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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)

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From BlackBerry:

 

The BlackBerry World Vendor Portal has come a long way since its infancy. This summer we proudly deployed the new vendor portal, a completely redesigned system that delivers an enhanced user experience, and new and improved features for managing your vendor account.
For several weeks now, we have maintained the old portal active to allow you to smoothly transition to using the new system.

The time to decommission the legacy BlackBerry World Vendor Portal is fast approaching. While we work on the final steps to retire the old portal, we encourage you to prepare for this change. If you haven’t done so already, take some time to sign-in to the new system to familiarize yourself with its user interface, workflows and feature-set. Access the new BlackBerry World Vendor Portal at https://appworld.blackberry.com/isvportal_beta.

A confirmed date for decommissioning the old system will be communicated at a later time. Once the old vendor portal is retired, you will be required to perform all of your account management activities in the new BlackBerry World Vendor Portal.

If you have any questions, please contact BlackBerry World Vendor Support.

Sincerely,

BlackBerry World Team

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As a developer you probably put a lot of thought into your app design, the mechanics, the features and functionalities. You may even thing hard about analytics and monetization strategy, and certainly (we hope) you pay attention to your distribution strategy. But how much time do you spend thinking about how to support your users? In our interview with Adam Mintz from Helpshift you can get an insight into the ultimate engagement tool: Customer service.

—

1. What mistakes do you see most often by developers when it comes to implementing quality customer service protocols within their apps?

Many Developers don’t see the need for Support or Help sections inside their apps. I can’t stress how important it is to have a visible Help section. All users needs support at some point when using mobile apps. As a Developer, it’s foolish to assume that your app is so easy to use that it doesn’t require a Help section with FAQs or a Knowledgebase. You’re trying to reach millions of people across the world with your app. If these potential users have a problem or can’t figure out something your app, take the time to give them a way to get help. As we all know, upset users will either leave you a negative App Store or Google Play Store rating and/or uninstall your app. Both of these outcomes hurt your app’s success.

2. What factors should developers consider when determining their customer service strategy?

Developers need to consider the following when rolling out a support strategy: resources, platform, and response time. If you don’t have the money to spend on hiring a full time support agent, then have a rotation for your team so every member does a little bit of support each day. This will help you resolve your users’ issues without having to spend extra capital.

Choose a platform to handle your support. While Gmail is free and easy to setup, it’s not a scalable solution. You can go the traditional help desk route, which is email-based, but that can require a lot of setup time and customizations. Mobile-first companies choose Helpshift because we built our solution for the mobile world and not the email one. Keeping everything in-app, including FAQs and Messaging, allows you to scale and be more efficient without having to add more bodies. You want your users to stay in your app, so why would you communicate via email when you can communicate with them inside your app?

Communicate the expected response time for a user’s ticket to be answered. If users submit a ticket/message/email to your support, and it takes more than a few hours to get a response, you’ve greatly increased the chance of losing that user. At the very least you’ll want an auto-responder to let the user know that his/her ticket has been received and that it will be answered in x number of hours or days. Just having: “Thank you for your message. We’ll get back to you within 24 hours” lets the user know that he/she has been heard and support will get back to them. 24 hours should be plenty of time for someone from your team to address the issue.

The Helpshift dashboard
3. How do developers turn quality customer service into high ratings for their apps?

Quick answer: it will come organically. If you focus on providing high quality support to your users, then they’ll often return the favor either by leaving an App Store review and/or telling their friends about your app. Turn your users into your advocates by helping them navigate any trouble inside your app. One of the most important and easiest things you can do to provide high quality support is to follow-up with your users after a problem. A simple “Hey there, wanted to make sure that you aren’t seeing that crash anymore after our last update.” is a great way to reach out to the user. In the user’s mind, he/she feels special that the Developer of the game he/she plays personally reached out to make sure everything is okay. To send that message or email took you 4 minutes out of your day, but the impact it has can be an increase in the user’s LTV, positive App Store rating, and/or the user telling friends to download your app.

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

Remember that your app has the potential to reach a global audience. It’s important to localize your app so it can benefit users from different cultures and countries and who speak different languages. Depending on your app’s function, the impact might change from country to country. If your app requires a strong network connection, it may not do very well in parts of the world where 4G/LTE isn’t as widespread.

5. Wildcard – any question/answer of your choice

Q: How do I set my app apart from the competition?

A: Customer support! The easiest thing you can do to set yourself apart from a competitor is to provide excellent customer support. It’s the Zappos way! Shoppers can buy a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors from a whole number of online retailers. However, they return to Zappos because of the customer support. They know that if there is a mistake or the shoes don’t fit, that Zappos will accept the return easily. Zappos has been a trailblazer in the way support should be done.

Remember, one bad experience can spread like a plague. This is especially true in a world where everyone tweets, texts, and shares things across the Internet. So invest a little bit of time and resources to keep your users happy and using your app.

 

Adam Adam Mintz, HelpshiftMintz is the Head of Onboarding at Helpshift, an in-app support solution for mobile apps. Helpshift provides a native user engagement experience for thousands of apps and processes 3 billion App Sessions every month. Helpshift’s customers include those in the gaming, lifestyle, productivity, b2b, and news app categories. Check out their Developers Page or homepage for more information.

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News of a potential new app store from Verizon has caused at least what is called a marginal stir in the US wireless community. The tech press and analysts are not exactly believers though.  Why is this the case? Are mobile operators doomed to fail yet again? Perhaps there are driving forces simply requiring them to not fail at this time and that the carrier app store will rise again.

CNet reported that analyst Sameet Sinha said carriers should not focus on building stores because it would require “too much change in consumer behavior”.  Right. That’s kind of saying why build Facebook when MySpace is dominating the world. Or why bother creating an Instagram, when there is a perfectly good photo upload alternative everyone is using.

Feeling nostalgic?

Granted, mobile operators have failed before. And long before the 2010 example referred to in the CNet article. Long before APP stores there were WAP stores. Same s… different wrapping. Did they succeed? In terms of building global markets? Not at all. Insane revenue models and barriers between the operators ensured that. Did they make money for the operators?  That is a mixed bag. Some like the operator 3 made tons of money on content, while others – arguably the majority – lost out eventually (how many successful operator stores outside of China, Korea or Japan can you name that is currently alive today? Feel free to comment).

But while they may not have much historical success, the decline of the mobile operator’s core businesses (voice, messaging, data – which is increasing in volume but margin getting thinner) means they need to search for a new stream – a 4th wave of revenue. While an app store may only be part of that, it certainly means they have a strong need to start understanding the digital consumer in a whole different way.

Mobile operators are in perfect position to do what is required – change consumer behavior and entice the user to come to their store.  They can market to the users physically through their own retail locations, they can reach them cheaply with email, SMS, MMS, monthly bills – and they can preload phones and put materials in the phone box. But it requires them to think like a media company. It requires them to think on how they can bundle content, drive promotions, give better revenue shares and operate more successful developer programs (yes, developers no longer beg to come to them, they have to beg). Many operators may not be set up for this, but history has taught them that partnering with companies that do may be the trick (or just buy them).  Whether they will succeed in any larger scale remains to be seen, but that they will keep trying, and that some will succeed, is quite likely to happen.

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The largest survey among app developers on the market, Vision Mobile’s Developer Economics, has just been published. With over 10.000 developers participating, the report contains key information for any developer trying to learn the business of app development. Read on to see why going for gold in the apps business is kind of like trying to become a rock star.

As an app developer, the future may look a little grim:

Revenue distribution (Source: Vision Mobile)
The revenues from mobile apps dis-proportionally comes from less than 2% of the app developers. In fact, 2/3rds of developers do not make enough money from the business of app development to focus on it. Of course, according to Vision Mobile, half of those developers are not looking for money anyway, rather app development is a hobby or the developer is simply experimenting. Given that the app developer community is exploding (Vision Mobile pegs it at 2.9m while Evans Data says 8.7m), there must be a reason that drives developers beyond money.  Indeed, looking at the figures for app developers above, the resemblance to the music industry is uncanny:

Artist revenue distribution (Source: Next Big Sound)

Music analytics company Next Big Sound has found that in music – as in app development – most artists remain undiscovered (i.e. “lost in the app store”) and only about 1% of artists can be considered mainstream or mega stars, yet the avenues to market for a music artist today are arguably as plentiful as an app developer. Still, new artists keep coming.  What is the driver?  Clearly passion is a key ingredient that keeps artist creating, and some of them going for gold. But did U2 sound good the first time they got together in a garage? Or did they scare the neighborhood cats away? Of the risk of causing a comments storm, we elect to believe the latter.  What made U2 good, and what makes an app developer good is simply experience:

Experience in apps and revenue (Source: Vision Mobile)

When analyzing app developers, there are huge differences between those who have released 50+ apps vs those with only a handful in terms of the earnings potential.  The power of experience, as stated by Vision Mobile, cannot be ignored.

 

“The 3% of mobile game developers who have shipped 50+ titles are nearly 9 times as likely to be earning over $50k per app per month than the 62% who have only shipped between 1 and 3 titles.”

– Vision Mobile

 

We also believe that experience does not just mean creating better apps, but being smarter about your marketing strategy, to localize your app and marketing, make sure your app is in as many app stores as possible, engage with users and keep improving your product, etc. Sure, it’s tough to make it as an app developer, and while you may not make beautiful music right off the bat, if you keep trying and improving, chances are you may one day become that rock star…