Getting the Word Out
As a developer, you will find that is simply not enough to put your application out on Google Play and other app marketplaces and expect a whole bunch of downloads. Getting your application out is only the first step, and what is needed is a marketing plan that utilizes the appropriate promotional channels. This chapter discusses both the way to set up your marketing plan and the promotional channels you can pick from.
It’s always good to have a plan. This chapter will introduce a number of marketing techniques you can use, but not all of them will be a good fit for your app. Perhaps you might not have the budget for the more expensive techniques, or your target market might not be reachable using certain techniques. For example, if your market is international, you might not benefit from local radio ads.
A full marketing plan is probably overkill for a company with a single app. However, elements of a marketing plan can still be useful when deciding how to best address your market.
Marketing is all about communicating the value of your product to potential customers. Before you can communicate why a customer should use your app, you should be sure that you understand why.
A lot of the work you did (well, we hope you did it) in Chapter 2 when defining your mini-business plan can also help you with your marketing plan. Remember when you determined the problem your app solves, analyzed your competition, and determined the target market? It is now time to think about those things in a different context. A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a useful way to think about how to frame your message to your customers. By understanding your internal strengths, weakness, and external opportunities and threats, you can craft a message with an eye toward your position in the marketplace. Naturally, your strengths and weaknesses should be considered with respect to the problem you are trying to solve and with respect to your competitors. Your competitors also help define the threats and opportunities in the market.
Your company’s strengths and weaknesses are internal issues. As such, reflecting on your company’s culture and goals can help you uncover strengths and weaknesses that can keep you on point with your message.
While competitors affect your view of threats and opportunities, so do your customers. So how does your target market affect your marketing approach? When analyzing customers, you should think about what drives their decision process. What kind of person will be buying your product? What would this person consider to be a good “value?” These questions about your target audience, which were addressed in Chapter 2, help you better shape your message to your customers.
When you understand yourself, your competitors, and your customers, you begin to understand how to best promote your product. If your app is intended for business use, Facebook might not be as useful to you as LinkedIn. If your users don’t spend a lot of time online, maybe trying to get written up in print journals is a good approach. If your competitors aren’t getting good traction with young blacks, and you see an opening, then maybe you should focus a lot of energy on Twitter, which does well with both African-Americans and young adults. If your app will sell for a high price, online advertising might make sense. If your app is ad-supported, you might need to resort to free forms of advertising. There are endless possibilities here, but they all begin with a SWOT analysis. Keep your SWOT analysis in mind as we talk about promotional channels. Some promotional techniques will be right for you, and some won’t.
Establishing a marketing budget will help you make a decision about what you can and can’t afford. We will discuss a range of marketing activities you can pursue, and many of them are completely free. Others can be quite expensive, but the time may come when that money will be well spent. In any case, you need to budget for marketing and sales costs. If you are serious about making money with your app, you should at least allocate space in your budget for a web site and some business cards. These are extremely low cost items that will go a long way toward establishing an air of professionalism. If money is tight, you can use your personal phone number for business and work from your home. Invest the money you’ve saved in advertising. We’ll talk about that later, but let’s start with your web site, which is the centerpiece of any promotional effort in the Internet age.
Having a web site is critical if you want to be taken seriously. Any promotion you do should direct people to your web site, in which they can learn more about your app and then (hopefully) download or buy it. Fortunately, these days building a basic web site is easy, even if you’re not technically savvy. Many online tools exist that allow you to easily create your own site. In Chapter 2, we discussed how to set up a web site for testing your market demand hypothesis. You can use the same tools to create your real web site. Maybe now is the time to upgrade to a paid account and host your own domain.
If it exists at all, your web site probably doesn’t look like much at this point. Maybe you used it as a place to build your community or as a placeholder until you can get your application going. In other words, your web site may be nothing more than a shop with “coming soon” signs on it. Now you need to make it an effective selling tool for your applications. Remember that your goal is to convert viewers into app users.
Now is the time to prep your web site so it is set up to sell. This means that you will make it clear that you are in the application business. Note several elements in Figure 9-1 that show how to display an application on your official web site.
Figure 9-1. As your launch day approaches, your web site needs to be ready for an influx of users
Figure 9-1 shows Roy’s web site. As you can see, the taskbar at the top makes it easy for a web site visitor to find apps. It is also set up so these applications are easily available with just a click of a mouse. In addition to the description of the application, showing the application running on a device is a convention for an application’s web site. For example, you can run an image of your application running on an Android phone, but your web site can show a tablet if your application is optimized for that.
If you like, you can put a video on your site, and we discuss how to make a video of your application later in this chapter. After all, you might as well show the users what your app looks like running on an actual Android device.
If you want to, you can devote an area to listing features and include benefits and requirements. You can also put up some reviews and testimonials. For example, you can create a link that allows the user to easily share on Facebook and Twitter. We highly suggest that you create a touchscreen button on your application that links directly to your web site. Follow the example of the code there so your application users can visit your official web site from your application as well as share on Facebook and Twitter (as discussed later in this chapter).
As you can imagine, it is best if potential users can easily find your web site via a search engine. These days, the best ways to improve your search ranking is by hosting honest and useful content. As such, you will want to add as much useful content as you can to your site.
You’ll also want to make a mobile version of your site. There are many ways of doing this, and you can consult one of these many sites to see how:
- Google Conversion Utility ( http://www.google.com/gwt/n )
- Mobeezo ( http://www.mobeezo.com/ )
- Mobify ( http://mobify.com/ )
- mobiSiteGalore ( http://www.mobisitegalore.com/ )
- Winksite ( http://winksite.com/site/index.cfm )
- Zinadoo (e-mail.zinadoo.com/)
Although you might not be a blogger or even like to write, blogging is another free tool that you can use to build a web presence. A web site with relevant blog posts almost always ranks higher in search results. So we say, set up a blog! It’s not hard—most of the free web site tools support blogs. As your launch date grows closer, you should blog more. The final stages of making an application are often quite interesting, and this would be a good time to start posting about the exciting challenges you have overcome.
Figure 9-2 is a blog entry from Mark’s web site. Note that the way the post is written conveys that you are a human being as well as a developer. It shows that you are just trying to make something work, not trying to do something that will make money. You might notice that there are things that you don’t want to put in a blog, even if they are true. You might not want to state that a certain company that you are working with is giving you a hard time because this hurts the reputation of the company. Also, you might want to avoid Not Suitable for Work (NSFW) language.
Figure 9-2. What a blog entry from an application’s web site might look like. This one was made with WordPress
If you want to, you can write several blog posts at once, and then set it up so that they go live exactly when you want them to. This is a trick you can use so you don’t have to spend time writing blogs daily during the week. If you are using a WordPress template, it is quite easy to do because you can schedule a date and time for your blog posts to go live. To do this in WordPress, click Edit in the Publish Immediately section under the Publish column on the right.
This leads to the question of what you are going to write about. You need to think about your company’s culture and goals to answer that. Think about what your followers on Twitter and Facebook would be interested in hearing about. One good idea is to talk about the features that you have been promising. Building an application is like making a movie, and we’re sure that you have seen many making-of-a-movie features on DVDs. Because only a few of these behind-the-scenes documentaries are really interesting to watch, by analogy, make certain that your posts have a hook. If you can write about creating your application in an interesting way, the blog will draw readers in.
After you have a web site set up, you can start planning your product launch. The day your application launches will be a great time for marketing because you will actually have the mobile software to show off to members of the media. Even if your launch is really a beta release, you can still benefit from some marketing. Just make sure that you set expectations correctly. And remember that a beta release isn’t a justification for shoddy software; you simply shouldn’t release it to the public if your software is known to be bug-ridden. Our point is that when that launch date hits, you should have an application worthy of telling the world about.
Your launch day promotional strategy will depend on what you hope to accomplish. If you are soft-launching a beta release, you might want some publicity, but not too much. After all, if a reviewer discovers serious problems with your app during the beta trials, you don’t want the whole world to know about it. At a minimum, start with your web page and announce your product launch on your home page. Post it on your blog, and generally make certain that it is known and obvious the moment a viewer hits your site.
Your promotional strategy also depends on the marketing analysis you did (we hope) at the start of this chapter. The rest of this chapter describes different promotional channels you can consider. Most of the channels we propose are free or low cost. They include social networks, online media contacts, offline media contacts, online forums, and guerilla marketing techniques. The paid promotional strategies won’t be for everyone, but if your budget allows it, you can consider setting up a booth at trade shows, as well as using online advertising and traditional advertising.
Marketing Using Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
We live in the Internet age, which has many advantages. For example, if you have something to say, you don’t have to make a video to be broadcast or type something up to be printed. These days, all you need to do is post, and everyone across the world can see what you are doing. However, the enormous scale of the Internet works against the lone person who is just trying to get the word out about his or her accomplishments. Any person who is into Internet marketing will tell you that you need to have a good social media presence.
Social media is a great way to get the word out on your app. It’s free, and readers are already at their computer or smartphone, so they’re no more than a few clicks away from downloading your creation. Let’s start talking about the different social media players, and how they can work for you.
Perhaps you’re already a Twitter user. If so, perhaps you left tweets that informed the public of your app development process even before it was released. By now, you have probably found a lot of people to follow, and you should have some followers. You should then go to Twitter and make certain that you tweet the release date, allowing your followers to know what to expect—like the hype of a movie preview. If not, it’s not too late to develop a following on Twitter.
Although it’s somewhat difficult to work with at first, you should be comfortable with Twitter on your computer and mobile device. If you want to, you can use a dedicated client app such as Twitterrific, Echofon, TweetDeck, or the official Twitter app for Android to keep track of it all. You can even head to oneforty’s comprehensive Twitter apps directory at http://oneforty.com to explore all manner of Twitter tracking.
You should use Twitter like you use the comments on your blog. Figure out what potential users have to say about your application and address them directly. You can then tweet about how the app is going—microblogging , a method of communication on the status of your app with short brief posts, is an excellent medium for addressing issues without giving away too much detail.
As you reply to comments, you put a human face on your product and show the world that you are not just a soulless machine whose only purpose is to make money. In the same manner, don’t constantly promote your application, or you will come off as a 24/7 advertisement that people will find off-putting.
You also have to avoid the risk of over-advertising by remaining on topic. You don’t want to start a whole series of tweets about things that have nothing to do with your application. It is all right to go off on a tangent occasionally, but overdoing it can lead to another type of audience—or worse, no audience.
Another useful Twitter tool is the hashtag . A hashtag is represented by the pound symbol (#) and is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. Users put a # before relevant keywords in tweets in order to categorize those tweets for an easier search. Other Twitter users can click a hashtagged word in any message and it will show them all other tweets in the category. Hashtagged words that become very popular can end up as trending topics.
The important thing to understand about Twitter and other social networks is that quality is always better than quantity. The number of followers you have is not as important as who these followers are. It is the difference between 10,000 Facebook friends and 100 true friends.
In the same manner, you don’t want to just start following people so you can be followed. You want to follow someone from whom you can learn. Any Android (or even iOS) developer is fair game because you will have to deal with similar issues. You should definitely follow journalists because they are people of influence. Don’t forget your friends and peers as well. Finally, follow those who are following you.
You should also take the time to retweet other people’s posts, especially if they are something that your audience would enjoy. The more you do this, the more others will eventually retweet your posts. Think of it as Twitter karma.
You should take some time to create a Twitter list as well. This way, you can organize people into groups and follow them with a quick glance every day. For example, you can name one group Developers, and see what is trending in the Android development community.
Facebook is the darling of social media. If your app is oriented toward consumers (as opposed to business users), you need to have a Facebook presence.
Be sure to create a separate Facebook page for business. In the past, a business needed 25 “likes” before it could create a custom URL on Facebook. This is no longer true, so be sure and create an easy-to-remember URL on Facebook at the very beginning.
If you already have a personal presence on Facebook, make sure to get your friends to “like” your business page. We humans exhibit herding behavior, so letting readers know that your page is popular is a great way to get legitimacy. This is known as “social proof ”—people look to other people to decide what behavior is correct. If people heading to your page see lots of “likes,” they will assume your app is generating momentum. Getting the word through your Facebook page is easy. Simply do the following:
- Click your Facebook page’s Edit Info link.
- Click the Marketing link.
- Click Send An Update.
You should use this method of spreading the word sparingly because messages like these are broadcast ad nauseum throughout the Internet. Before your launch date is also a good time to start using Facebook Insights, a free analytics service. When you log in to your Facebook page as an admin, you can click the View Insights link to view the metrics about your Facebook page. By studying this information, you can find out who is looking at what you are doing, which is information that will be helpful in the future.
Facebook may be the big dog for consumers, but if your app is intended for business applications, you should be sure to have a LinkedIn presence. You can read more about how to establish a company presence on LinkedIn here: http://marketing.linkedin.com/sites/default/files/attachment/LinkedInCompanyPages_5Steps.pdf .
If you have attended a lot of business seminars or conventions, you have probably amassed a large stack of business cards. We highly suggest going to LinkedIn and running a search on contacts from every business card; then send them an Invite to your network on LinkedIn.
If you gain more than 500 connections on LinkedIn, you become a part of the 500+ club that will show others searching on your LinkedIn profile that you are well-connected. Of course, you will also have over 500 contacts that you can reach out to in case you may ever need anything.
Making the Press Work for You
The press is a great source of free publicity. Reporters are always looking for a good story, and your app might just be that story. Be sure to look for media sources that specialize in what your app does. A more–narrowly focused publication is more likely to be interested in your app and it is also more likely to connect you with potential customers.
When you are ready to release your app, you should craft a press release to alert publications that may choose to write a story about your app.
A press release is a statement prepared for distribution to the media.
An important thing to consider is who will receive your press release. As a professional blogger, Mark receives a lot of press releases in his inbox every day. Many of them come from PR firms, and some are from sites that send out press releases on a daily basis.
Use the Format for a Press Release
Press releases have a format. It isn’t really a standard, but journalists get many of these every day, and they know what to look for:
- Company logo: You should put your full-color company logo centered at the top. If nothing else, you want journalists to at least remember your company name, so make it prominent. Some sources say the company’s name, web address, location address, and phone number should be at the top, but we usually see it at the bottom.
- Title: We’ve heard some sources say that the title should be in all capitals, but it should be at least be in bold. Do not worry about it being too long, but it should be brief enough to explain what your application is.
- Secondary title: This is not part of the title; it is centered and not in bold. Here you can add a sentence that discusses your product in detail.
- Date and city: In bold, you should have the date and city of where the press release originated.
- First paragraph: This is a brief detail about what the press release is about.
- Second paragraph: This is where the journalistic five Ws and H (Who, What, Where, When, and How) come in. In your case, you should put in who cares, why you should care, where you can find it, and when it will happen.
- Quote: Press releases generally have a quote from someone within the company. The quote personalizes and humanizes the press release with an individual’s perspective.
- Final paragraph: As a tech and gadget blogger, Mark always ends his articles with a final paragraph that explains the price of the item as well as any details about the point-of-sale. This information is placed at the end for immediate takeaway value, and a press release is structured the same.
- Company description: This is usually preceded by About (insert company name here) and then discusses the company in terms of the date it was founded and what the company does. You should then put your web site URL there.
Here is an example of a press release for a baseball card organizer mobile app:
Your Company logo here
Baseball Card Organizer Now Available on Android Devices–Allows Users to Put Card Collections on their Android Device.
Card Collectors can now take their collection wherever they take their Android phone or tablet.
SEATTLE, WA (October 31, 2011). Company Name, a company known for creating applications on various mobile platforms, announced today the availability of its Baseball Card Organizer application for Android. The application allows users to put their baseball card collections on their phone or tablet with the use of the camera on their Android device.
Baseball Card Organizer includes a built-in database that allows the user to photograph the front of the card, as well as the back with the stats. The user can then enter in information, and organize the cards by teams or just alphabetically.
Users can take their baseball card collections with them without taking their physical baseball card collections with them. They can flip through their cards by flicking on the screen. Baseball Card Organizer is also good for organizing other types of cards, such as movie trading cards.
“Most people who collect baseball cards have to keep them in protected cases, and they don’t have the fun of flipping through them without bringing down the condition,” said Jack Jackson, cofounder of Sample Company. “The Baseball Card Organizer gives the user the fun of perusing through their collection and not worry about getting sweat on their investment. Best of all, the user can do this from anywhere.”
The Baseball Card Organizer application is now available at the Android Market, as well as the company web site at http://www.samplecompany.com . Baseball Card Organizer Lite is free, but the full version is for $0.99.
About Sample Company:
Sample Company was started as a startup company in 2010, devoted to making applications for all mobile applications. Since its launch, it has created many applications, including More Useful Stuff, Helpful Applications, and More Terrific Applications.
You will notice in the end how we took advantage of the press release to advertise other applications.
If you are like us, you read a lot of online journals. We have discovered that you don’t want to spend too much time clicking bookmarks and reading each online journal or blog one at a time. Yes, it is far easier to download an RSS reader like the one at http://www.feedly.com and view articles in a short form, like skimming headlines in a newspaper. This way, you can find out what is trending today, and your blog or online journal should be set up so anyone with an RSS reader can see what you have been up to.
By now, you may have a lot of subscribers to your blog’s RSS feed. There are ways of checking to see how many RSS followers you have and to figure out what your customers might be like when working on your SWOT analysis. In order to get more followers, you can post a link on all other social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook every time you do a blog post.
That’s if you want to do it the hard way. We recommend setting up a web service such as Tumblr or TypePad to automatically put your blog entries on social media sites. It is also possible to set up blogs by using the aforementioned WordPress, as well as Blogger, LiveJournal, and Movable Type.
You should start looking at the comments on your blog. With WordPress, this is very easy to do from the template, and it gives you an idea to hear back from what will hopefully be your application’s following before the application is released. From users’ comments, you might get an idea of what features might be needed before the launch date or what will need to be added to after the application hits the market. You should also look for concerns in the comments. For example, if you see a lot of comments saying that the application is too hard to use, it might be a good idea to take a look at your user interface (UI).
Sadly, a lot of blog commentary is probably spam. Mark has one blog that generates quite a bit of comments per day, but half of the comments are unrelated to the articles they are commenting about. For example, after Mark writes an article about a certain gadget, some guy adds a comment like this: “Nice well-written article; it reminds me of Toupees for Men.” Then there is the obvious link. Several of the comments feel generated by a machine, and they are. There are programs designed to sniff out sites and these machines have been programmed to leave their spam as “legitimate commentary” on our site. Fortunately, if you use a blog service with CAPTCHA web forms and spam filters, you can stop this spamming problem before the taint becomes an infection.
We discussed the idea of using a video to market your app in Chapter 8 when we talked about promoting your app in an app marketplace. But a video is a useful tool outside of the app marketplace as well. Video-sharing sites are a lot like social networks, and viral videos are one of the best marketing tools.
Plan to do some editing on your video to make it good enough to post online. You can probably get away with putting an Android device on a clean table and showing people what the app can do. As we discussed in Chapter 8, some phones also let you record video directly from their screen via a video out connector.
You can then do a little narration, but you might have to do the audio track later. This goes for any sound that your application may have, if the microphone on your video camera doesn’t get it.
We have some experience working with video, and we know it always takes longer than you might think. After all, most two-hour movies take years to make. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can knock out a video that is a few minutes long in just a few minutes. In fact, you might want to consider hiring a video service to film your application if you can afford it.
Once you have the video, you should definitely put it on your site so people can check out how your application works. This is especially helpful if you have an application that is difficult to explain.
Online forums exist for nearly any topic. Regardless of what your app is for, there is already a forum somewhere with people who would love to find out what you are working on. LinkedIn is a great place to discover professionals with an interest in your field. Google Plus is also a place where experts congregate. A simple web search can reveal many more forums related to your app.
You may have discovered a number of relevant forums in the process of working on your app. Be sure and post to the forums when the time is right. Stay humble and treat forum readers as the experts they are–they spend time learning and talking about the sorts of things your app does. If you treat them with respect, they will return that respect, which can translate into page hits, favorable comments, and eventually revenue.
Public Relations and the Media
When interacting with the media, you need to wear your public relations hat. Although it might be tempting to simply speak your mind and let the reporter do the rest, that’s generally not the best path forward. Reporters’ jobs are to sniff out a story, and their idea of your story might not match yours. Your job is to steer them in the right direction with facts and figures that paint the right image.
Be sure and draft some key bullet points before taking a call from the media. These bullet points should address any concerns the media are likely to have. Remember that a reporter’s job is to report on both sides of a story. If there is another unfavorable side to the information you are conveying, be sure to address it in your bullet points. If you don’t, the reporter might, and he or she might do it in a way you would prefer to avoid. Reporters worth their salt will try hard to get you away from your bullet points. Consider whether departing from them is worth the risk, even if it makes for a much more comfortable conversation.
Reporters generally operate by a code of ethics, and they know that deviating from that code will seriously affect their career prospects. No one will open up to a reporter who is known to twist the truth. On that note, consider that most reporters will honor your requests to go “off-the-record.” This can be useful when you want to inform a reporter about something, but want to be sure your words won’t make it into publication. A related concept is that of “unattributable” speaking terms. If you ask a reporter to consider what you say as unattributable, it means that they can report what you said, but they can’t attribute it to you.
Be sure and follow up with your media contacts. Often a little gentle prodding is all that is needed to get that article out into the world. One technique to motivate a media contacts is to offer them an exclusive. Use this only if it makes sense, but if you absolutely need coverage from a particular source, an exclusive can be a useful tool in your tool belt. Over the long term, you should seek to build a personal contact file with reporters. If you have any particular expertise in an area, be sure to convey that to your contacts. Over time, you might become their go-to contact for your area of knowledge. This can turn into frequent incidental write-ups for your app.
When dealing with the media, you have to think of them as consumers of stories. They aren’t necessarily interested in your product, but they are interested in your story—if it’s a good one. For example, Mark has often reviewed applications on his blog, The Geek Church, but the ones that have some interesting facts in them make the most interesting articles. For example, in reviewing the application Speakerfy, the developers shared with Mark that Shaquille O’Neal gave the application an award that the developer did not even enter to win. You had better believe that facts like that easily end up in Mark’s articles. You should determine what facts about your app make it stand out from other apps and make certain that you tell them to reporters who want to know.
Whoever said that print is dead was quite premature, considering the number of newspapers and magazines that are still in print. We are a long way from an all-digital media society, and you should take note of the local and national printed journals that cover stories about digital technology.
Mark lives in a small town, and if he needed some press for his application, he would find out whether the town paper has some sort of tech section or even one on applications. He would then check the masthead to see who the editor of the tech section is. If the editor is not listed, he would make a call to the editor and see if he or she would be interested in doing a report on the latest application for Android . . .Mark’s!
The same rule applies for going to papers or magazines with a much larger circulation, but you don’t want to be limited to talking to the guy in charge of the tech section. For example, if you have an application that is made for the stock market, don’t you think the editor of the Investment section of a newspaper would be interested in this? As long as it is useful, the answer is yes. You should check the Sunday paper to see what sections your applications could apply to. You should also do the same for any magazines that might be interested in an application like yours.
After you have carefully revised and reviewed your press releases, you can finally send out the polished result to a bundle of media contacts. If you want to make it easy on yourself, you can simply start a new e-mail message and copy and paste your press release. You should use plain text e-mail format if you want media people to copy and paste your press releases to their articles. If you are unfamiliar with the world of news blogging, you should know that many online articles often include a copy of the official press release. In fact, Mark has worked for tech and gadget blogs that have insisted that he attach the press release to the article.
You should also include a few screen shots with the e-mail (it’s easiest to just use the screen shots you used when you submitted your application to the Android Market).
You can send other types of images as well, but we would focus on images that you want to see in an online or printed journal. Every tech and gadget blog that Mark has written for has required him to include an image of some kind. So you definitely want to make it easy for tech reporters by finding an image that would be perfect for an article. Consider this the “cover” that readers might use to judge your “book” (to speak in clichéd metaphors again).
This “perfect shot” doesn’t have to be a screen shot; it could be a picture showing the application in use by an Android user. For example, if you have some application that improves a camera, wouldn’t it be terrific to show an Android user taking a picture with your camera-improving application? The point is that you are looking for the image that will show potential users what your application is.
The one thing that we do not recommend is attaching your press release and/or screen shots as e-mail attachments to your media contacts. Because Mark has been on the other side of the table, he is less likely to open an attachment, especially if it is a PDF file. PDF files open up Adobe Acrobat or Reader, which tends to slow down computers a bit. Not only that; having an attached PDF is often a flag for spam filters, and you don’t want your e-mail to be going there.
When sending out a batch e-mail to the press, do not put all the names in the To section. If you do this, all the recipients of your press release e-mail will see all the other people you sent it to. This looks really bad to anyone who works in the media because it makes them feel as if they are just a name on a list. Worse yet, you reveal your media contacts to everyone. What you want to do is put all your addresses in the Bcc field so each recipient receives your e-mail without seeing the other recipients.
You should also look into the option of using campaign management software. These services can handle not only e-mail marketing but also social media, You can run a search for “Campaign Management Software” to find many available services, and you might want to check out Constant Contact ( http://www.constantcontact.com ) and Swiftpage ( http://www.swiftpage.com/ ).
Giving Media Contacts a Complimentary Copy of Your Application
Media reviewers are more apt to review an application if you give it to them for free. Mark is a professional tech blogger and reviewer, and a product can capture his interest if its press release includes something that says, “Please let me know if we can send this to you to review.” Many reviewers will say yes because they like getting free things from time to time. Just take Mark’s word on that one.
Sending media people a complimentary copy is extremely easy. Simply attach your Android Application Package (APK) file to an e-mail and send away. Keep in mind, however, that your media contacts can forward your e-mail to friends and give away your paid app for free. This could be an advantage in disguise because you can ask the media contact to keep your app confidential. Let them know you trust them, and you will build a stronger more personal relationship than if they have to enter special codes to get access to your app. On the other hand, if you want to create an air of exclusivity, you can always place your APK on your web site, behind a password-protected page. This should be obvious, but never send the media any trade secret information; if you do so, it will be impossible to assert your trade secret rights later.
Even though it seems like you are buying a review in exchange for a free sample, you’re not. You have no guarantee that the reviewer will give you a good review simply because he or she received something for nothing. As a tech reviewer, Mark would never agree to any deal that said that he had to give a positive review of any review model sent to him. (In fact, no company has ever had the audacity to offer him such a deal.)
In addition to giving away free samples, it is important to maintain a good working relationship with your media contacts. After all, these are the people who are doing you a favor by giving your application some much-needed press. The least you can do for them is send a thank you note for publishing your article. You don’t necessarily need to make every media person your best friend, but at least establish a LinkedIn contact. Ideally, you can get them to follow your company’s LinkedIn page!
As someone who has worked as a tech and gadget blogger, Mark has found that he has entered into strange relationships with tech companies and their public relations teams. There is sort of an unspoken rule that enables the company to give the tech reviewer something and then the tech reviewer publishes an article in return. Think of it as a quid pro quo relationship, but the reporter can give only an honest review. If the product is not of the best quality, the review will reflect that. Therefore, send out your best product to the media or suffer the consequences of a bad review that could be worse than any bad review on Google Play. As a tech writer, Mark has often received products that are so good that he has contacted the app makers to review more of what they have to offer.
Media people often get bored of looking at the same places for news stories time and time again. Sometimes they like to find a unique story and it is helpful when these stories come via a press release.
As someone who is in the media, Mark likes to have contacts who are in the know more than he can afford to be. He keeps the contact information of PR people and company representatives because they are a source for information that he may not be able to get otherwise. This book could not have been written without them, and we consulted them several times when it came to questions about developing Android applications. In other words, your developer insight could make you a good source for media people, and those media people could give you some press by quoting you. In this way, Mark occasionally contacts people he has contacted before in order to get new story ideas. Imagine that one of your media contacts told you that he or she was looking for new stories and you just happened to be developing a new application at the time. This is certainly better than making cold calls to the media!
Other Examples of Low-Cost Publicity: Guerilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing is a phrase that can mean many things, but for us it means using free or cheap and unconventional techniques to build market share. The general idea is that you develop your market by investing time instead of money. There are many “guerrilla” ideas that you might be able to work into your marketing plan.
The classic example is graffiti. Although it might not make sense for an app, if you are promoting something location-based, perhaps you can use reverse graffiti in select locations. If you aren’t familiar with reverse graffiti, also known as “clean tagging,” the concept is rather clever. Find a wall that has graffiti on it and then use some cleaning solution, a bristle brush (or toothbrush), and a stencil to remove the existing graffiti in a way that leaves an image of the stencil. Your stencil can be an ad for your app. Because you’re removing only existing graffiti, reverse graffiti exists in a legal grey zone. After all, cleaning away graffiti can’t be illegal, right?
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogging can all be considered guerilla marketing. Setting up a Google+ page is also guerilla marketing, and can help with your Google search placement.
Collaboration isn’t exactly a traditional guerrilla marketing technique, but it’s low cost and can work very well. Find companies with a related (obviously not identical) product who would benefit from your product. Often they will be interested in building relationships with other companies. You can refer customers to them and they can refer customers to you. At first, it can be as simple as linking to their web site from yours, but it can grow from there. Writing “guest” articles on other companies’ blogs to discuss their product (perhaps in relation to yours) can also be a great way to build a relationship. The companies are happy because you’re doing work for them, and the articles obviously add to your product’s exposure.
If it fits your app’s description, writing a “how-to” article that mentions your app as part of a solution to a problem is another free way to get exposure for your app. For example, web sites such as wikiHow invite users to explain how to do basic tasks. Maybe you have an app that helps kazoo players tune their kazoos. If so, you could write an article on wikiHow about kazoo tuning. You could explain the process and invite users to download your app.
Guerilla marketing requires you to think outside the box. The specifics of your app determine what makes sense for you. There are many resources online that can give you some ideas, but ultimately, your own creativity must guide you.
Trade shows are never cheap to attend. A basic booth at a show probably costs four figures and that doesn’t include travel expenses or the cost to create your booth and advertising materials. On the other hand, a well-targeted presence at a trade show can generate an enormous number of customer leads. Often you can tag along to a trade show with a larger company if you play your cards right. The ideal situation is when a larger company realizes that it can benefit from what you are doing. The company might consider you the cool new kid on the block and can benefit from your buzz just as much as you benefit. If that’s not an option for you, you can use guerilla marketing techniques at trade shows. Perhaps all you can afford is a visitor’s pass to attend. If so, you can surreptitiously place your card at places throughout the conference location. Even better, create some swag (with your logo and web address prominently displayed) that people will want. Even if you can’t attend the conference, you can still benefit by determining the hotels most guests will be attending and making yourself noticed there. A great guerrilla solution is to create do-not-disturb signs with your logo and web site displayed and place them on hotel room door knobs (or slip them under the door if you’re worried the maid will take them away).
Advertising is the traditional means of marketing. Simply put, you’re paying to get customer leads. These days, online advertising is on a tear, and traditional advertising (print media, television, and radio) are stagnant or even losing market share. Still, traditional print is not dead yet, but online advertising is on the rise.
Because your app lives in the online world, in most cases, you should start your foray into advertising by purchasing ads online. Forms of online ads can include AdWords (Google), Facebook, other search engines, ads on specific web properties, and mobile ads (including house ads). Chapter 6 discussed how you can make money with ads as a publisher, but now you’d be on the other side of the equation. You would be an advertiser who is paying the publishers to feature your ad. Remember, however, that your cost to acquire a customer is an issue. Particularly for mobile apps, whose selling price is often only a few dollars, you have to carefully consider the cost of acquiring a new customer. If you spend $3 in advertising to add a new customer, you’re not going to do very well if your app costs $2.99.
A typical foray into online advertising begins with Google. To begin, you will need to buy AdWords (adwords.google.com/). The most common ad words are popular, so they are the most expensive. To benefit the most from AdWords, you need to pick words that refer to your app, but are unlikely to be used by other advertisers. AdWords supports a prepay option, which can be as little as $10. Start small and increase your payments as you gain confidence in the results. To learn more, go here: adwords.google.com.
Facebook doesn’t yet support prepayment for advertising, but there is no minimum advertising budget. When placing an ad on Facebook, you can target your ad to a particular demographic of users. To learn more, go here: http://www.facebook.com/help/326113794144384/ .
Other popular web sites such as YouTube or Yahoo can also be targeted for ads. But because your application almost certainly targets a particular submarket, you should try to find a web site that focuses on that group. Perhaps you have written a game and you can target web sites frequented by gamers. Or maybe you have a utility that solves a particular technical problem. Find the site frequented by people who have that problem and you have a great place to advertise. Most Online media outlets accept advertising, and although posting to their forums or writing an article for publication are guerilla tactics that can get you visibility on the site, there’s nothing wrong with running ads if your budget allows it. You’re developing a mobile app, so what better way than to advertise on other mobile apps? You might already have a relationship with mobile ad networks as a publisher. In many cases, the ad network can give you a discount if you run ads with their network. Also, many ad networks support “house ads,” which are ads that you elect to place on your own applications. For example, maybe you already have a reasonably successful application and you have released a new application that would appeal to your existing user base. You can use a house ad to advertise to these existing users. Best of all, house ads are generally free.
Although online advertising usually makes the most sense for apps, some applications can benefit from offline advertising. Particularly if your app appeals to folks who have less of an online presence, you might be able to reach a large audience by going offline. For example, suppose that you have written an app that helps building contractors comply with building codes. Maybe you expect to be able to charge a high price for your app because it offers a useful and highly specialized functionality. Unfortunately, building contractors don’t spend nearly as much time online as programmers, so they’re not likely to bump into your app during a web search. You might reach them very effectively by advertising in conventional trade journals, however.
Ironically, the Internet is a great place to search for offline publications to advertise in. If you are looking for narrow niches to advertise in, this Wikipedia article lists U.S. magazines by topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_magazines
If your niche is even narrower and might be served by a technical journal, you could try searching Springer, currently the largest journal publisher. Note that Apress, the publisher of this book, is owned by Springer. Its web site is here: http://www.springer.com .
If you are looking for a local newspaper, this Wikipedia article lists U.S. newspapers by state: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_States .
Summary
As you set up your marketing plan, you should answer these questions about key issues:
- Does your marketing plan have a budget, schedule, and milestones?
- Do you know your strengths and weaknesses?
- Do you know the outside opportunities and threats?
- Have you identified your customer?
- Does your app service a particular region (even initially), in which local advertising might be useful?
- Have you identified printed and online publications that are read by your target customer?
- Have you launched a web site?
- Have you blogged about your app?
- What social networking sites make sense for you to utilize?
- Does guerrilla marketing make sense for you?
- Will you be attending shows? Can you piggyback on a vendor or customer of yours?
- Does paid advertising (online or offline) fit your budget and your business plan?