Marketing your app: Price & Pretty

Week 8 readings

A. Price:

How much should I charge for my application? Is the most important question that developers should consider post development of an iPhone application. If you charge to little you will miss out on a lot of revenue; conversely if you charge too much you will miss out on a lot of sales.  Not only will your bottom line be affected but also how people perceive your application is based on price as well. I had a very interesting debate with Micheal Schneider who was a guess speaker during my MCDM smartphone class discussing this exact issue. I belive that a high-priced iPhone application would reflect negatively on reviews and perception because of raised expectations;  generally speaking people who have had negative experiences make their voices unknown more so than people who have had positive experiences. In addition, if I do not feel like I’ve gotten my moneys worth then I would feel more inclined to see some sort of retribution in the form of a negative review. The other side of this argument is people feel more attached to high-priced purchased. For example someone commented that they will never delete their high-priced application even though it is never or rarely used. Or maybe its just people are willing to give it more time than the typical .99 cent application.  Either way, whatever side of the argument you may fall on both sides reiterate the importance of pricing your iPhone application appropriately.

 B. Pretty

Right or wrong, I’ll purchase the prettiest competing application over the most functional any day of the week.  I actually keep my icons in a certain order based on color scheme and the prettiest icons on the home page and poorly designed ones in the back because I conciously think about how my phone appears visually. Apple’s success is the perfect example of the appeal to design. This is why is it extremely important to spend a lot of time crafting your application icon, screenshots, and the website for your application. These 3 things are your primary marketing tools and possibly your only ones depending on your budget. In such a crowded app store marketplace you will need to stand out from the crowd and an application that grabs your attention will help you do that. When Im making a decision on an application I usually breeze past the description and go straight for the screenshots to get an idea of the look and feel of the application. If the application is poorly designed no matter how useful I will not buy it and look for another that is designed better. Adding an caveat to the design aspect, the application still has to be useful not just pretty but pretty will certainly give you the competitive edge over competitors. An perfect example is Shaazm versus Soundhound; Soundhound offers more features and utility of identifying music than Shaazam yet Shaazam is the most reconginzed application of the two.

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