How to market and promote your new iPhone app with a simple marketing system

We just rolled out our first iPhone App – iGavolt, the iPhone App that puts a Jewish Grandmother in your Pocket.  And oy, has it been fun.

It’s been a great project for us, as we now know a great amount about the iPhone SDK and what goes into building an app (we team up with our friends at Vokal Interactive for development.)

It’s a simple app that allows the user to play various ‘Jewish Grandmother’ one-liners, such as “Why don’t you call me anymore?” “Are you going to marry a nice, Jewish girl?” and others.  Read the press release here.

However, as with most products that are new to the market, it’s not just going to just sell itself.

This is why we developed a marketing plan for this app and for future apps.  Most of the plan is based upon eMarketing, Social Media and Viral Marketing.

Here is a graphical view of our marketing system for our iPhone Apps, which focuses on the most important components we have initiated:

Let’s break the system down into its components and look at tips for each:

Facebook

With over 225 million users, Facebook may be one of the best ways to quickly get the word out about your iPhone app, IF you are not just ‘broadcasting’ your message.  It’s also important that you’ve built a substantial friend base without thinking about profits.

• Create a fan page for your App. This could be your app’s ‘home’ where users can get updated information on new upgrades, high scores, etc. Go to www.facebook.com/advertising and click on ‘Pages’ to get started. If you can, use FBML to bring in some custom elements into your Facebook Page (aka your Public Profile).
• Post to your profile. Make sure you’re not ‘that guy’, but it is a great way to get the word out on your app. I recommend shortening the exact URL that connects to iTunes with a URL shortener. One of my favorites is cli.gs because it has tracking ability. I know that on the first day of the app launch, we had just about 100 clicks on that link. Of course you have to track your sales through iTunes Connect over time as well.
• Create a commercial and post it. We made a simple, goofy 44 second commercial and uploaded it onto YouTube. Then we posted the video to our profiles and created an evangelist system to help push it out even more (see more about our evangelist system below in ‘Public Relations’) Check out the commercial below.
• Use Facebook for Crowdsourcing. Developing the app was a lot of fun and one of the ways we determined what sounds to have in the app was through crowdsourcing. I sent a quick status message that asked, “What do Jewish Grandmothers say?” and minutes later I was bombarded with content. Then I used a similar technique to have my friends widdle down the options to their favorite audio files. Beautiful!
• Create an app launch event. Just launched an app? Celebrate! Create an event and promote it on your personal profile and public profile. Get your friends and associates together, spend some money on a cookout and further strengthen the viral marketing. We created ‘National Jewish Grandmothers Day‘ (come join us!)

Twitter

I won’t comment on how fast Twitter has been growing (because everyone else already has!) But I will say that it is definitely a tool that can be very powerful in promoting an iPhone app!

A few tips about tweeting your iPhone App:

• Measure your clicks with a URL shortener. How do you know what the success of your initiatives have been if you’re not measuring? Either use the same URL across all mediums or a separate, shortened URL for each so you can measure the success of each individual medium.
• Give away 20 free copies. If you’re selling a paid product, get it into the hands of potential evangelists by giving them free redemption codes. If they like it, simply ask them to tweet about it and link to either your Facebook fan page, your press release or the iTunes directory.
• Create your evangelist retweeting system. You don’t need a base of 1 million followers to make a large impact on Twitter. Start with 5-10 friends or associates on Twitter and convince them that if they like your app, they’ll help you promote it!

Email

Don’t forget the power of email!  Social networking may be getting more attention than email these days, but we still read it, especially from people we trust.  Leverage email in three ways:

• Send out some personal emails to friends, family, advisors and associates. Let them know about your new venture and how excited you are about it. Invite their suggestions and ask for support. You won’t get what you don’t ask for.
• Include a blurb about your app in your monthly newsletter. You don’t have a monthly newsletter for your organization? You may want to create one.  We’ve seen an incredible amount of success with them.
• Include a short blurb about your app in your signature line. Think of all those emails you send. If you had a quick note about your app and then a link to the press release or fan page, that could be a great way to increase exposure.

Blog

We created a blog with Blogger at igavolt.blogspot.com to help give more information ‘behind the scenes’ about iGavolt along with exclusive content not in the app.  Here are a few tips to leverage your blog for promoting your app:

• Embed your commercial into the blog. We not only included it in our post with the press release, but we also embedded it as a widget on the right side of the blog. This way, anyone who sees the blog for the first time can see the video right there.
• Include the shortened URL to the iTunes listing. Create a simple graphic to place on the top right of the blog to give the user easy access directly to the iTunes purchase.
• Promote your blog articles through Facebook and Twitter. To reiterate, don’t be that guy! Don’t ONLY talk about yourself and your own products. If you’re focusing on giving away valuable content all the time, people will listen when you talk about your app.

Public Relations

We feel that you should not remove traditional marketing from your overall strategy and that public relations is one of the best ways to use traditional marketing to promote your app.

• Create a press release telling your story. Don’t just talk about the app and its functionality. What is ‘press-worthy’ about your app? Maybe it’s the story behind why you created it in the first place. For example, we created iGavolt because I truly love my gramma! What is it about your story that would get the media interested?
• Place your press release on your blog and consider a distribution source like PRWeb. The more exposure your well-written press release gets, the more of a chance it has to get picked up by a media source. This will undoubtedly increase your downloads if done correctly.
• Submit your app to peer-reviewing sites. These review sites will take a look at your iPhone App and give their honest feedback and opinions on it. Of course, they could say bad things as well. Here’s a list of 9 places to publicize your app on the web.
• Create your evangelist system. This is one of the most powerful ways to use PR: through viral word-of-mouth. Determine a group of friends, family, and associates (say 20-30 people) that will help you promote the app by:

o    Posting it to their Facebook profile (once a month)
o    Tweeting about it (one a month)
o    Sending a few emails about it (once a month)

Because of how busy you are, it’s very important that you systemize your efforts.  Put in 20 minutes a day to promoting your app, measure the success of various initiatives and try to create a calendar of your efforts.

This is not an exhaustive list and I’m definitely leaving out several techniques.  What are some of your suggestions?

Tagged as: facebook, igavolt, iphone, twitter