Monday, August 24, 2009

Three Steps to marketing your iPhone app.


You've heard the news, seen the commercials and now you are excited to get started creating an iPhone application for your brand. Now you find yourself asking how do I get started?


First: You must establish a direction for your "new creation", are you going with a brand driven application, or an application "brought to you by" your brand? There is a distinct difference and value for both.

Second: Pricing matters in the competitive iPhone market. 0.99cents is the most common, $1.99 is a growing starting point. Here are a couple of strategies used by iPhone Developers

Strategy "Lite Version": If you believe that your app has the legs to crawl out ontop, then you may want to consider creating two versions of your application, a "lite and full version". Offer the lite version for FREE and with the right app, your user base will climb. The extended full version needs to also be available at the same time. This way, you allow the user to play one level or two, get them excited to download the full version, all within the app.

Strategy "Price it and then Promote the drop": You price out your app at say $1.99 or $2.99 and then run a special promotion for a price drop after you believe your app has hit it's highest point of sales, promote it like crazy as a limited time offer. You will see this happen quite a bit in the app store. But make sure you price it right. Too high can yield low returns. The lite version is a proven method, as it stands today.

Third: Create a microsite, viral campaign, and special twitter promotional that will get your app recognized. Viral Marketing is power!

We would love to help you with your application next steps. If you are interested, please contact jake@perfectpixels.com for details and a marketing evaluation.