21 February 2013
3 Tips for Building a Mobile Apps Brand (Guest Post)
Robert Gleason, the Project Manager of Learning Gems shares a handful of helpful tips for app developers interested in building a recognizable brand. As the development studio behind the recent App of the Week winner, Word Search – Word Hunt, Learning Gems specializes in creating educational apps that make learning fun for kids of all ages.
There are thousands of app developers out there. If you can’t distinguish yourself from the others then you will likely find yourself buried in the competition. Many indie developers fail to realize the importance in building a brand to grow the exposure of all of their apps. With this in mind, I’d like to share three tips that helped Learning Gems build our brand.
Find Your Niche
It is difficult for your brand to stand out when you don’t specialize in any specific area. The trick is to find a niche that you are passionate about. Then, build the majority, if not all of your apps around that niche. For us, that niche is educational apps for kids. For others, it may be storyboard games, music tutorials, sports, entertainment, utilities or travel. The great thing about building your brand around a niche is that it encourages people who have purchased one of your apps to buy your related work. The goal is for your brand to be the first to come to mind, when your customers look for more apps on the topics that they are interested in.
Add Value to the Market
As Hunter S. Thompson said in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.” For app developers, this means that you cannot settle for “good enough.” Make something that is worth playing and that meets the needs of your target audience.
With so many apps on the marketplace, building average apps and just pushing them out for the sake of publishing, is simply a waste of your time and effort. You may get a few sales here and there, but you are likely to get negative reviews and end up getting buried by the competition.
If you make an app that your target audience really enjoys, your brand will gain new fans. These customers are more likely to tell their friends about your brand and you are more likely to get mentioned and reviewed online.
Don’t Give Up
Making apps that are worth downloading will take a lot of time and effort. There are costs involved as well, ranging from buying devices for testing, to licensing fees and labor costs. It’s easy to get disheartened after making a couple of apps that you put your blood, sweat, and tears into just to find that you are only getting a few sales per day or per even week.
Instead of giving up, learn from what works and doesn’t work with the apps you develop. Listen to your customers when they leave reviews. Keep working on new ideas. Go back to improve your existing apps by implementing some of the suggestions given by your customers.
Each new app you develop has the potential to become a better seller than your last. Each app you release is another opportunity to build your brand and cross-promote your other apps.
In a nutshell, building your brand and having a successful app development business can hinge on how well you pick your niche, the quality of the apps that you build, and your perseverance. Good luck fellow Corona developers!
Robert Gleason, Project Manager at Learning Gems
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.