue-per-install.

Marketers are just beginning to get an understanding of how to get top iPhone apps.  Hopefully this application research will give you some clues on elements that are important in your marketing and design tactics.  Stay tuned for next month’s article on the results of the B2C application research of 448 US smart phone users.  If you have any thoughts on how to get top iPhone apps, please leave your comments below.

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.

Google Chrome is building up anticipation from users and developers for their upcoming Chrome Operating System release which is set to include the Chrome Web app store.  As part of the new web store, users will have the capability to find and buy browser extensions and web applications based on ratings and reviews similar to Apple’s iPhone App Store.

Why is a web store needed for Chrome extensions and web apps? 

For users, an ever increasing amount of noise clutters the internet, preventing them from finding applications that best suit their needs.  For developers, there is no simple way to charge for their extensions or web apps, which provides a scalable distribution channel and a widely used commerce platform like the Apple App Store.  Google’s new Chrome Web Store will be released to solve these problems.  Google is following the lead of Firefox, which announced they would be supporting the sale of browser extensions at Add-Con 2009. 

How will browser add-on developers respond to the new Chrome Web Store?

Google began with their design principles for extensions and discussed how they may elaborate on them.  Four key components that went into the creation of each extension include:

• webby:  allow developers to easily create
• streamlined: avoid distracting users from the web
• fast and robust: automatically test for bugs and performance levels
• secure: sandbox environment so extensions must be granted by the user

With all of Apple’s mobile application success can you really blame Google for creating this web store for Chrome? 

This is an attempt for Google to increase traffic and grow their company as a web application distributor.  Apple witnessed a growing amount of success with their app store.  Right now the iPhone and iPad lead consumer app usage with 91% of the market, Android with 7% and Blackberry and Java with 1%.  Consumer apps have grown from 65,000 in July of 2009 and 100,000 in November of 2009.  The iPhone moved over 2 billion apps with an average of 6.7 million a day. With such a wide variety of applications only 5% of apps have over 100,000 users.  With these numbers, it is a no-brainer for Google to start developing their web store.

How will the Chrome Web Store benefit app developers?

There is consistent growth in the development of applications since 2008.  In the Chrome Web Store, apps will be provided to users for free or for a fee.  Currently, in Apple’s AppStore, 75%-85% of the apps downloaded are free while the remaining are paid applications.  The price of a Chrome Web App is predicted to range from $2.99 to $3.99.  70% of the revenue generated from the Google Web store will go to developers and 30% to Google.   Apps that run on Flash, HTML5, or any other type of format will be offered if compatible with the Chrome Browser.  “The Chrome Web Store appears to be less about control and more about connection,”  comments Clint Boulton of EWeek.com   

Creating the Google Web Store is a good way to sort out apps as it provides a catalyst for users to find the apps that they are looking for.  W3i helps users discover apps when they don’t know what they are looking for—during the installation. 

About W3i:
W3i increases revenue, distribution, and engagement for consumer desktop applications, browser add-ons and mobile applications enabling publishers to provide quality consumer apps for free by recommending relevant applications giving advertisers a mass, performance driven distribution channel.  The W3i Application Network uses InstallIQ, W3i’s intelligent installation technology, for recommending PC and mobile applications that users value.  InstallIQ was tested and optimized on over 350 million app installs-over 100 million app installs in 2009.  W3i will prove to be a valued partner in growing your application business. To learn more, visit the W3i Application Network.

Matt Machacek, Marketing Communications, W3i, LLC
Matt is a senior in the Marketing program at SCSU.  Matt is applying his learnings to W3i’s social media outreach.

What are Sponsored Advertisements?

Sponsored advertisements are ads that are paid for by one party and presented by another.  Cost per click ads that appear on Google are one example of this type of advertisement.  Advertisers pay to get their message in front of a user and the user receives something of value, like Google Search (or other Google products), for free.  Sponsored ads that appear within free applications are another example of this type.  These advertisements support applications so they can be downloaded and used for free.

Sponsored Advertisements Get a Bad Rap

Advertising within applications is a vital component in keeping some applications free for download and use.  However, sponsored advertisements in free applications have gotten a bad rap and are wrongfully associated with invasive or negative behavior such as software that is unknowingly installed on a user’s computer solely to collect user information without their consent.  This association is incorrect, as sponsored ads, when properly presented, provide an excellent way of making consumers aware of products or services that may be of interest to them and, as stated earlier, support development of free applications that people want.

To maintain a great user experience, free applications with ads should always follow industry best practices which include:

• Ability to easily uninstall the application
• Displays unobtrusive advertisements within the application
• Does not collect personally identifiable information
• Does not monitor activities

W3i Goes Beyond Industry Best Practice Standards

W3i connects people to applications.  Users receive quality, free applications and are given other application recommendations during the installation process.  Some of our recommended apps utilize sponsored ads to pay for further development and to keep the app free.  To support this, W3i goes beyond industry best practices. W3i’s intelligent installation manager, InstallIQ, uninstalls itself after installing the selected applications, it only installs applications that the user selects and each application has a disclosure which includes its terms and conditions as well as any privacy policy.  In addition applications have instructions on how to uninstall and can be easily uninstalled through the Control Panel/Add and Remove.  InstallIQ never collects personally identifiable information. 

W3i is committed to user trust and credibility, which is why we are proud that InstallIQ is the only installation manager that is TRUSTe certified.  InstallIQ only recommends applications that meet standards for being tested for malware and spyware set forth by TRUSTe and W3i.  W3i tests and monitors all applications, even those that display sponsored advertisements, within the W3i Application Network to remain compliant to these stringent standards.

Sponsored advertisements, when used properly, help users receive free applications that provide value and, at the same time, support the application developer.  W3i’s Application Network proves that sponsored ads in apps do what they are intended to – give the user what they want for free.

Eric Montag, Product Manager, W3i, LLC
Eric is a Pragmatic Marketing Certified Product Manager and uses his experience in internet marketing to lead the charge in product research, planning, and execution from both a consumer and business standpoint.  

Tech Crunch recently posted an article by guest author, Alex Ahlund, that’s worth reviewing if you are interested in marketing an iPhone app.  The article tries to answer the question most asked by application developers and those considering building an iPhone app–How much money can I make developing apps? 

Ahlund conducted a survey to see if he could uncover any information that might shed some light on the answer for this question.  He cautions readers not to take the information too literally, “I strongly encourage you to interpret this information only as an overview of the industry.”

Summary            

Financial information is provided on 96 different developers with average units sold around 101,000 during an average of 261 days.  The average price per application was $5.49 with around 387 sold per day.  According to Ahlund, developers have seen a return of 15 times their development costs.  Numbers may be skewed with the top 10% of developers being the ones with the best sales. 

• 23% of apps sold less than 1000 units
• 56% of apps sold less than or equal to 10,000 units
• 90% sold less than 100,000 units 
• 10% remaining sold 127,000- 3,000,000 units

*Note that Apple seems to be a key contributor in the rising sales of iPhone applications

Promotion Is Key

Success lies in being able to market your application so that it gets into the Top 100 or into any mentioned list.  Being on a recognized chart creates awareness of the application and continued sales. 

Other application marketing techniques include using Twitter, Facebook, forums, blogs, LinkedIn, and other social networks.  Developers continue to search for their niche hoping to create an application that will catch on with consumers and incur high amounts of revenue.  Ahlund states that success is a pretty basic product management theory, “Developers need to produce a fantastic product with high production values.”

Learn more  about W3i entering the iPhone application distribution space.  If you have any iPhone application distribution advice, please leave a comment.

To read Ahlund’s full article, click here.

Matt Machacek, Marketing Communications, W3i, LLC
Matt is a senior in the Marketing program at SCSU.  Matt is applying his learnings to W3i’s social media outreach.

Web 2.0’s theme was the Power of Platforms.  It should be no surprise that a lot of people positioned their solutions as a platform, even if a year ago they were considered a web portal or something similar.   Some of the other non-platform related topics were Freemium, APIs (certainly not a new technology, but definitely a big buzz), and HTML 5.

With this theme, and cloud applications seeming to be around every corner, I expected almost every conversation to be about the cloud or Mobile.  But, there was not nearly as much talk about the cloud as I expected, although Microsoft was prominently displaying its suite of “cloud” products/platforms, Azure, in its booth.  There was not a lot of additional talk about the cloud; and most surprisingly, nothing about Google Chrome OS, despite its scheduled release for later this year. 

I think the highlight presentation, and rightly so, was Tim O’Reilly’s, “The State of the Internet Operating System”- a highly recommended read.  In this, he poses the question,  “What is the operating system of a Google or Bing search? What is the operating system of a mobile phone call?” They all work the same across many devices, so what is that operating system, where does it live and who will decide?  It seems like a crucial question to answer as we move forward.   From my experience, I see this as another cycle.  It was nearly two decades ago that mainframes and dumb terminals allowed organizations to centralize the workload of computing in an organization.  Now it appears that the cloud and netbooks will be taking that same concept to the next level. 

There was a lot of talk about Facebook as a platform, and a new positioning of Facebook seems to be no longer a social network, but the platform for the internet.   Facebook clearly stated that they want to be the place that a user does everything from on the internet, everyone’s personalized hub of information. 

Freemium and Beyond

There was a lot of talk about Free and the freemium model.   Chris Anderson, the author of the book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” moderated a forum with Christopher Dean from Skype, Brad Jefferson from Animoto, and Joe Kennedy from Pandora sharing their experiences with the freemium model.  Pandora’s story is especially telling in that they started with a subscription model, went to an ad-supported model, and then offered a higher-quality freemium to their current ad-supported model, with no ads.  The trick, they say, is to make sure that your free product is really good. 

Another presentation from YouSendIt’s co-founder, Ranjith Kumaran, focused on the lifetime value of freemium clients.  This was a great presentation on applying the analytics that matter, such as your cost to convert a relationship to the lifetime value and not just “vanity” analytics like number of clients. 

In addition, there was a well-attended ‘Birds of a Feather’ session on Free and application discovery, as well as many other discussions on virtual currency.  Ironically, there was not a lot of conversation about the newly announced Facebook Credits and the impact they would have going forward.

APIs

Facebook may have started the big buzz on APIs just before the conference with the announcement of Open Graph, but there was plenty of information on APIs at the conference.   The strength of the API is to allow the community to fill in the gaps in your application.  The owner of the API still controls the logic and data layers, but it is the interface that the community has access to.  This power means that the owner of the API still maintains the valuable portions of the application, while many users can control the user experience. 

Another advantage of using APIs is that the API puts the workload on the server, not on the interface, so it’s not a CPU hog.  This allows for a much better battery life on the myriad of mobile products that are now available.

Mobile

This was a show with a theme about platforms, but mobile as a platform has taken a decidedly different twist in the past several months.

There was definitely a presence, but not so much on the mobile phone, but on the iPad.  Nearly every presentation given for a web app was done through an iPad.  In fact, the stage included a specific setup to allow presenters to set their iPad down and show you how their application worked with the touch-screen interface. 

The use of the iPad allowed a dual purpose for people demonstrating their products; it showed the strength of HTML 5 as well because it forced everyone to avoid Flash, since Flash is not supported on the iPad. 

HTML 5

This had the potential to be uncomfortable, especially when Kevin Lynch of Adobe was put in the interview chair.  Mr. Lynch praised HTML 5, saying that Flash filled a void that was needed, and now HTML 5 just posed a challenge for them to fill the next void. 

Of course, there were iPads showing up in a lot of demos.  Scribd announced they had switched completely to an HTML 5 format and were no longer using Flash for the documents that they posted.   The two big hot points for HTML 5 are:

• Flash optional – a large amount of the video capabilities from Flash can now be handled by HTML 5, although, HTML 5 does not prohibit the use of Flash for the things that it is still best for, such as color correction and audio control. 
• Web fonts – a simple solution with a powerful impact; companies using unusual fonts, meaning not Arial or Times, for their branding do not have to make graphic images to place on their website.  They now have as much control on the web as they do in print and the information is indexable, which, of course, graphics are not.

With these two advancements alone, HTML 5 was looking to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.  

All in all, a great Web 2.0 conference!  The Keynotes are available online as are many of the presentations for the key topics of Freemium, APIs, Mobile and HTML5.

If you were not able to attend the conference, I would strongly recommend visiting the site http://www.web2expo.com/ and viewing some of the presentations. 

Kristin Oberhaus, Product Manager, W3i Holdings, LLC
Kristin has over 13 years of product management experience and is a certified usability analyst. She is an avid believer in pragmatic marketing.

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 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.