| Help your app sell itself |
| Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:50 PM |
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What influences your buying decision when you go out shopping for a new car? Do you order a particular model online just because it caught your eye on TV? Is dealer's sales pitch enough to convince you? Do you test-drive it before you write the check? Next question: If you own an iPhone, do you remember how you made up your mind about getting it? I distinctly remember stopping by an Apple store and getting my hands on one of them pretty things back in the summer of 2007, after reading all about it online for weeks. After 5 minutes of playing with one, I practically ran home to figure out whether or not my T-Mobile contract expired and how much it was going to cost me to get out early and sign up with AT&T instead (luckily, the contract did expire one month before that and it didn't cost me anything to transfer my phone number). I was a proud owner of a brand new iPhone about an hour later. Another "ka-ching!" for Apple. Lets throw another example into the ring: Back in the olden days, did you sample CDs at the music store before buying them? (by listening to tracks through headphones that dozens of other people put on before you - there is a chance that public health professionals aren't going to be pleased with your answer, BTW). Today, do you listen to samples on iTunes before purchasing music? Apple made it so easy, that I suspect majority of people do it, probably even without thinking. If you make it, they will buy... MaybeLook closely at the examples above. Selling something involves at least 3 things:
If you get lucky, you make something that consumers already know about and want - and you'll need to do a minimal amount of convincing. (Example: Yes, I'd love an Apple tablet that runs iPhone OS). On the other end of the spectrum, some companies come out with products that people just don't get (in both senses of the word), despite enormous investments into marketing. You could merge the "Tell" and "Convince" parts into something called "Marketing", but it helps to keep them separate, and here is why: "telling" is about finding channels for your message and "convincing" is about crafting a compelling message. Sometimes, just "telling" is enough to sell. But I suspect that most of the time, "convincing" is the hardest part - the "last mile", so to speak. I can talk your ear off about product ZZZ, but how much more is it going to take me to actually convince you to pay $XXX for it? An app, anyone?How can we use the same framework to look at iPhone app business? Let's try:
Getting the message out to the masses is hard enough as it is. But what if you DO spend money and time promoting your application, only to find out that people go to your App Store page and DON'T click the "buy" button, for whatever reason? Some products suffer from such "perception" problem - people don't realize how much they will like an iPhone app before they buy it, which prevents them from paying for it. It's easy to say "no" and move on before you know anything about that app, because there are so many others. But if the developer had a chance to spend some time with each potential buyer, number of sales would go up dramatically. Make it speak for itselfYou probably already know where this is going, so lets cut to the chase. If you believe that your app is great and people will love it, make absolutely damn sure that there is NOTHING that prevents users from discovering how good it is. 2 major steps here:
If you still can't attract people after you've done those 2 things, it probably means that you need to improve your app to make it more appealing or that you aren't addressing the market correctly. That's a whole other discussion, better left for some other time... Example and a bit of statsThe other day, I was showing Scramboni to somebody who have just downloaded it for the first time. Their first question was "How do I start playing?", to which I helpfully replied with "You need to register first, click on that button over there". The followup question was "Why?" - that's when I pulled out my own phone and showed them the game (which automatically logs you in every time you launch it, after you register initially). They ended up liking the game. But that "Why?" stuck in my head. I dug up some download/registration numbers and it seems that only about 40% of people that download Scramboni end up opening an account and actually trying out the gameplay. (keep in mind that it's free and under 10mb, so the barrier to getting it on your iPhone/iPod is very low). You need an Internet connection to play, but we warn people about it beforehand. I can't think of anything that would explain such low number, besides the "register before you play" requirement. (Hey, the lobby screen can't be THAT ugly ConclusionOften, you don't get a chance to sell (as in "persuade people to buy") your product. That's when you need to help it sell itself by removing barriers to entry. Links
-- Peter Bakhyryev |
). And it's not like the registration process is super hard - it only requires you to fill out 3 fields. But it seems that it might still be too much for some players.