5 ways to get free users for your iPhone app

I found interesting statistics here.

According to Fiksu, CPI for iOS was $1.78, CPI for Android was $2.51 at February 2016.
* CPI means cost per install

I was surprised by 2 facts.

1. CPI for Android is actually more expensive than iOS.
Can you believe that? How can cost for Android be more expensive than iOS?
May be because Android has more apps? or iOS user tend to install more apps?

I was shocked by the cost itself. In my understanding, CPI for iOS in the US market should have been around $3. $1.78 is too cheap?
Is it because $1.78 is global average or $1.78 include boost install?

If the CPI is decreasing , this is a good news, but $2 is too much unless you app is social game with in-app purchase feature.

So let's get users for free.

Here's 5 ways you can think about to get users for free.

1. Prepare gorgeous landing page
Some app even does not have any landing page. This is bad. You should have beautiful landing page and ideally you should have feature which let user  to contact you.
If you're pure developer and can not design, Strikingly can help you.
You can create beautiful landing page in 5 to 10 minutes.

2. Prepare beautiful promotional video
Creating video is something difficult especially for developers. Many developers can understand CSS or even how to use GIMP. But most of them can not know how to use video editing application like Final Cut Pro. But don't worry about it. you can create great promotional video at Placeit. You can create promotional video just capturing screen of your app.




3. Prepare sweet screen shots
Screen shots matters. Please don't put simple screen shots. You can create great screen shots at DaVinchapps or LaunchKit.



Once your app is approved by Apple....

4. Prepare good reviews
Reviews/Ratings matters. User choose apps which has good ratings naturally. Since review seems to be part of factors which affect ASO keywords rank, review matters even for apps visibility.
You can get reviews at Favorr. Favorr is a web site where developers review each others apps.

5. Submit your app to app listing/review sites
Final step is to submit your app to app listing sites, like AppiMall, as many as possible. there are tons of such sites. if your app is featured on such sites, you will get free PR.

User acquisition is hard, really hard.
I sometimes feel like....


If you know more like hacking way to get users for free, please let me know!

5 ways to improve ASO keyword rank for iPhone app

Digital advertising is huge!
Online advertising revenue in the U.S. reached a record of $59.6 billion last year, 2015 according to the Bloomberg.

Google occupy roughly 50% of the revenue.
So SEM is now the biggest pie of online ads.

According to the Biznessapps, roughly 50% of user come from search on Appstore or Playstore.

So naturally search business on Appstore and Playstore is going to be big.

It looks like Apple is developing paid search ad service according to this article.

MEANS ASO ( Appstore search engine optimization ) IS GOING TO BE IMPORTANT LIKE SEO.

5 years ago we could manipulate the Appstore rank easily.
All we had to do was just buying so-called boost ads which let many users to install our apps for rewards.
For example, just $5,000 was okay to be featured on the top 10 list and once your app was featured, you app kept featured for months. That means you could get many organic uses after the campaign.

But this was 5 years ago.

I tried boot ads again 1.5 years ago. I put $10,000 this time. My app's rank went up but unfortunately not so many user came organically and my rank went down quickly. In a week all effect form boost ads disappeared.
This was disastrous experience.

What this failure means?

Apple's algorithm evolved and we have to catch up the reality.

Here's a basic tactics to improve ASO rank.
Looks like there is no single how-to that work like magic.


Choose keywords carefully.
I don't think there is long tail keyword which nobody is focusing on because all low hanging fruits were already taken. But we should avoid at least extremely competitive keywords.

1. MOPAPP can help you to analyze the keywords.

2. TUNE ( farmer MobleDevHQ ) can give you more broad picture including the number of installs.

Prepare Reviews.
Reviews/Ratings matters not just for ASO but for user psychology.
So let's prepare reviews before trying boost.

3. Favorr  can  help you to get first 10 reviews for your app launch.
Favorr is a web site for app developers to get free reviews form other developers.

Now boost your app.
Buying user sounds crazy for first. But still buying user have some effect on ASO rank. Since users from boost campaign is almost junk if not fake, the objective of boost is purely manipulating Apple/Google ASO rank.

4. Traialpay is one of many companies which handle boost campaign.

5. Tapjoy is another option.

Since Apple don't like boost campaign, some apps start using incentivized video ads instead.
But I'm not sure how effective video ads is for ASO rank manipulation.

If you are indie developer or part of small team, you are week like...



Be clever!

5 ways to get free reviews for iPhone app on App Store

If you are an app developer, you probably know that review is important.
Yes, review is really, really important.
There are 2 big reasons.

1. Increase conversion rate.
There is a big difference between 4.2 stars and 2.8 stars for user psychology.
If your app's average rating is more than 4, you are okay. but if your rating is less than 4 or nothing, you are in trouble.

2. Increase visibility
According to this article, roughly 50% of your users come from search on AppStore.
50% is big.
The question is what affect the Apple's search algorithm and how we can improve it.
Nobody know that and Apple and Google keep evolving the algorithm, we will never know that.
But it seems the number of users, the number of reviews are important part of it.
In a nut shell, getting more and more user and reviews can improve your visibility.

Here's 4 open source libraries you can integrate and 1 web site you can use to get free reviews.
Everything is free.

#1 iRate 
iRate is a library to help you promote your iPhone and Mac App Store apps by prompting users to rate the app after using it for a few days.


#2 CNPPopupController
CNPPopupController is another open source SDK which you can use to beg users to write reviews.

#3 Armchair
You can also use Armchair.





















#4 Appirater
Appirater is another choise.


#5 Favorr
Favorr is not a open source library for showing review begging popups,  but kind of developer community where app developers review each others apps.  Since showing popup is sometimes destroying good user experiences, developer have to be careful how often or when to show popup.


Review is critical for app marketing.
Problem is getting review without compromising UI/UX is hard.

Looks like Apple is thinking about selling Google's Adwords-like as on iTunes.
If you have money, maybe you can buy good visibility here.

5 ways to get early traction for your iPhone app

Do you know app fatigue?
Like the Techcrunch wrote in the article, there is a app fatigue mentality out there.

Nothing new?
You're right.

Since there are more than 1,500,000 iOS apps and more than 15,000 new apps are released every day,  we have way more apps than we can actually use. If you are a developer and working for a company, may be no problem because you can make money, actually decent money no matter how much money your company can make through the apps.

But if you are a indie developer or you are part of app startup, developing apps is just the beginning.
You have to get users and make money.

Monetization is another huge topic but let me focus on user acquisition first.
User acquisition is hard. Not just hard, it's super hard.
How to get early traction is a million dollar question.
Here are the 5 things you can do to get early traction for your apps.

Before you try these 5 things you need to have at least a good product if not a mind-blowing product. Good product means with good design, good user interface and all basic functionalities in place.

1. TEST YOUR APP
You can use Ubertesters to make sure your app is marketing ready.

2. PREPARE BEAUTIFUL LANDING PAGE

Before launch, you need to prepare beautiful website.
You can use Strikingly for that.







3. PREPARE BEAUTIFUL SCREEN SHOTS
LaunchKit helps you to prepare beautiful screen shots, website and a few more things you need to launch.




4. PREPARE REVIEWS
Now it's time to get reviews. If you do not have enough users who willingly to write reviews to your app, Favorr can help you. Favor is a web platform for app developers to review each others apps.






5 LIST YOUR APP AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!
You can list your app on app listing sites like 148apps or AppStoreApps. You can easily find more than 50 such websites in 10 minutes.

I hope your app can get early traction!

Reference : Statista, New York Times.