8. Worksheets and Checklists

Throughout this book, you’ve read about ways you can evaluate and improve your pitches. You’ve read about the way online websites work and how to position your product for the best possible outcome. To help support your efforts, we developed a series of worksheets and checklists.

As Apollo’s temple of Delphi states, “know thyself.” These items help you assess your product and potential customers as you prepare to enter the marketplace. When completing these forms, don’t fool yourself or “best case” every scenario. Be as honest with yourself as you can.

If you don’t know an answer to a question, do some online research and then make an educated guess. Your answers might not necessarily be exact, but at least by looking into a particular area, you are covering some bases you may not have considered before.

Know Your Customer: Developing a Customer Profile

Before trying to sell customers on a product, consider how large your potential customer base is and whom your product targets. Are you writing an app for pregnant women who use an Android 4.0 device? That’s a much smaller potential market than a game app based on a popular movie that runs on all mobile and desktop platforms.

We don’t want to move you away from a small audience if you can potentially capture the market with a must-have item. If you make a few tens of thousands sales at a good price in a small market, that may carry your company just as well as an ad-supported app with a million installs.

Before you start selling, you need to know who is out there, why they’ll want your product, and the likelihood that you can reach that audience through sales. So, your first job is to describe what the product is and who it’s aimed at.

Worksheet 1: Likely Customer Overview

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Who is going to purchase this product?

• What problem does your product solve? What does your product do for the customer?

• Who has this problem or need?

• Describe your typical customer in detail, including age, gender, job title, likely income, and interests.

• What skill level and technical experience does your customer need to use your product?

• What are the important demographics about your customers that would influence the utility of your product and their likelihood of purchase?

• About how many people fit this customer profile in the world?

• Why, specifically, would your customer need this product?

• Why, specifically, would your customer want this product?

• Do customer geography, culture, and language play a role in this product? If so, how?

• What system requirements (hardware, software, etc.) does your product require from your customer?

• What is your expected price point for the product, and how much pain does this involve for the customer? Is it an impulsive buy or something that requires comparative shopping? Is your customer relatively affluent?

• What special-interest groups does your product target? How do you describe these groups? Will a customer self-identify as a member?

• Why should the customer purchase your product instead of competing ones?

• Of those people who might buy your product, which customers are valuable and which ones are not? Does your product provide a naturally loyalty and upgrade path? If so, describe the customer qualities that influence a continued revenue stream.

Competitive Analysis

One measure of potential success or failure in the marketplace is your competition. It doesn’t take a lot of hard thinking to realize that, if you come up with a product that is virtually identical in form and function to many other products, there isn’t a compelling reason for someone to choose a new entrant into the market.

In this worksheet, we want you to evaluate your potential competition. Unless you’ve developed something completely different than has ever been created before (we doubt it), you will have competitors.

For each competitive product, fill in the blanks as best you can. The idea here is to identify who your competitors are, their strengths and weaknesses, and how your product compares.

This is an incredibly important task for you to undertake, because it gives you an indication of whether or not your product really has what it takes to grab market share from competitors. It may also point out whether your app or product will even make a splash in the market if it is a poorly thoughtout “me too” attempt at cashing in on a trend or fad. Remember, this is most useful when you do your research and complete this for every potential competitor.

Worksheet 2: Evaluating Competition

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the competing product name?

• How much does it sell for?

• What regions of the world does it sell in?

• Does it provide any differentiating features in those regions (e.g., language support, voltage support, etc.)?

• Is price higher/lower than my product’s expected price? How does it compare in price on a per-unit basis?

• What features does the product have that yours does not?

• What features does your product have that this competitor does not?

• What are the strengths of this product?

• What are its weaknesses?

• What is the overall word of mouth on this product? How does it perform in online reviews, customer reviews, and other assessments?

• What is its approximate market share?

• How visible is this product in the marketplace? How did it gain that visibility?

• What does its good reviews point toward in terms of features and functions?

• What does its bad reviews focus on?

• How is it marketing this product?

Potential Market Size Calculation

Reality check time.

We know of way too many app and accessory developers who don’t put a lot of time and effort into thinking about the potential market size for their product. As a result, they often believe that they will sell millions of units and become despondent when the actual number is in the hundreds.

What we’re going to do here is work through a simple calculation based on what we call the shrinking circle effect (see Figure 8-1). To start off, determine the total platform size for your product. This is constantly changing, but a quick Google search can provide you with reasonably accurate numbers, especially if you’re publishing for iOS, Android, OS X, or Windows.

Figure 8-1. Shrinking circle effect.

For example, say that you’re developing an iOS app. The most recent accurate numbers we found while updating this book were from September 2012. That’s when Apple announced that it had sold 400 million iOS devices. In the best possible case, all of those devices are being used by someone, somewhere. In reality, many are broken, have non-working batteries, and were either recycled or thrown out. However, start by assuming the best-case number; 400 million in this example.

Next, think about the percentage of that platform that meets your system requirements. Say that your product uses some features that are only found on the iPhone 5. That considerably shrinks your market. Some online articles by Wall Street analysts point to iPhone 5 sales in the range of 45 million worldwide in the three months ending December 31, 2012. Sales during September were estimated at around 10 million for an estimate of 55 million iPhone 5s. That’s a much smaller number than 400 million. Your potential market just shrank.

Next, think about the percentage of that body of iPhone 5 users who need or want your app. This is where the estimating can get way off. It is best to assume the worst possible case as a result. Imagine an early K-through-3 educational game app aimed at American boys in the 5-to-9 year-old range. A quick look at Wolfram Alpha (http://wolframalpha.com) reveals a current population of 10.2 million boys in that age range. But, how many of those kids have access to an iPhone 5?

Again, it’s educated guess time. Almost a year ago, about 91.4 million smartphones existed in the U.S., meaning that about a third of the population now owns one. That means that about 3.4 million boys have access to a smartphone. If iPhones account for 40 percent of that number, our market drops even further to .4 × 3.4 million = 1.36 million. If iPhone 5s are only about a third of all iPhones in the U.S., that number drops down to about 452,000.

Not every 5-to-9 year-old boy in the U.S. with access to an iPhone 5 will want to play your game. Educational games are a bit like software broccoli or spinach. They don’t appeal to everyone. It’s time to perhaps do a little market research. Maybe you get a sampling of kids in that range and see how many of them really like your app. Out of 20 boys in the age range, maybe half are enthralled with it, while the other half start playing Angry Birds Star Wars almost immediately. Now, you can cut the previous estimate in half, and you’re down to 256,000.

This brings us to the next barrier to entry: What percentage of 5-to-9 year-old boys in the U.S. can talk a parent into installing a kid’s game onto an adult’s iPhone 5? It’s an educational game, so you’ve got a bit of a sales advantage there in talking down the parent. Kids can be persistent, but many parents would probably respond with a stern “No!,” even with a tutorial title.

Let’s say that 80% of all those adults decide that they don’t want little Johnny’s sticky fingers on their new iPhone 5, but 20% are already thinking about their next phone purchase, so they agree to buy it. Multiply 256,000 by .2 and you’re now down to 51,200 or so units.

Finally, think about competition to your app. Perhaps your competition is other games that are similar. After all, educational games are going to attract more attention from parents of 5-to-9 year-old boys. If your app is really unique, the competition might be minimal. But, if the app is similar to others, a likely scenario for a K–3 edugame, you might want to see just how many competitors are out there and assume that you’re going to get an equal slice of the pie.

As an example, if there are three other similar games aimed at the same potential market and your app is the fourth entrant into the market, expect that you’re going to get one-quarter of that market at best. A little math shows that you’re down to .25 × 51,600 = 12,800 units.

When we talk with developers about estimating market share, we tell them to run both best-case and worst-case scenarios. That will at least give you a range of answers, and the high end will hopefully keep you from getting too frustrated about continuing development.

When budgeting for promotion of your product, keep in mind the lowest sales number. That way, you won’t be tempted to overspend and potentially lose all of your profits. If sales are actually higher, you’ll have a nice bonus coming your way.

Be sure to think about some other things when working on a budget. If you charge $0.99 for each copy of your app, you’ll make about $0.69 on each sale after Apple takes its share. That number may vary with other App Stores or distribution methods, but be sure to take that into account. Here, our mythical 12,800 units might make us about $8,832; not a big number, and it probably won’t come all at once.

Pretty rough news to take, isn’t it? You can overcome that low-earning potential through creating “insanely great” apps that meet a need that nobody else is addressing for a wide audience of potential buyers, and of course, marketing can increase your sales (although at a cost).

No single market-size calculation is going to be completely accurate, because the inaccuracies inherent in each one of our estimates are multiplied with each calculation. Remember, this is just providing an educated guess at what your potential market size may be; it’s not a precise accounting of exactly what your sales will be.

Worksheet 3: Market Size Calculation Worksheet

Use Table 8-1 to help you estimate the size of the market for your app.

Table 8-1. Market Size Calculation Worksheet

Pitch Checklists

Your product is built, you’re ready to ship, and it’s time to put together your pitch. Before you click the Send button on your email application to send that all-important pitch email, run its subject line through this first checklist to give your email a better fighting chance of actually being read by a blogger.

Remember that the subject line is the first thing a potential reviewer sees. Unless you start selling from that very first element, chances are poor that anyone will open your email and keep reading the rest of your pitch. Here’s what you need to check.

Worksheet 4: Checking Your Subject Line

Check that you have done the following:

• Included a subject line in my pitch email.

• Included the product name in the subject line.

• Checked that the product name is spelled correctly.

• Explained what the product does.

• Left out a request in the subject line to have my product reviewed (it is implied).

• Included the platform(s) the product works with.

• Included a motivational hook for the product to capture the reader’s attention.

• Explained who the product is for and what genre it belongs to.

• Considered or included a timely tie-in or promotion.

• Made sure the subject line is as short as it can possibly be.

After you review your subject line, turn your attention to the contents of your pitch. You need to make sure that you hit all the standard points each pitch should contain. The next worksheet helps you review your pitch to make sure that you haven’t forgotten any of the core elements needed by reviewers to properly process your request.

Worksheet 5: Checking Your Pitch

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Does your pitch include the exact name of your product, what it does, and why it is different?

• Have you remembered to mention the price you will charge, including the monetary units (for example, dollars or Euros)?

• Did you add links? Always include a link to your product page on your site and another to its ecommerce product page (e.g., on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, etc.).

• Are there one or two screenshots or glossy product shots?

• Did you provide a link to a short video showcasing the product?

• Is there a concise description that specifies the audience, what the app does. and what sets it apart from the crowd?

• Did you remember to provide contact information? Include an email address, any phone numbers, and optionally, Skype and Twitter IDs.

Reviewer’s Guide Checklist

Remember that a reviewer’s guide can help your product gain extra exposure if the reviewer can become intimately familiar with the key features of your product in a short amount of time. Here is a checklist of things to include and omit in your reviewer’s guide.

Worksheet 6: Essential Reviewer’s Guide Elements

Check that you have done the following:

• Included a summary of my product.

• Iincluded a list of product highlights.

• Included a list of new features introduced in this release.

• Included a list of system requirements.

• Included a list of common use cases for my product.

• Wrote a step-by-step tutorial walk-through of the product’s key features.

• Included many screenshots in my tutorial.

• Omitted sales pitches in my reviewer’s guide (not required).

• Omitted installation or startup instructions. (It’s implied that the reviewer will know how.)

Blogger Relationship Database

It’s a good idea to think about setting up a blogger relationship database so that you have a list of contacts to work with for your next successful product.

Worksheet 7: Blogger Contact Details

Here are some example fields that you may want to include when capturing this information for your target blogs and bloggers:

• Blogger first and last name.

• Blogger nickname.

• Blogger email address.

• Blogger telephone number (if provided).

• Blogger shipping address (if provided).

• Blog name.

• Blog URL.

• Specific title at blog (if any).

• Blogger’s “beat” or interest.

• Does the blogger have a podcast? If so, what’s the name, schedule, media (audio or video)?

• Past reviews of products similar to mine (provide links).

• Past reviews of my products (if any, provide links).

• Last contact with blogger (when and where ([if you met in person]).

• Summary to use in the future when reminding blogger of previous contact.

Wrapping Up

This chapter provided you with some tools to use before you begin work on your product, during your marketing work, and in the future when contacting bloggers about new products. As you work on perfecting your pitch, use these worksheets and checklists to hone your marketing skills:

• Know who your customer is by developing a detailed customer profile.

• Are you entering a saturated market? A competitive analysis helps you decide if you have a chance at capturing a significant market share or just the scraps that are left.

• Perform a potential market size calculation to see if your product development work is really going to be worth the effort.

• Fine-tune your pitch and reviewer’s guide by using the appropriate checklists from this chapter.

• A blogger contact database is worth considering if you’re in the market for the long haul.