You can build the best app in the world, the slickest website, the most engaging ads, and the perfect monetization strategy, but the very first step to making any money is getting the attention of a potential customer. Once you have that attention, a certain percentage of those potential customers will eventually pay for your app (whether directly, via In-App-Purchases, by viewing ads, or taking some other desired action).
Though not a perfect model for understanding the flow of potential customers through the process of paying for an app, the concept of a sales funnel is a great tool for analyzing how and why sales happen and how that process can be improved.
The basic idea of a sales funnel is that each potential customer moves through some series of steps from first gaining awareness of your app to actually paying for the app. Though it may seem like an incredibly simple process for most apps, there is a lot that can be optimized in both who becomes aware of your app and the subtle details that encourage and discourage a potential customer from actually paying.
For example, one great source of attention for an app is getting featured by Apple on the front page of the App Store. Apple has never mentioned the number of shoppers who visit the featured section of the App Store in a given week, but one would assume it’s in the millions. Depending on where the app is placed on the page, the appeal of the icon, the name of the app, and many other subtle factors, a certain percentage of shoppers will tap on the icon to view the app’s detail page. Then depending on the screenshots, price, description, and many other subtle factors, a certain percentage of shoppers will download the app. For free apps, the funnel gets quite a bit more complex as the shopper then uses the app and is shown ads, completes an In-App-Purchase, or takes some other desired action.
You can work to optimize each step in a funnel, but none of it works without first getting attention. The more each step in the funnel is optimized the less attention you need, but lots of attention can also make up for problems and inefficiencies in that funnel.
So, how do you get attention for your app? There isn’t any one answer. I wish there were. What works for one app might not work for another and most successful apps employ a variety of strategies to generate and maintain attention. In my next few posts I’ll discuss some of the more obvious ones: paid advertising, press, being featured on the App Store, App Store search, Google search, cross promotion, word of mouth, network effect, and complimentary apps.
Disclaimer: this post has been sitting unfinished for months. I decided to post it as-is. I hope to write the follow up posts mentioned above, but it may take months, or years, or never happen.