The Season for Your Application

I discussed in Chapter 4 how important it is to set a launch date, and chances are, you are probably trying to get your app out by a certain time for a specific reason.

For example, if you have an application that helps people shop for gifts, you are probably going to want to get that out by Christmas. Considering the ways that stores prepare for the Christmas season, you might seriously think about having your app available after Halloween at the latest. Hopefully, you can get enough people who will use it by Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving).

Since holidays are events that happen annually at the same time, they are quite easy to plan around, and there are times when your launch date will help that. For example, let’s say that you have an exercise application, and you got it out the day after New Year’s Day. Many people make new year’s resolutions at this time, and a lot of them involve exercise. You could easily tailor your marketing campaign toward that. This could be addressed in your press release, on your site, and everywhere else.

In other words, you need to find what is going on, find a way that your application fits in, and show people that they need your application for this reason.

In a similar manner, you might be able to find a way for your application to piggyback on a current fad. Piggyback marketing is when you try to deliberately look like some other popular brand, while still maintaining your original idea.

If you want to see an example of piggybacking, go to the Young Adult section of a bookstore. For example, since Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series became popular, you can find plenty of books about vampires, and many of them have similar covers, fonts, and general looks. Chances are, those books were either trying to deliberately copy Twilight, or were written before Twilight and later released by publishing companies to capitalize on the Twilight fad.

In the same manner, you can dress up your application to match some fad that is rising. If the Super Bowl is coming up, you can emphasize your application’s ability to keep track of teams.