Strategy 10
Tutorial: Reserve Your App Name Forever
So you have a great idea for an app but don’t have the time to complete it. You also have a great name for it, but how can you make sure that no one else will take it before you finish building your app? You should reserve it!
After creating your app and it is in the state “Prepare For Upload” or “Waiting For Upload”, you have 180 days (6 months) from your creation date in iTunes Connect to deliver a binary to Apple. If you do not deliver a binary before the 180-day deadline, your app is deleted from iTunes Connect. As a result of this deletion, your app name can be used by another developer and you cannot reuse the app name, SKU or bundle ID.
Steps to Reserving Your App Name Forever
- Log in to https://itunesconnect.apple.com
- Click Manage Your Apps
- Click Add New Application
- Complete the basic information, including the app name
- Upload temporary icons and screenshots (for iPhone 4 & iPhone 5)
- Change the app status to “Waiting for Upload”
- Create a very simple app and use the new bundle ID
- Submit the App to the App Store for Review (as you normally would)
- After the status has changed to “Waiting for Review” go into iTunes Connect
- Click Manage Your Apps > View Details > Binary Details
- Click Reject this Binary
This will set the status of your application to “Developer Rejected”. Since you have successfully submitted a binary and had a “Waiting for Review” status it can sit in that status forever, therefore your app name is parked forever! Apple considers it a “real” app since it was officially submitted. So now sit on your great app name until you’re ready to finish development.
Meet Trey Smith
If you don’t know who Trey Smith is, I’d like to introduce him to you. He’s been a big inspiration to me while I continue to develop games in my spare time. He’s pretty much like Tony Robbins but for apps! He gets you pumped up to “crush it” with apps, as he teaches how to make as much money as possible with the apps and games you release.
Trey is the owner of Kayabit Games & Secret Headquarters, Inc and his new venture Game Academy. This guy doesn’t know how to program a single line of code but he has received more than 10,000,000 downloads for games he has launched in iOS and Android. He’s created the Top 25 iOS games Maze+, Jump Pack, Monster Magic, Animal Mall and Future War.
Trey Smith – How to Make Killer Games
In this live presentation, Trey breaks down his formula for creating gameplay types that are fun and monetize well. He also dives in and does some hacker research in front of the audience on big successful games.
Trey Smith – Live at App Empire 2012
This live presentation on “How to make video games that don’t suck” Trey talks about “medium games” that cost from $2,000 to $5,000 to make and he shares exact data on his hard cost, how much he made and how he monetized the games.
Start Your App Business
Learn what has made Trey successful by downloading his FREE 80+ Page Guide + 2 Hours of Videos where he explains his secret to success:
1) Picking The Right App Idea
2) Getting It Made For Cheap
3) Monetizing Your App
Another document Trey produced titled App & Game Monetization Strategy Guide is a great reference for every monetization strategy available in mobile games. If you are building a game, make sure you review this document before you release.
Check Out These Links
Programmer Interview Tips
This week I was visiting the University of Waterloo to interview students for mobile developer co-op positions within Rogers Digital Media. It was a great experience to talk to each of them about what they are studying, what their goals are, their passion for programming and where they want to go with their careers. It was interesting that the university does not teach iOS or Android development, only C#, C++ and a little Java. Any experience that the students had in mobile was self taught or from previous co-op work terms. One thing I noticed across all was their interview skills, some were great, but others could use a little improvement. Below are some tips on how to interview well for a programming job.
- Firm Handshake – One of the most important traits you want to show the person interviewing you is that you are confident in yourself and your skills. Walk into your interview feeling confident and upbeat. An employer is more likely to hire a candidate who begins the interview with a strong handshake and warm smile than one who fidgets due to nervousness. If you are nervous, take a few slow, deep breaths before the interview to try to relax.
- Something to Show – Developers produce work, so bring your work to the interview. Employers want to see what you’re capable of. Ensure that you have tested your app before going into the interview, nothing worse than showing something that doesn’t work.
- Work Environment – Be prepared to answer questions about the environment that you’ve worked before. How was the team structured? What development method did you use (Agile vs Waterfall)? How did you get your requirements? How did you test your work? Employers get to know a lot about your development style by knowing these answers and it gives them a good idea how you’ll fit into their environment.
- Problem Solver – Programmers are great problem solvers, so have two or three examples of a problem you ran into in your previous work experience and describe what you did to overcome them. Employers want to know how you work through your problems.
- Common Questions – Be ready to answer the following standard interview questions: “What is the hardest challenge you have faced in your current position?” and “What do you consider your biggest weakness?”
- Passion – The most important thing to communicate is your passion for what you do. Employers want to know that you like your job, that you will look forward to coming to work. People who have passion for their job spend personal time learning more to improve themselves and they want to do the best job possible. A good way to display this is by showing side projects you did on your own or talk about extra classes you have taken or topics that you have researched or have a special interest in related to the position you’re applying for.
- Ask Questions – Just as much as an interview is used for employers to get to know you it’s just as important for you to interview them. Is this really a place that you want to work? Find out how they work with others in other departments. Find out exactly what you’ll be working on. What’s the rest of the team like?
Think of work like a relationship, one you’ll spend 40 hours a week (or more) in for the rest of your life, that’s even more time than with your family and friends. Your goal shouldn’t be merely to get a job, but to have fun and create a connection. Don’t rush into anything unless it feels right on both sides.
Monetize Your App: In-App Purchases
In this series of posts we will be investigating the reasons to use the freemium app model, how to earn money from your free apps and the obstacles you might face if you go free.
Part 1 – Monetize Your App – Free
Part 2 – Monetize Your App: Ad Supported
Part 3 – Monetize Your App: Sponsorships
Part 4 – Monetize Your App: Affiliate Sales
Part 5 – Monetize Your App – In-App Purchases
So you’ve picked your strategy, you’re going Freemium! The trick is to give people a robust enough free app to get them to download it in the first place – but still find a way to convince enough of those downloaders to part with their hard earned dollars? Do it wrong and you’ve just given away something for nothing. Do it right and it can be a lot more lucrative than charging everyone $.99 upfront.
There are three main strategies to using In-App Purchases in your app.
In-App Purchase Upgrades
You could offer the basic version free with the possibility of upgrading to a paid version with additional features. This might induce more customers to download and try the app, thereby earning a larger fan base and increasing its prospects of earning revenue. However, this strategy is more likely to work with social apps where word of mouth within friends circles result in single users upgrading to the paid group version. “Words with Friends”, is a good example of an app, which had a free version that sustained itself with ad revenue, while the paid version (where players compete with each other online) resulted in additional revenue from app sales.In-App Purchase Consumables
IAP can also be used to provide in app virtual (consumable) goods such as coins or gems, bullets, special powers, additional costumes and customizations for your characters etc. Games such as The Simpsons Tapped Out and Jetpack Joyride are common examples of this. This works really really well if it is acceptable for your app’s genre. While becoming more common in games, the use of IAP consumables has been limited in business and utility apps.In-App Purchase Subscriptions
Auto-Renewable subscriptions are mainly used in Newsstand applications. They represent a product that grants the user access to dynamic content for a given period of time, which is configured in iTunes Connect (set periods ranging from 7 days to 1 year). Subscriptions renew automatically, charging the users Apple ID at the end of each subscription period, unless the user opts-out. This product type works well for magazine or news subscriptions, where the user gets access to each issue published while their subscription is valid
Flurry has released statistics that confirm in-app purchasers spend on average $14 per transaction, which is why freemium has become the dominant means of monetizing apps. That’s 14x the revenue that most developers get with a Lite + Premium strategy, and is based on an analysis of how 3.5 million consumers spend their money in games.
Monetize Your App: Affiliate Sales
In this five part series of posts we will be investigating the reasons to use the freemium app model, how to earn money from your free apps and the obstacles you might face if you go free.
Part 1 – Monetize Your App – Free
Part 2 – Monetize Your App: Ad Supported
Part 3 – Monetize Your App: Sponsorships
Part 4 – Monetize Your App: Affiliate Sales
Part 5 – Monetize Your App – In-App Purchases
Another great approach to making money in your app is an affiliate sales relationship where a third party pays the developer each time they bring a user to the third party product or service. The most popular affiliate for iOS is leveraging LinkShare. Rakuten LinkShare is a leading provider of full-service online marketing solutions specializing in the areas of Affiliate Marketing, Search Marketing, and Lead Generation.
LinkShare manages affiliate programs for just about all of the major brands, but the one that we want to focus on is the “Apple US iTunes, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store” program. This affiliate program offers a 72-hour window and a 5 percent commission on the largest catalog of digital products in the world. Songs, albums, TV shows and episodes, movies, music videos, ebooks, iOS apps, and Mac apps from the U.S. stores are all commission-able. The affiliate program works with both desktop and laptop computers as well as iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch) and from websites, mobile websites, and from within apps.
Here’s what you need to do to get started:
1. Signup as a Publisher for LinkShare.
2. Create an HTML redirect that includes your affiliate link and host it on your web server.
[syntax_prettify linenums=””]
<html>
<head>
<title>App Name – App Store Redirect</title>
<meta http-equiv=”REFRESH” content=”0;url=YOUR LINKSHARE LINK GOES HERE”>
</head>
<body>
You are being redirected to the App Store…
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“YOUR GOOGLE ANALYTICS ACCOUNT #”);
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>
</body>
</html>
[/syntax_prettify]
3. Create a bit.ly link for your redirect page above. You don’t want users to see the link that you’re sending them too.
4. Every time you link your app to the App Store (i.e. banners, twitter & facebook posts, emails, etc..) include your new bit.ly link.
This redirect link will tell LinkShare that you are sending this user to the App Store. It will leave a cookie on the users iOS device for the next 3 days. Every purchase that the user makes in the App Store or iTunes you will receive a 5% commission for referring them. This is a good idea because you are directing users to the App Store anyway to buy your app so why not get an additional 5% back and for any other apps they buy!
This is a surefire way to make some easy money. This is a proven tactic that worked for Temple Run. Imagine the number of links they have back to the App Store, each one is making them even more money. If you want poof, check out their bit.ly link here: http://bit.ly/TempleRunGame
