A Developer's Guide to Marketing

Developers are busy. They don't have time, budget or even the know how on where to start with marketing their application. This presentation covers how to market, how to improve the quality of your application, supporting the application in the wild and how to promote and pitch your own work.

Transcript

3. Most developers working on their own project don’t have a lot of time to spare for non-development tasks. 3
4. Most developers don’t have the budget that big brand releases have, nor a team around that release that can help market. 4
5. And most developers don’t put a price on marketing nor prioritize it, so they often do it as an afterthought or at the last minute. 5
6. Devs also get caught up in the “almost done” rut. They are pretty much ready to go to marketing, they just need to finish or complete a few tasks that seem to take a mammoth effort. Paretos principle – the last 20% will take 80% of your effort. Polishing takes a lot. Marketing also fits into this. 6
7. There are lots of ways to look at the application cycle – we can take a start up MVP approach, we can take an agile development approach. Basically though, there are three stages – making ( pre-launch ), release ( launch ) and support( post-launch). 7
8. Things you may ( or may not ) do in pre-launch. Note that promotion should happen parallel to design / development and other tasks. 8
9. Tasks associated to the launch window – the time you have when you know the application is accepted to the store and the day you release it. 9
10. Tasks associated with post-launch. Post launch is about support and improvement, only to repeat this cycle to go back to pre-launch ( development ) and repeat this process. 10
11. Marketing the minute you are settled on your idea. Market even before you code. 11
12. Determine your target audience. Who do you think will use this application? Who are you targeting and how will they use it? Where can you find these people ( online and in person)? 12
13. Who you market to, might not be who buys your application ;) Think of childrens products – they are marketed to parents as they have the decision making power. 13
14. If you discover that someone beat you to the punch and that an application has already been created that is eerily similar to your idea, take a look at how it can be better or improved. Does it lack polish? Are the visuals appealing? Is it user friendly? Does it have a personality of its own? Has it promised features that haven’t been rolled out yet? Is support lacking? It is important to look outside the application store as well, as you will want to determine if the application has a web and or social presence. Does it have a landing site that describes the product and its features? Is there a Twitter handle or Facebook page and if so, how big are those communities? Market research doesn’t have to be a one way street, with you channeling your inner internet stalker to find what no one has found before. Understanding what your potential consumers want or like is important and be easily discovered by sharing your ideas. Enlist others to help vet your idea: you will quickly discover if your plans for application domination have any glaring holes. Talk to people early on to give yourself some time to sort through less crazy of the feedback. Discussing ideas helps define them and better solidify the core concept. Often, someone will chime in with an idea that will improve your current one, and if you are lucky, an idea is tossed out that makes you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself. 14
15. Search all application stores for similar apps. Try them on for size, figure out what you like or don’t like about them. Take note of their features, visuals, description, reviews, ratings, price points. Another good exercise is to do a keyword search. Checking out what people search for is one of the more interesting things you can do: you’d be surprised and likely amused by some of the search terms. Warning: this exercise can easily become a rabbit hole. Keyword search terms can help you evaluate what types of searches people perform and how to optimize the content for your application with this in mind, customizing your title, description, taglines. This article provides some great advice on how to do keyword search the smart way. Both Bing and Google offer tools for keyword search. 15
17. Figure out what gives you a competitive advantage. What is your opportunity? Can you make the app work and look better? Can you integrate something that makes it easier for the user? Did you reduce the amount of steps to finish a task? 17
18. The overall tone and aesthetic of your application has to be consistent and cohesive to build trust with your user base. You need to spend the time to make sure how you package your idea – from the name to the visual aesthetic, tell a similar story. 18
20. How to name things: http://www.slideshare.net/purewest/howto-namethings Making your application name as descriptive as possible will make it easier for users to find it. A user might search for “counter”, “tracker” when searching for a calorie counting application. Carefully chosen adjectives can help sell the application – “easy”, “simply”, “smart” for example, might put a basic user at ease. For a game, the same rules apply, but there definitely is a greater creative license to be had with the game title. Let us look at popular game titles: “Angry Birds”, “Plants vs Zombies”, “Temple Run”, “Fruit Ninja”. All of these titles convey one of two things: a) a struggle or challenge b) a context through an object. Both of these play right into what people desire when they are looking for any type of game. They are not looking for something to occupy them as much as they are looking for something to challenge them. Zombies and Ninjas are on the pulse of popular culture, so these names are likely to resonate with a large audience group. Get creative with your names for your game and explore a variety of adjectives to help convey the in-play experience to the user. 20
21. Consult the Thesaurus Several online tools exist that will help you visually map words that are similar such as the Visual Thesaurus or WordStorm. Explore a variety of words much quicker with node diagrams. Embrace Popular Culture New words are being created all the time, sayings and quotes that suddenly become a part of our language. Check out what popular culture can offer from sites like the Urban Dictionary or Slang Vocabulary Be Anything but Boring Advice on how to avoid a boring name, along with pretty much everything else, can even be found on Youtube. Check out this video that includes some basic exercises and ideas to help you brainstorm a name that is anything but boring. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VikO6sNiBnE#at=49 21
22. How to Write a Good Description Be default, only the first 3 or 4 lines of an application description is shown to the user. This is an opportunity to sell your application to the user. This description preview should clearly explain the intent of the application, as the rest of the description can be used to highlight features and confirm its value proposition. For a description, flowery language need not apply. Consider starting with something that concisely describes the application Include highlights or accomplishments. For example “Top 10 Free Game in the Windows Store”, or “10, 000 users love AppName”. Tease. Suggest there is more to discover Consider including complimentary reviews. If someone has given the application a positive review, why not include it in the description, as users will check the ratings and reviews. Highlight the unique value proposition – why will this application make their life better, easier, more enjoyable? Suggest what future iterations or versions might include to keep people interested and assure them the product will be actively supported and updated. Include Keywords. Think about what your user might search for to find your application and see if you can naturally include those words into your description. 22
23. Don’t force them into your description: it will show potentially causing distrust in the quality of your product. Include the terms of use. For example if you are giving the user a preview by offering a trial mode, be kind and let them know how that works. 22
24. Regardless of the application ecosystem, descriptions will have a character limit. For the Windows Store, descriptions have a limit of 10,000 characters. People tend to be skimmers, they will just scan the description, so be careful that you are not being unnecessarily verbose. Keep in mind that you have a section dedicated to features as well, so these don’t necessarily have to be woven into your description as a bullet list. If you are going to talk about features, remember that it is not always about you. Think about your user’s needs and interests and highlight features that address those. 23
25. Screenshots sets the user expectation for the application experience. If your first screenshot looks desolate and boring, the user will assume that is true of the entire application. It is important to pay attention to your first screen shot – many users might not stay long enough to browse your complete set of screenshots if the first one isn’t appealing enough. 24
26. http://designboost.net/how-to-design-iphone-screenshots-that-sell/ http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3553-designing-app-store-screenshots 25
27. Icons can do a great job of instantly communicating the intent of your application, or what your application does. In the context of the app store, the application icon will initially be listed amongst several other application icons, all rivals for the user’s attention. It should be simple, symbolic and effective; overcomplicated icon design can reduce its effectiveness to convey meaning. Well-designed icons should take into account the overall design theme of the application ecosystem. For example, an icon designed for the Windows Store might seem out of place in other application stores and vice versa. The modern UI of Windows 8 focuses on content and typography – something many have categorized as flat design due to its lack of gradients, shadows, and general ornamentation. Icons that do not fit in with the overall OS aesthetic can be disconcerting. Color also plays a big factor. Anything red can make a user feel unsettled, as it’s a color reserved for failure or urgency in applications. Alerts, warnings, and errors: all these tend to have red in them along with the inevitable exclamation point screaming at you to pay attention. Purple is often considered a difficult color to work with, for example/ 26
28. Design Crowd Sourcing If you have no desire to tackle this part on your own, and don't really have access to a designer, you can easily get an icon created for you by a professional through various design crowdsourcing sites. Their business models might differ, but typically you write a brief for the project and a price. When writing a brief be sure to include what you are looking for, avoid jargon, include references, abuse adjectives, and list your dislikes as well. Be specific: don’t ask for a car when you have a fully loaded Porsche 911 Turbo in slate grey in mind. You can read a good article on how to get the most from crowdsourced design here. 99 Designs http://99designs.com/ CrowdSpring http://www.crowdspring.com/ Freelancer http://www.freelancer.com/contest/ Tips for Icon Design If you want to flex your own design skills, you can pick your favorite graphics program and go to town. Here are some tips for icon design: Start large. It is easier to start with the bigger size and then resize down for the varying resolutions. Be careful using text in your icons / logo – it may become very hard to read at smaller sizes. Resize down and tweak. This will afford you the opportunity to polish the smaller sizes as scaling down proportionally may reduce the design fidelity on certain details. Reduce the image size. There are many tools and approaches to do that http://trimage.org/ http://imageoptim.com/tweetbot.html http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/15/clever-png-optimization-techniques/ http://tinypng.org/ If you need a quick start and don’t want to start from scratch, considering using an icon font. These will provide a solid foundation for an icon, giving you the option to modify or tweak as you see fit. A list of icon fonts have been compiled that might do the job, or perhaps provide you with some ideas and inspiration. 27
29. Icon Design Resources https://kippt.com/bitchwhocodes/icons Creative Inspiration https://kippt.com/bitchwhocodes/flatui http://thebitchwhocodes.com/2013/10/18/a-developers-guide-to-marketing-an-app-all-about-the-icon/ http://thebitchwhocodes.com/2013/10/18/a-developers-guide-to-app-marketingadvice-about-icons-from-the- experts/ 27
30. Examples of some logos in the Windows Store with nice use of white space, iconography – and combo of text and icons. 28
31. All graphic design and application images including logos and icons, should be unified through a design aesthetic created through colors, imagery, copywriting tone, sound design, and font choices. This could be a whole topic onto itself. 29
34. The Art of the Elevator Pitch Pretend you enter an elevator and chance has it, you accidentally bump into someone who can help you with your cause. You have the span of the elevator to convince this person that it is worthwhile. This is often referred to as the elevator pitch - it is the ability to quickly and simply explain the value proposition of your product to anyone who might listen in the time that it takes to ride the elevator. An elevator pitch is not about selling someone something as much as it is making your passion for your project infectious. An elevator pitch could include the following information: what the product or service is who is the intended audience identify the competitive advantage identify the competition pricing or revenue model goals or passion 32
35. A promotional site can serve several functions. It can help grow a user base by providing interesting, relevant or even teaser content. It can act as the support forum or can hold the feature set roadmap. It can be the central repository for common functions like about and privacy policy pages. It can also help communicate to the user the value proposition in a way that the structure of an application store might not afford: it can help make emotional connections. What does this mean? A promotional site doesn’t have the same structure as the application store – you are free to craft your application messaging however you want, and you are free to use whatever you want to do it: video, images, user testimony, statistics, social media. Promotional Sites Create Emotional Connections A promotional site is an opportunity to tell the story of your application. Telling a story allows you to connect to the user in a way that simple description cannot do. Many applications use a carefully crafted demo video, addressing the challenges or contexts for which the application might be used. It is not a simple screencast of the application in use. Some sites feature favorable reviews, as a user is more like to trust the review from another user, than from the developer or company itself. Sometimes, promotional sites collect emails before launch to contact users on updates and launch dates, gauging interest that way. 33
36. Copious amounts of time and energy don’t have to be invested to create a compelling promotional site for your application. Installing and setting up a WordPress install couldn’t get any easier on Windows Azure: a single click and you are up and running. This tutorial http://thebitchwhocodes.com/2013/05/28/from- aws-to-azure-testing-out-the-paas-waters/ walks you through the process step by step of creating a WordPress site on Azure with a custom domain. As a developer, you might qualify for Bizspark (http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/) , which is a program geared towards startups providing free software and services. Windows Azure is part of the Bizspark offering, which would give you a certain amount of xxxx free towards your Azure usage. Alternatively, $200.00 of Azure is available with a free one month trial signup. Head over to the Azure site https://www.windowsazure.com/en- us/pricing/free-trial/ to sign up. Resources for Creating a Promotional Site There are other resources and tools for creating simple sites so that you don’t spend your time creating web pages when you would rather be creating native applications. Some sites will take care of it all including hosting: · LaunchRock http://launchrock.co/ · Unbounce - http://unbounce.com 34
37. · Kickofflabs - http://www.kickofflabs.com/ · Launch Effect (wordpress) - http://launcheffectapp.com/ · ooomf (for mobile apps) - http://ooomf.com · LaunchGator - http://launch.deskgator.com/ · Rails Prelaunch Signup App - http://railsapps.github.io/rails... If you are comfortable with WordPress, you could consider getting a theme made specifically for application landing pages. A few possibilities have been listed here https://kippt.com/bitchwhocodes/wordpress-theme-list 34
38. Behance Dribble DeviantArt Pinterest Twitter Facebook Vine Instagram StackOverflow HackerNews Github Reddit 35
39. Creating new social accounts versus using your own The power of social networks lies in creating connections. Registering new social accounts means the arduous work of building up a community from ground zero. Use your existing social presence to leverage contacts, and you run the risk of annoying them. There is no right answer, both options have their own pros and cons. Starting from scratch means that it is essential that you have the branding done for your application. Use the logo for the picture or avatar on all social networks to help build brand awareness. Not setting the profile pic or using the default icon makes most people think that the account user is a spammer. Take a bit of time to customize and personalize, capitalizing on the branding opportunities. Start building your community by following your target audience and creating content relevant to their interests. Let your followers know you have created accounts elsewhere and suggest they add or follow you. A Facebook page might be an effective way to keep people updated on the application status. It could also serve as a central place to gather user feedback, identify issues and engage with your users. Facebook pages can be created with your own Facebook account which will give you the option to invite all your friends to like it, automatically growing your user base. 36
40. Using your existing social networks gives you the advantage of having an established community, and likely a varied audience depending on the number of social networks in which you participate. Leveraging your existing social networks means you need to be careful about how promote your application without driving everyone crazy with constant updates. It will take some time to figure out what type of content or format appeals to your audience as well. Promotion Ideas for social accounts Social networks are the perfect place to play and get creative with how you tell your application story. Here are some suggestions for how to engage your audience through your social networks: Vine - show the process for your application from idea, to rough sketches, to several lines of code, a shot of multiple cups of coffee , to an icon. Twitter - Update users on things learned daily. Use gifs. Everyone loves gifs. Facebook - run a poll for the best tagline or caption contest Pinterest - create an image board that serves as the inspiration for your application Github - post gists for reusable snippets of code Behance / Dribble - start a who wore it better , using ux / ui design 36
42. You are about to submit your application to the store, and fingers crossed, it will pass on the first try. All the time and effort you put into this project will culminate in the application store listing it as available for all to download. One of the major issues with a store submission is the number of unknowns that surround it: will it pass? How long will it take? What types of things might you have to fix? When your launch day becomes a moving target, it becomes hard to formulate a plan on how to advertise that your application has been let loose and that everyone can start their downloading engines. Set a Specific Date for the Release Most app stores allow you to define the date for release - which does not need to be the same as the date approved. Setting a date for release, rather than just letting it go live the minute it is approved, will buy you some time to do a final push to generating some buzz and interest. When considering this date, rule out any dates that might take some of your traffic. For example, releasing on the same day as an OS update or release. 38
43. You are about to submit your application to the store, and fingers crossed, it will pass on the first try. All the time and effort you put into this project will culminate in the application store listing it as available for all to download. One of the major issues with a store submission is the number of unknowns that surround it: will it pass? How long will it take? What types of things might you have to fix? When your launch day becomes a moving target, it becomes hard to formulate a plan on how to advertise that your application has been let loose and that everyone can start their downloading engines. Set a Specific Date for the Release Most app stores allow you to define the date for release - which does not need to be the same as the date approved. Setting a date for release, rather than just letting it go live the minute it is approved, will buy you some time to do a final push to generating some buzz and interest. When considering this date, rule out any dates that might take some of your traffic. For example, releasing on the same day as an OS update or release. 39
45. Encouraging your user to rate and review your application is important to encourage downloads. Try different approaches when prompting your user to rate or review your application. For example, Draw Something would prompt the user with two choices : rate the application with 5 stars or do it later. This meant that if the user wanted to give a bad review, they would have to go the extra step to do it. A fine line exists between prompting your user and annoying them, so ensure that any in-application prompts don’t border into perpetual nag territory. If you have created several applications, you can promote them between each other. You can cross platform promote your application by taking advantage of social sharing on networks like Twitter and Facebook or even through email. Making your application or its content easily shareable can help drive awareness resulting in downloads. When content is consistently shared, it drives up the quality of the application as many people have determined that it has value. 41
47. Provide a place for people to report bugs and issues and encourage them to use it. This will help you consolidate these issues, making keeping track of them so much easier. Use whatever you feel works best - this could be a Facebook page, it could be twitter, it could be a forum or comments on your promotional site. 43
48. Monitor social networks for mentions of your application. Engage and respond to the users as quickly as possible. This will set the stage for you to follow up with them after you have addressed their issues / feedback Provide a place for people to report bugs and issues and encourage them to use it. This will help you consolidate these issues, making keeping track of them so much easier. Use whatever you feel works best - this could be a Facebook page, it could be twitter, it could be a forum or comments on your promotional site. 44
49. Analytics can help you determine what is going on within your app – where the dropoff is, what features are being utilized. Spend some time to put in some analytics. 45
50. Lots of options for analytics. Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/mobile/ Flurry http://www.flurry.com/flurry- analytics.html?gclid=CNeR_7Lq4boCFUVp7AodOEkAXA Count.ly http://count.ly/ Piwik https://piwik.org/mobile/ 46
51. An application that is actively being improved and updated helps retain a user base. Being transparent about roadmap for future features and releases along with bug fixes helps create trust and will drive repeat engagement. Frequency of updates is important as well. If you are constantly pushing updates, users might assume you are in a perpetual state of bug fixing. If you don’t push any updates, users begin to wonder if the application will be supported. Including your feature roadmap in your application description is important. Highlight any changes and bug fixes that an update might contain – it is okay to treat a part of your description like a simple change log. It lets the user know that the application is being supported and constantly improved. A user doesn’t want to make an investment, financial or time, on an application that is not being actively developed and supported. . 47
52. Including your feature roadmap in your application description is important. Highlight any changes and bug fixes that an update might contain – it is okay to treat a part of your description like a simple change log. It lets the user know that the application is being supported and constantly improved. A user doesn’t want to make an investment, financial or time, on an application that is not being actively developed and supported. . 48
53. Yep. Start over at the beginning and rinse and repeat as needed. 49
54. Start it all over again. Work on quality. Get feedback. Improve. Submit. 50