iBokan - iPhone App Development

The market for iPhone applications is heating up. Great for consumers and users of iPhones and iPods alike, this trend is proving to be a significant challenge for developers in the process of launching new apps and ensuring these do not become just another needle in the growing haystack of applications out there today.

 

The iTunes App store’s current library of over 43,000 live applications is growing rapidly. Approximately 180 new apps are submitted to the iPhone App store on a daily basis. This may not seem like much, but it translates to roughly 1260 and 5400 new app submissions on a weekly and monthly basis respectively (www.148apps.biz).

 

This means developers can no longer rely on the increasingly brief appearance of their apps on the top of the list when organized by “release date”. The skewed nature of iTunes’ ranking system further means that applications may not do well regardless of how professionally they are developed or how entertaining, useful or educational they might be. Developers can no longer ignore the need, and indeed necessity of spending time and resources on the marketing of apps in order to maximize downloads.

 

And by marketing I don’t mean developing an app, building a descriptive website for it and hoping for the best, but adopting an integrative approach from the start that incorporates and follows a prescribed creative brief and marketing strategyfrom conception, to execution (product development), to going live on iTunes.

 

In recent months I have dedicated significant time, energy and resources not only towards identifying some of the main trends in the iPhone apps market in terms of pricing strategies and the market for iPhone edutainment apps (see http://ibokan.com/category/iphone-dev-blog/), but also towards the effective marketing of Bokan Technologies’ latest edutainment app series Jumbo Book (www.myjumbobook.com).

 

For Jumbo Book, an animated, interactive picture book series about a young blue elephant named Bo and his animal friends “made by parents, designed for kids”, Bokantech (www.bokantech.com) recruited a team of four MBA students from one of China’s leading universities. Many of the insights contained here within have come about as a result of the process we went through in marketing Jumbo Book.

 

The first working document came in the form of the creative brief that would form the foundation for directing and guiding the development and design efforts of our engineers.

 

We noticed very early on that we needed to take a few steps back to ensure that the messaging and branding behind the proposed marketing strategy would be reflected in the app and vice versa. This meant the marketing team spent significant hands-on time with both developers and designers in the initial stages in order to ensure that the branding, logo design and look and feel of the app would be consistent with the creative brief and marketing strategy.

 

So what can developers do to ensure that their app hits the ground running once it goes live on the iTunes App store? As with the development of any sound business plan, solid market research should be conducted prior. Lacking a comprehensive marketing team, the consideration of a few key questions could go a long way to ensuring the project gets off on the right foot, or if it should even be initiated in the first place:

 

1. Which category will the app fall under?

2. What (who) is the target group within this category?

3. Where and how can we reach this target group?

4. Which applications and developers are the main competitors?

5. How and where are competitors positioning their apps?

6. What is the main point of difference for the proposed app?

 

Once these considerations have been addressed, a marketing plan and timeline can be developed that will ensure the application receives maximum exposure, both internally within the iTunes App Store and externally.

Internally, within the App store, rankings rule the world. Appearing in the top twenty can make or break the financial success of an application. Unfortunately the algorithms behind the iTunes App store change constantly therefore removing the ranking system as a controllable vehicle for marketing apps internally. A significant variable that can to some extent be controlled by the developer is the system of ratings and reviews. Each app developer receives 50 free promo codes that can be freely distributed. Developers need to ensure that as many of these promo codes generate a review for their new application as possible. Outside of the ranking system, ratings and reviews are the only benchmarks consumers have to go by in the process of considering their next iPhone app purchase.

 

Externally, outside of the App store, the marketing tools at the disposal of developers are plentiful. The nature of the application will determine the specific channels that should be targeted in marketing efforts. Again, these channels should be confirmed well in advance of going live. Marketing efforts may include direct marketing tactics such as the creation of a dedicated website, leveraging the social networks (facebook, twitter), and requesting reviews, but also indirect in the form of blogs and responses to blogs and reviews of the new app. The more noise that can be generated around the new app, the more chances of getting those crucial downloads that may prove to be the tipping point between making and not making the top 20.

 

Our efforts with Jumbo Book are still ongoing, and lessons continue to be learned. One of our main challenges has proved to be adhering to milestones set from the outset, in terms of both the development of the app and implementing the marketing strategy. Timing is critical. Initiating your marketing campaign only a week after going life could prove fruitless, with the app already long buried by hundreds of new applications that have been added to the App store since.

 

We are keeping a close eye on the uptake of Jumbo Book and developing means of tracking and measuring the efficacy of our marketing efforts. I look forward to sharing these outcomes with the greater online community in the future and welcome any feedback or comments about marketing iPhone applications, an issue that I am convinced will become increasingly dominant in discussions amongst developers online.