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Articles on the profitability of app making never seem to stop. A barrage of data has been released lately that posts a picture that could be interpreted either way as an app developer. Games still drive the majority of the attention for app revenues and profitability, so naturally the focus is on this genre.

The downside of recent statistics from eMarketer is perhaps that only 33% of users in the US are expected to pay for apps this year.  However, this needle has not moved much over the years, and is not expected to move much. It is well known among games developers that the lions share of the revenue will come from a small subset of users anyway. eMarketer also points out that in-app purchases is the best revenue model – again, not a shocker.

On the brighter side, Android is seemingly catching up to the profitability per user compared to iOS:

Android LTV compared to iOS (Source DAU up)

This is good news given the staggering size of the Android market. Research by DAU UP, if accurate, shows to a 3x increase in relative ARPU in 2014, which if true, is quite staggering. More importantly though, the advertising costs on Android is 20-50% lower than iOS, proving that the ROI for Android is increasingly looking better.

So what does it mean for a games developer?  Tadhg Kelly, a consultant in this space, argues in a TechCrunch article littered with case studies that gaming may not be a high growth business, but that there is inherent potential in mobile gaming but that it is very much a hit based media business:

“Many of the big success stories of the games industry tend to come from nowhere before the facts are known. From Atari all the way through to Zynga and beyond, our history is littered with the unlikely gamble, the hunch and the “I just need you to believe” sort of moments that transform into billion dollar fortunes.”

Regardless of the stats presented and what you believe, there is no doubt the importance of mobile apps (and gaming) is becoming significant. According to eMarketer, games revenue steadily represents about 12% of total mobile app revenue, and the games market, and therefore overall market grew nearly 20% last year and will still maintain double digit growth for 2015. This is good news for all.

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Today we spoke with George Christopoulos, founder of the SlideME app store. We asked him to share tips and strategies on how developers can can better understand the Android ecosystem outside of Google Play.

1. How should developers see the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and how should it impact their development and marketing strategies?

Firstly, many developers are unaware that there are two flavours of Android that device vendors can leverage:

A.Most developers are aware of the Android that is bundled with Google Play Services and Google apps such as Gmail, Maps, Google Play, etc. that are proprietary apps and services to Google and thus cannot be open sourced and

B.The second is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) as project name indicates is fully open source that device vendors can leverage for their devices without the licensing requirements or associated fees from Google.

As more device vendors naturally move away from other OS platforms towards Android, we are seeing exponential growth for AOSP devices without Google Play.

This direction is expected to continue due to Android’s success. In addition, since Google restricts which OEMs have access to its proprietary services, more and more devices are being introduced with Android AOSP and smart developers should be thinking about a two-fold distribution strategy:

1.Plan for targeting devices with Google Play if they plan to depend on the Google Play Services & their API’s,

AND

2.build their app(s) with SDK’s that are not dependent on Google Play Services for distribution to AOSP devices (that have no Google Play Services).

Fortunately, work has been done by the One Platform Foundation that SlideME and CodeNgo both support called OpenIAB, a single open source SDK to support In-app payments for multiple stores, including Google Play, Amazon, SlideME and any OpenIAB supported store. This dramatically simplifies supporting both flavors of Android for developers and gives them significant flexiblity in their distribution strategies.

SlideMe

 

2. What are some of the key markets, OEMs and/or Carriers using AOSP and what kind of consumer adoption are AOSP devices seeing?

Besides the huge volume of Android devices coming out of China with AOSP, we’re seeing OEM’s that target niche markets preferring AOSP as it provides them the flexibility to create their own experience with curated content for their target audience.

Carriers on the other hand, even though a small percentage of devices are without AOSP, all carriers within that country do not differentiate in their offering as they all provide the same content if they all serve the same Google Play store. Some carriers are now moving away from Google Play to be able to provide content they have control to curate for their subscribers with differentiated billing models (such as monthly subscriptions models that we are also soon inviting developers to opt-in to). In addition carriers will earn most of the revenues as opposed to earning some percentage with Google from the 30% withheld from developers.

Consumers admit preference to curated content stores like SlideME that are dominant today on AOSP devices, but many users express the problem with missing apps that we for example do not currently offer. It’s a matter of time before developers realize the AOSP opportunities and optimize their distribution strategies to the large amount of devices without Google Play.

 

3. What trends do you see in the marketplace that smart developers should be aware of?

•Go niche to differentiate from the rest of the pack and the enormous amount of apps that largely get lost within all the junk apps available in the apparently major store(s).

•Take advantage of any featured free options available to the extent the developer can handle the service requests

•Move towards implementing OpenIAB for in-app payments for multiple stores, including SlideME, Amazon, Samsung, and others.

 

4. What mistakes do you see developers make or challenges they should be aware of when it comes to monetizing outside of Google Play?

•Firstly, any apps distributed outside of Google Play looking to maximize their earnings potential need to choose an alternative for In-app payments to Google’s. OpenIAB is an excellent solution for both. In addition there are also many alternatives to Google Maps and Google Play Game Services that will function properly on both AOSP devices and Google Play licensed devices (see below).

•Lack of promoting their apps or mentioning their apps when available on other alternative stores that primarily drive AOSP (non-Google Play) devices when the numbers indicate that AOSP has >30% Android market share and climbing.

•Neglecting to localize their apps or even translate their app descriptions when the relative cost of doing so is very low in comparison to effort/costs of development.

•Large companies, tend to be the most uninformed about Android ecosystem and what AOSP is. We see many large companies making mistakes such as duplicate sets of permissions in their apps which cause all sorts of problems (even from Google Play devices). Indie developers tend to be more Android savvy. We tend to have a sweet spot for Indie devs, and are happy to feature their apps for free as they deserve that extra push. In addition, large companies assume all devices are Google Play enabled and wonder why bother distributing outside of Google Play. For example, one very large company we know tried Amazon and they have much better conversion compared to Google Play. Some developers also see more conversions and installs with their new apps from SlideME than on Google Play with the help of the SlideME free featured promotions we offer.

•Managing distributions is another challenge. Fortunately services like CodeNgo and initiatives like AppDF, supporting the many distribution channels (stores) can be simplified and managed at the same time. Something as simple as failing to upload proper screenshots can result in few returns at any store, as many users will skip right past an application that simply has an icon as a screenshot.

 

5. SlideME rejects close to 60% of the apps submitted to your store. What type of content is successful in the SlideME store?
Applications that are not just following trends, but provide original or unique functionality (even if only modified from some other popular application), tend to be the most successful. Many indie applications by a single developer are successful because they provide something new and have invested more than a few hours of time into developing the application.

Common or simplistic applications are not going to provide much success to the developer, particularly those that every new developer might have experimented with at some point (i.e. flashlights, tic-tac-toe, endless runners, snake games, wallpapers, 15-slider puzzles, etc.). These applications are a dime-a-dozen across all stores and devices; most people have had enough of them, and such applications are not going to really receive any additional exposure.

 

6. What mistakes do you see happening in Android?

There is an amusing one we very often see, mostly from the so called ‘security’ companies. Where editors mention another reason to not download apps from stores other than Google Play Store. The Google Play Store is the dominant store, and if you add to it the fact that their is no curation process on Google Play, (submit any app and its shortly available to all users), means Google Play becomes a risky source of apps. Not saying alternative stores are any better, but the ones that have a curation process in place and abide by it and spend quality time to test each app, are definitely a better source than Google Play’s.

Additionally, if a developer does choose to submit to alternative stores, why are they doing so without removing the Google Play dependencies. Why submit a demo or trial version of your application to an alternative market that links back to Google Play to purchase when said user on the alternative market cannot buy it? This is a common mistake that does not take much additional time to resolve before submitting to other stores. It doesn’t help the developer’s reputation, big or small, to limit its users; and in return does not help with that application being successful financially.

 

7 . If developers had to choose alternatives to Google Play dependent services, what options do you have to suggest?

For developers wishing to decouple themselves from Google dependencies, we have some options for them to review. At SlideME we welcome and approve any apps that are not dependent solely on Google Play to function. We approve apps that would also function as expected on AOSP devices.

Please see some of the services that we recommend below.

For in-app payments:
OpenIAB
Fortumo
Paypal
For Maps:
OpenStreetMaps
Nutiteq
Mapquest
For Cloud Messaging:
onepf.org/openpush/
parse.com
eclipse.org/paho/
autobahn.ws/
LVL:
SlideME’s SlideLock

Leaderboards / Gaming:
Scoreoid
Swarm
gamesparks.com
soom.la

Any others potential candidates are welcome to suggest their services to us to extend this list.

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The first thing most developers think about when they hear the words “revenue” or “advertising” seem to fall in the same ballpark as the terms CPM and impressions. These old conventional methods of advertising are becoming more antiquated as new categories of applications arise. Ad pushing, interstitials, and smart-wall banner networks promise to draw in customer attention. And that is the very issue, they do just that. The old method of advertising is not only intrusive, but interferes with UI, app functionality, and affects the retention rates of your applications.

by Graham Beck, Beck and Beck LLC

Although users acknowledge the ads, they do not act on them and are bothered by their presence. These methods have a low fill-rate causing you as a developer to have a low average CPM and a bunch of angry users. On top of the root issue just described, depending on the category of your app (emoji, wallpaper, lost game, widget, etc) overlaying ads just seem to conflict with experience. The only alternative seems to attract revenue by creating a so-called “Freemium model” where users get an app for free with no advertisements but can upgrade to a premium or in-app product indirectly.

I am here to tell you that these are not the only methods out there to enhance your revenue.

Why data analytics are the next big thing

An entirely new method of advertising is conducted using data analytics. Unlike the ad pushing method above, data analytic SDK’s run entirely in the background of any application. The entire point of this method is to draw attention to the functionality of your app so your users enjoy the experience (not how many ads can be displayed on one page). Users don’t know they are being monetized and still enjoy the app without ads.

Data analytic companies are code based, meaning after SDK integration there is no UI change. If you used a conventional ad network, you would have to specify spaces for banners, and interstitials.

Data analytic companies pay competitive DAU’S (Daily active user) and for users who retain your app. This means that if a user installed your app not only will the user be monetized in the app (when using it), but even when the user is out of the app! This point alone attracts many wide-eyed developers as the revenue potential far exceeds the conventional method (CPM/Impressions). Since the data analytic SDK’s run in the background, they are also compatible with other methods of advertising. By integrating with a data analytics company, you are tapping into an entirely new revenue stream that would not have existed before.

Beck and Beck LLC Case study

When I started developing my live wallpapers, I used the conventional approach (integrating Airpush). Due to the conflict of interest between wanting to push ads and user experience my CPM was very low.

See the impressions vs CPM chart below:

Beck and Beck case study

From over 19 million impressions at a .18 average cpm, roughly $2,000 was generated. I turned to a location analytics company and now my apps make much more $40 per 1,000 DAU per month.

Aside from the high revenue turnout, my retain rate has increased by 20% (due to no ads, and my customers are happy).

If you are interested in learning more or connecting with a compatible data analytics company, contact us

 

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Starting in January 2015, a fundamental shift will happen in the EU affecting all app developers. If you are doing business in the EU (as defined by an end user in the EU downloading your app), you will have to start paying VAT (value added tax, or sales tax, GST, whatever you may call it) on each and every sale. What does that mean to you as an app developer? While we are not tax experts, and this is not tax advice, we point out a few things you should consider looking into.

1. You will retain less revenue

The main effect on most developers, if your app store of choice has not started doing it yet, is that you will keep less of the revenue that you sell for.  If you sold for €0.99 in Germany for instance, the app store may have paid you 70% of that, or €0.69.  Now however, the app store will have to pay 19% of the end user price to the German government, leaving you with a net of €0.58 as a payout of the after tax amount.  Many app developers may have already experienced this from stores that are already enforcing VAT charges.

2. You may have to pay the tax yourself

If you have a PPD business model where the app store charges the user, or if you use an in-app billing SDK that the app store uses, you are generally covered as the app store is likely to take care of the reporting and payment of tax for you. Naturally you should check this..

If you however use a third party in-app SDK, the app store will most likely not be considered the entity selling to the consumer, rather you will be. The whole scenario is well explained by tax experts Bird & Bird:

Paying your VAT (Source: Bird & Bird)

In their “Pocket Guide to EU VAT & Digital Commerce“, they go:

“the contractual relationship could be as follows: The final consumer purchases the app via the app store and enters into a contract with the app developer and/or app store; the app developer concludes a contract with the app store provider, and enters into a separate contract with a payment processor (e.g. mobile operator/credit card company) which debits the final consumer the gross price for the app. It withholds a certain percentage of the gross amount and forwards this percentage to the app store provider and/or to the bank/telcom provider (if the final consumer pays through its mobile provider). The remaining amount is then forwarded to the app developer.

The supply chain is often long and can stretch across borders. In such cases, it can be challenging to determine the point in time when the services are actually supplied to a final consumer and the identity of the actual supplier in the supply chain who should be responsible for the VAT payment on that supply.”

What does this mean? Well, it means if you are using in-app purchases not supplied by the app store, you may be legally obligated to:

  • Register for VAT in an EU territory
  • Track and record all sales by consumer location
  • Pay VAT to that state on a regular basis for sales across the entire European Union

This can get further complicated if you use mobile carrier billing, such as Fortumo or Bango, as the carrier may be withholding VAT before paying the content provider (or the payment service provider), in which case VAT has already been paid – but if they have not, the responsibility may be on you. The key here is keeping good records and understanding what your billing partner can provide.

3. There is no escape

It does not matter where your business resides. What matters is that you are selling to European consumers.  So whether you are based in Brazil or Taiwan, if you are deemed as the one who supplies the service to the end user, you will have to register for VAT, and start paying it.  The good news is that you only need register and pay VAT in one country, as that country’s tax authority will then settle to other EU territories. However you will have to know exactly where your users have paid, so you can pay the right amount of VAT.  This information will likely have to come from your payment provider, whether PayPal, Amazon, Fortumo or others, or through tracking the country code of the users mobile phone, etc.  The Explanatory Notes from the EU provides a lot of detail about identifying the consumer location.

The problem gets even worse, in that IF you make mistakes, and classify the country where the end user resides wrongly, and a government comes after you for it (if they suspect you have used VAT rates in low VAT countries like the UK instead of high VAT countries like Sweden on purpose), you cannot rely on a third party’s information (see the Explanatory Notes above for more on this). So then what?  We could be looking at many developer headaches.  Of course, the chances that they will come after small companies is of course slim – but your best bet would be to play by the rules.

And while the EU is doing this now, expect this to happen in other countries soon. If 2014 was the year of mobile (or was it 2013?), 2015 may be the year of the tax lawyer.

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The Mobile App Minute has a fascinating segment on the Road Riot mobile game from Tango. By simply doing some A/B testing on the app icon, Tango had huge results in driving more app downloads. Learn what changing your app icon can mean to you, and how to go about doing it.

Some insights from the video:

* With small change in visuals and creative in their ad for the game, click through rates went up 90%, installs up 27%
* Changing the icon from a blue car to a red car not only increased installs by 24% but increased engagement by 25%

Watch more fascinating info in the video. Well worth your time:

Check out more Mobile App Minute episodes!

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Making apps for kids can be incredibly lucrative. In the US alone, kids generated $2 billion of games revenue last year (we are assuming generated = harassing their parents to pay).  A staggering 83% of kids aged 6-13 say the use/download apps, and they use apps an average of 24.5 times per day on their smartphone! Clearly kids are a captive audience ripe for making apps for. However, the road to profiting from kids games has pitfalls you need to avoid, and there are 3 key principles you should adhere to if profit is your motive.

A central decision is of course whether to use in-app purchases or not. While IAP can be incredibly lucrative in terms of extracting revenue, it can lead to parent outrage – or in the worst case, a lawsuit by government authorities. Amazon has experienced this, where their strong suit, a 1-click payment experience, has lead to claims that this has caused huge amounts of unauthorized purchases.  However, if one is to believe research firm Dubity though, this may not be an issue:

Source: Dubit

However, angry parents and short term profiteering is never really a smart strategy, and although kids may get permissions (for a $0.99 purchase it may have been given frequently), one is best to adhere to some simple principles:

1. Be transparent

Google has started enforcing rules that makes developers list what they charge for in-app. However, this should not really have been needed. Do not try and hide the fact that you’re charging in-app.  Parents will be much more upset finding out there was a charge when not expecting it, than the kid spending more than they anticipated. If parents give permission knowing there are in-app purchases, they may get upset at the kid, but not you.

2. Be customer focused

Treat customers big and small well. This means refund when asked (provided the app store supports this possibility), or if you can’t refund, give them something good (like free use of the game or the next game if possible). You want customers to be your advocates, not your enemies.

3. Be thoughtful in your monetization strategy

This is perhaps the most difficult part of developing a game. Where, how often and how much should you be charging?  This depends a lot on the game mechanics, what users get for paying and what the alternative is. Remember, for mobile games, the majority of the revenue is derived from only 0.15% of users (the “whales”). Those users will spend regardless, so don’t be greedy with the others. Give users a chance to play the game without paying, but just make sure when they do pay, the game experience is significantly enhanced.

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As an app developer it is already well-known that a placement in the top 25 is worth its weight in gold. However, chances are you paid almost (or more) than that weight in gold in ads to get there. New research however, confirms that users find apps through search more than half the time. So if you don’t actually own a goldmine, this is probably where you should focus your efforts as an app developer.

A study by MobileDevHQ found that buying your way to the top 25 list really only works for about 10% of the users. By far the biggest number of apps are found through search:

Source: MobileDevHQ by TUNE

With 53% of Google Play users discovering their apps through search, one would expect most developers have nailed the strategy for descriptions and keywords. In our experience however, we don’t really find this to be the case. Time and time again we see awesome apps, followed by mediocre screenshots (not the subject of this post, but hugely important as pointed out in previous posts), and even less thought put into the descriptions and keywords.

Let’s take a case study. One of our co-founders’ daughters really likes Care Bears. Or any cuddly bear for that matter. A search on Google Play for ‘bear kids game’ reveals this result:

Search results for 'Bear kids games' on Google Play web store

At the second spot is the app Cute Bear Relax Sound for Kids. The title of this app has both ‘Bear’ and ‘Kids’ in the title, and even though the word Bear is only mentioned 4 times including the title (compared to the #1 ranked app which mentions ‘Bear’ 13 times), they clearly get credit for this.  In addition the description contains 541 words and it is not a “spammy” type of description based on repeating words, generally most of the text offers new information about the app. Contrast this with an app in the 81st spot, Bear Run, which does have Bear in its title and presumably should score well, but only has 61 one words of description and only 2 similar screenshots.  It’s almost like they could not be bothered with users downloading it.

We are not advocating +500 word descriptions are needed for slot machine apps, but you do need to put real thought into describing your app, and applying sensible SEO techniques when doing so. It is so easy – just look at what the top apps in your category are doing, remove those who have clearly bought their way (i.e. the ones from big publishers – although I bet they have pretty good descriptions too), and see what gets them to the top.

And please, please do not use Google Translate. It just looks ridiculous to natives. For instance, Cute Bear Relax Sound for Kids, was translated as ‘bear lethargic songs for kids’ in Scandinavian. Not something parents would jump at we guess. CodeNgo has partnered with Tethras to provide you professionally translated descriptions. It will be worth the investment.

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We have spoken with Puneet Yamparala, owner of the active & prominent App Entrepreneurs and Marketers Group on Facebook. We asked him to share tips and strategies on how developers can implement low cost but effective marketing strategies to improve their app businesses.

  1. What mistakes do you see most often by developers when it comes to marketing their  apps efficiently and effectively?

Based on my experience, the biggest mistake indie devs make is that they create an app and think that they are going to automatically get downloads for their apps. A lot of them feel that marketing is evil and something to be avoided. They need to understand that building an app is just 20% of the work. The remaining 80% is actually marketing their app.

This kind of brings us to the other mistake most devs make when it comes to marketing their app. Almost 90% of the developers do not know who their target audience really is. They would just like to get downloads from everybody and anybody out there.

This approach just does not work. There is no way you can convince a 18 year old teenage girl to download your app in the same way you would convince a 35 year old man. Everything, right from the app graphics, theme, App store description, the marketing message and everything else depends completely on the target audience.

If there was just one thing which I would urge the developers to fix, it would be take their app into the market after deciding who the ideal target user is going to be.

  1. How should developers look at structuring their app marketing strategy to give them the best chance for success?

As a developer there are three things which they need to look at when deciding on an app marketing strategy. The first is the reliability or reproducibility of a strategy. Not every marketing strategy you read about can be recreated successfully. Some marketing strategies like reaching out to bloggers or doing PR stunts have a very very low success rate. Sometimes these strategies work and sometimes they don’t. It is best to avoid such luck based marketing strategies as much as possible.

The second thing they need to look at is whether their target audience can actually be reached through that marketing strategy or channel. For example giveaways are a great way to market your app, and it works great for games and shopping apps, but it will fail miserably if you try to use it for marketing an enterprise app. Enterprise users hardly participate in giveaways. So basically my point is that you need to know where your target audience hangs out, what they like or don’t like and then accordingly develop your marketing strategy.

Finally, a developer needs to keep in mind that not all marketing strategies or channels are created equal. Some strategies get exhausted after just 5,000 downloads while some other channels can get you 5 Million downloads and still have plenty of more downloads possible through them. So it is necessary to choose marketing strategies and channels which can scale really well.

FB group

  1. What are the best low cost strategies that you’ve come across for acquiring downloads and users?

My favorite and the most low cost marketing strategy which I have found so far has been hacking YouTube to get downloads for free. This strategy is super easy to implement and has always delivered results for me and the people who have tried it out.

This strategy is so successful that for about 6 months I stopped all my other marketing activities and just focused on this to get as many downloads as possible. So far we have got about 3 Million downloads and almost 90% of them are for absolutely free.

Your readers can read more about implementing this strategy here: http://bit.ly/1u9Cq0M

The second most successful strategy which I have come across is cross promotion via TapDaq. TapDaq is a free service and it is incredibly effective. The main advantage with TapDaq is that it lets you do laser focused targeting so that your app is exposed to only the right kind of users who can increase your lifetime value. I am a huge fan of this service and I recommend this to every app developer I speak with.

  1. What opportunities or innovations are you seeing in the broader app space that developers should be aware of?

The whole app industry is undergoing a huge shift. So far most app entrepreneurs just focused on making money from their apps via ads or in app purchases, but now all of a sudden they have realized that they have access to the email details of millions of users.

This basically means that app developers now have the opportunity to monetize these users outside of their app. They can sell these users physical products, courses or even other software or apps. With this shift the average revenue per user can easily increase tenfold and allow app developers to acquire more and more users for their apps.

This is my opinion is a huge shift in the app business, but of course app developers need to keep in mind that they don’t their users and instead only reach out to them if they have their users’ permission.

Puneet YamparalaPuneet is the owner of the largest online app entrepreneurs group. He currently works as a Mobile Product Manager and shares his knowledge around creating apps that solve a problem, inbound marketing to get app downloads, Facebook Ads, Creating apps to be funded by venture capitalists. He currently has 6 apps in the iTunes and Android app stores which he has been personally involved with.

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How can you get over two thousand downloads in 2-3 days with a budget of less than $50?  Does it sound too good to be true? Well, it does involve some work, but it may be closer in reach than you think. Puneet Yamparala has put together a great how to kit for achieving this through giving away something to the user (giveaways). Puneet was inspired to do this post after talking to a number of developers who had cool apps, and realizing his advice was the same each time. With his permission, we have re-posted the secret sauce here.

Complete Guide to Getting Thousands of App Downloads Using Giveaways

by Puneet Yamparala

Giveaways

Giveaways – usually refer to giving away some kind of a prize for people who complete a small task. This is a very effective way of getting a huge number of downloads when you are just starting out with a new app.

This strategy works really well during an app launch as it brings some additional traffic and downloads over and above the initial spike in downloads during 7 day honeymoon period of a new app. In this post we will look at the overall strategy and also look at some of the tactical details involved in implementing this strategy.

Giveaway Strategy to Getting App Downloads

The high level strategy involved here is that there are a huge number of people out there who like to participate in giveaways by completing small tasks for a chance to win something in return.

So this strategy involves taking advantage of such behavior to help us achieve our goals. There are multiple ways to use giveaways to get downloads and I have tested out a huge number of these different models over the last few years.

I have found that there is only one major download funnel which really works. We will take a look at this funnels in detail, but before we do that let us understand the structure of a giveaway and some of the pre-requisites for running a giveaway.

Pre-Requisites for a Giveaway

For a giveaway to be successful, you need to have the following:

  • A prize and a picture of the prize
  • Understanding of Laws related to a giveaway – MUST READ AFTER YOU READ THIS POST
  • A Facebook page to run the giveaway
  • An account on online-sweepstakes.com
  • Facebook ads account
  • App in the App Store or Google Play store
  • Landing page for your app

Let us look at each pre-requisite item and what yo need to keep in mind while preparing each of these items.

Prize and Picture of Prize

When choosing a prize it is very very very (a few more verys) important to choose a prize which is relevant to your target demographic and related to your app idea.

In case you do not know your target demographic then make sure that you sign up with your email to receive free advice and updates, because the next blog post I am writing is about identifying your target demographic very accurately.

A few examples of correct demographic definition: “College educated women, in the age group 20-25 who like weddingwire, bridal designer etc.”; “Men who go to college in San Jose, in the age group 25-30″

A few examples of bad demographic definition: “Stay at home moms”; “women who read people magazine”. These are too broad and will lead to under optimum performance of your campaigns.

giveaway sample

Once you know your target demographic, pick a prize which is just out of reach of most people but not too expensive. You can also choose low cost items from premium brands. A good way to do this might be to look at wish.com and see what kind of items people are wishing for and see if it is appropriate for your target demographic.

DO NOT giveaway something generic like iTunes gift card or Amazon gift card or something crazy like an iPad. You will attract all kinds of wrong people. I have previously used things like jewelry when targeting my demographic. Each cost me about $3. If you use low cost items the advantage is you can have more winners.

Understanding Giveaway Laws

The article I linked to earlier is a good primer to Giveaway Laws in United States and just use the templates which are provided at the bottom of this page to make sure that you do not get into trouble.

Small things like saying “Do xyz to win prize” Vs. “Do xyz for a chance to win the prize” can make a huge difference when it comes to giveaway laws.

Obviously I am not a lawyer so if you are concerned about complying with Giveaway/Lottery laws make sure that you speak with an attorney.

Facebook Page to Run a Giveaway

When I speak with app entrepreneurs during my 1:1 sessions, I usually ask them not to waste time with creating social media accounts and just focus on the things which give them the best bang for their buck.

But in this case you need a Facebook page. Facebook does not allow you to create effective ads if you are not linking them to your page.

Pro tip: Think about the right name for your page. If you plan to create lots of apps for the same target demographic then use a more generic page name instead of a name specific to your app. e.g. If you plan to have many apps for Zombie fans then your page should be more generic name “Zombies R Coming” or something on those lines, instead of “Zombie Tower Defense App” which is very specific to the app.

Online-Sweepstakes.com Account

We need this for promoting the giveaway, so that you can implement your plan for getting app downloads. Just go ahead and create the free account.

Facebook Ads Account

If you have run FB ads earlier then we are good to go, if you haven’t run any ads earlier then just go to https://www.facebook.com/advertising and make sure that you are allowed to create ads.

If you do not know how to create Facebook ads then I suggest you sign up here to receive free advice and updates. I plan to write a blog post on getting started with FB ads soon.

sample ad

App in the App Store or Google Play Store

This strategy works best for apps which are already live. You can use this strategy to create a list of people who might be interested in your app, but I just prefer to avoid the extra step and have people directly download the app.

Landing Page for your App

For creating an effective landing page for your app it is VERY important that you use WordPress to create your landing page.

Unfortunately the whole process around setting up a WordPress site, getting hosting etc. are out of the scope of this post.

So once you have your WordPress installed and ready, create a landing page for your mobile app. You can find a good theme on themeforest.net.

This next step is important – get the free plugin social share. This plugin is essential to increasing virality and making sure that you get the best results for your campaign.

To see how this plugin works, just scroll to the bottom of this post (if you are not reading this on App Entrepreneurs Association, just got to http://appentrepreneursassociation.com and search for this post). I have locked the templates which can be used for your giveaways behind this plugin.

In your case, you need to add this plugin’s locked content to the bottom of your landing page, after the main calls to action to download your app. The message which needs to be added for the best results is available as part of the templates below.

Sample Content Locker

Structure of a Giveaway

The giveaway you are going to run will basically consist of you offering people a chance to win a prize in return for them Liking your Facebook page post and adding a comment to that post.

Note that you are NOT asking people to download your app for a chance to win the giveaway. That can get you in trouble as per the laws around Giveaways. You want to keep the qualification criteria for giveaway as easy as possible.

So How Do You Get Downloads? – This is why knowing your target demographic is so important. If your app is really meant for the target demographic you are going after, they should download your app based on what you have on the landing page. The aim of the giveaway is to EXPOSE as many people as possible to your app via the landing page, NOT to force them to download your app.

All this will become more clear once you look at the exact funnel which needs to be setup for getting app downloads from giveaway campaigns.

The Download Funnels For Giveaway Campaigns

The Giveaway App Download Campaign Funnel consists of the following stages which a potential user goes through:

  1. Target Demographic (TD) not aware of your app or giveaway
  2. TD participates in your giveaway
  3. TD exposed to your app
    1. TD downloads your app
    2. TD promotes your app landing page

YOUR GOAL: to have as many as possible members of the TD go from 1 to go on to do either 3 (1) or 3 (2). Let us look at each of these stages what you need to do to make each stage effective.

Stage 1: Target Demo not aware of your app or giveaway

This refers the general public or potential users in your target demographic who have never heard of you or your app. Our job is to have our giveaway and the app exposed to as many people as possible who belong to the TD.

Here are the steps involved in doing that:

  1. Create a Facebook post on your FB page for the giveaway. The exact template for this is provided in the templates section at the bottom of this post (go to appentrepreneursassociation.com if you are not reading it there)
  2. Promote your giveaway on online-sweepstakes.com for free. Post your giveaway early in the morning for best results.
  3. Create Facebook ads for the giveaway post (exact template provided)
  4. (optional) promote your giveaway on GiveawayPromote

By doing these steps you are making sure that a huge number of people are exposed to your giveaway to jump start your giveaway campaign.

Stage 2: Target Demographic participates in your giveaway

The people who are exposed to your giveaway now need to be encouraged to participate in your giveaway. Here are the steps to do that:

  1. Make sure you use an attractive image and the prize is selected carefully
  2. Instead of doing just one winner, have 3 or 5 winners.
  3. Do a daily giveaway instead of a one time giveaway

To participate in the giveaway you will ask the TD to complete these two steps.

First, “”Like” this post” i.e. we ask users to like the FB post where they are reading this, and

Second “Comment and let us know what you think about our new app —> <link to Landing page>“.

By doing this you make sure that your FB post gets some good exposure so that you get more participants, but you also indirectly force the users to checkout your landing page and try to understand what your app is about.

Stage 3: Target Demo exposed to your app

Once a potential user has reached this stage you are very close to getting a download. So it is very very important that you have a good landing page.

You will basically have two kinds of people here. The people who are interested in your app and the second who are not interested in your app and are probably here for only the giveaway.

For the first type of people, your landing page copy needs to impress them enough to encourage them to download your app. If you have done everything right and you fail on this last step then everything you have done so far will basically be useless.

For the second type of people, you have another giveaway below your app download call to actions which is locked behind your “Share to Unlock” feature. This way you make sure that every potential user who comes to your landing page helps you in some way.

Conclusion

In my experience giveaway campaigns are very effective for getting app downloads. You just need to make sure that you implement each step in the right manner in order to be successful. As promised, the exact templates for implementing this strategy are given below.

 

Templates for Running Your Giveaway for Getting App Downloads (see bottom of page)