don’t talk yourself out of marketing
My iPad Application Color Dog was approved by Apple on March 11, 2011. Why is that date important? That’s the date the iPad2 went on sale. I had originally submitted the app not expecting it would be approved before the iPad2 went on sale and I had also planned to figure out a marketing plan once it was approved, since I set it for a delayed release date.
Once I realized the app was approved and it would be perfect timing for the iPad2 release, I decided to go ahead and put it on sale trying to seize upon the momentum of new sales of the iPad2. I can now without qualification say that was a stupid decision.
This is a week by week graph of worldwide sales of the application.
Color Dog Sales By Week
1. Those are the actual numbers.
2. The first data point, even though it represents sales for a week, actually all happened on one or two days.
3. The small bump the week of March 28 is the same week that the iPhone Mom reviewed the application. Another indication that marketing is important.
4. Not reflected in these numbers is the fact that international sales were not impressive, despite the fact that the app was localized for Spanish, French, German, and Japanese, including voice overs. This was extremely disappointing.
5. Two people requested a refund from Apple during this period. :-(
I don’t think this game I made is horrible. I don’t think it is top notch either, there are lots of things that could have been better. I definitely think it is better than the 0-1 sales per day it is getting now.
What am I going to do about it? Well, the next app I release will have a marketing plan and a delayed release and I’m not going to talk myself out of it under any circumstances. I’ll probably never localize an app for any language ever again. Localization should be something to consider once the app has proven itself and is determined to be a worthy undertaking.
For the next update of Color Dog I’m going to switch categories from Games->Educational to Education. Apparently, that is a softer category. Additionally, I will probably lower the price from 1.99 to .99. Also, at some point I’ll do a free version with ad support or possibly just move the current version to free with ads. I’m still pondering this.
Any suggestions?
This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of blogs by indie iPhone developers featuring two posts per day. You can subscribe to iDevBlogADay through RSS or follow the #iDevBlogADay hash tag or @idevblogaday on Twitter.
April 20th, 2011 at 7:12 am
So you did a sale, and it tanked. On iPad 2 INTERNATIONAL release day, #sworcery got to Top 2 of Paid iPad apps. But on iPad 2 USA release day, your app had a chance!
The lesson is: don’t undersell your work. You did good work, you learned the tools, settle on a price and let it flow.
And yes, Marketing rules.
April 20th, 2011 at 8:24 am
Hi Aaron,
Good post!
I have found that I was more profitable by giving away my app for FREE (iAd enabled) than putting a price tag on it. I guess it really depends on the type of app.
ABC Pop
123 Pop Kids
Pop the Color
All the above apps are available for FREE.
For Mathemachicken I charge $0.99. Maybe sometime in the future I will make the Mathemachicken available for FREE.
April 20th, 2011 at 9:18 am
I agree on the translation. On iOS you should not care about that unless your App specifically benefits from localization or it’s already successful.
Funny note on the german translation of the game “Farbe Hund”. It literally means “the color dog” (eg “dog” is used as if it were the name of a color). Not sure if that was intentional, but it probably looks wrong to most germans.
Better translations would be “Farbige Hunde” (Colorful Dogs) or “Bunter Hund” (Painted Dog). The latter is part of a saying in germany: “to be well-known like a painted dog” which might have triggered a reaction in german users to have a second look at least, simply because it’s a phrase they’ve heard before and that might create interest.
April 20th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll definitely change it to “Bunter Hund” for the next update.
April 21st, 2011 at 8:53 am
Marketing is overrated, tweak your keywords and app name for maximum discoverability on the app store. Be ruthless.
April 21st, 2011 at 9:02 am
How do you get around having apps rejected because of the keywords? In the past I have had a couple of apps rejected because I used the name of an existing app.
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:35 am
I would at least have more keywords in your app title. You probably want to target searches around kids / coloring / matching / learning. I searched for “kids color matching” and the first result is: Color Memory Match – a Free Matching Card Game. That is overkill but you get the idea! For keywords, well you just want to be in the top 25 results for as many relevant searches as possible. You can’t copy another app’s name, but you can certainly use any generic words you want.
April 22nd, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Your app should definitely be there if I search for “color animal” or “animal coloring book”. Just my 2 cents.
August 24th, 2011 at 12:27 am
I wish more people would write blogs like this that are actually fun to read. With all the fluff floating around on the web, it is a great change of pace to read a blog like yours instead.