Earnings Report: 1 Month in the App Store, Numbers and Results!
Pat here:
So it’s been a month since we’ve released iPopit! for sale in the app store, and we’d love to share the results with you.
In 30 days, we’ve sold 252 units. At $0.99 each, and a 30% commission for Apple, we’ve earned a total of $150.71. (Some of the units were free copies for friends and review websites).
We hoped to add a few more zeros on our total, but that’s ok. We now understand exactly how difficult the app store market is. We need to do more in order to succeed.
Here’s a graph of our sales so you can get an idea of the progress:
(click to enlarge)
iPopit! started out fairly strong, and then dipped like crazy. Here’s why:
When you release a new app, it gets put in the “new releases” category. Your app will be at the top of this list, until someone releases a new one after you. On this list, we were number one for about 10 minutes, in the top 25 for half a day, and almost out of the top 100 within a day and half. This should give you an idea of how many new apps are coming in each day.
We did choose a difficult category: entertainment. There seems to be a new entertainment app released every 10 minutes, which is why we got bumped off so fast. So as you can tell by the graph above, when we were on this list, we sold more than we did after we were bumped off.
Things to Consider:
There are, however, ways to promote your app after you release it that will increase your visibility and your unit sales. We are in the middle of doing these things right now.
1. We Just Released a “LITE” version of iPopit!
We just released iPopit Lite, a free version of iPopit! which only has one level (instead of 4) and ads, which should hopefully get people to “try it before you buy it”. We’ll have a post dedicated to what the lite version has done for our sales once we have enough data to tell you something interesting. As I said before, we JUST released it. I should tell you, however, in the first day – over 2000 people downloaded it.
2. We Just Released an Update to iPopit!
At any time after you release your app, you can re-release a newer version to fix bugs and change it up a bit if you’d like. The problem is – you have to go through the whole app review process again, which takes about a week (at least right now). However, when your app update is approved, you can change the release date to the day of the new approval, and you’ll reappear on the “new releases” category. Updated app = more visibility. Sweet.
3. We changed categories.
At any time after you release an app, you can change it’s category. We recently changed from the competitive entertainment category to Sports. This was Quoc’s idea, and I wasn’t sure at first, but I believe it’s going to be better for us. I mean, getting drowned in the entertainment category, we had to try something. We’ll also let you know how this is going soon. In just a few days, however, we’re already on the “top paid apps” list for the Sports category, which we never even got close to in entertainment.
There’s a lot more to iPhone app marketing than just timing. There are reviews sites, forums, blogs, and the planets have to align too. These are things that have to happen (except for the planets thing), in order to get noticed and have any success in the app store. If you create an app and do nothing, hope will do you no good. In my opinion, the app is 20%, and marketing is 80% of the equation for success. (Ahh, the 20/80 ration once again…)
Conclusion
You always hear about the guy who wrote an app and got rich, or the dude who developed the app that sold 50,000 units in just one day. That’s THE dream, and it still is for us. It’s still a dream that we believe we can reach. We’ve got a few more apps under development right now, and since we’re learning from our experience with iPopit! and gaining more exposure every day, we can only go up from here, right?
Ask the Reader
A quick question for you. We’re thinking about outsourcing our marketing campaign to experienced iPhone app marketers. What do you think? Should we go all out and do it?
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I don’t know why I’m so surprised, but the info on this post ….so dope. Seriously, so insightful, so simple, so smart. I enjoy following the project(s) because its reminding me how much I liked talking/learning about all things business before Corporate America ate my soul.
You know I’m rooting for ya’ll….Love You both DEERLY,
~AQ
You have the same symptoms as iGroupEmail although a little more sales overall. The marketing is more the using Twitter, YouTube and a nice website. I’m braining about stuff that will make my app roll on a buzz right now.
I’ve red that lite versions give you exposure but little direct conversions though… Hope you will get marketing success!
Still very interested in investment figures you spent..
Godspeed guys!
Oh yes.outsourcing is always good.
Very interesting stuff – iPhone apps have become much harder to earn with now that we have 50,000+ in the store. My apps have been leveled out for a while now because I have not been updating them lately.
Out of everything I have tried the only thing to have any affect on sales is releasing updates. This starts to take the “passive” part out of the passive income goal.
Yesterday I tried using AdMob to advertise my main app (a $4.99 tasting notes database app). I spend $50 on clicks and sales went up $10. This is super preliminary but I thought it was interesting. I am going to try this again using their analytics package to see if advertising has any + ROI at all.
I will blog that when I get more results. iPhone app promotion (for indy developers) is a pretty undeveloped field.
Pat,
Great post, and so true. Our company is an outsourcer as well. We come up with the IP’s or work with other IP’s and subcontract the work or work out some seriously complicated rev share deals. We are also Screen Actor Guild Signatory’s (just means we can legally hire Hollywood voice talent)
We released iNetMania a few months ago and are currently working on putting out some soundboards that bring big celebrity talent to boost our marketing and PR efforts.
We actually do all the marketing ourselves, but outsource the PR to people we know who can really execute. Marketing and PR is all about execution and sustainability or a plan. I do recommend outsourcing at least PR, but as I am sure you know, the profit margins can get pretty slim, fast.
Feel free to contact me any time, would love to chat.
Have you covered the cost of oursourcing to a 3rd party developer yet? I’m curious how long it took you or you expect it to take you to see a postive ROI for the app development.
The holy passion of friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring in nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
apple just took things to another level
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Thanks for these posts, our company makes apps for customers and explaining marketing of apps to them is difficult. Unfortunately with the iTunes store as it is now, it’s just not enough to make a good app. You really do have to promote it and help game it to the top of the store. We sell marketing packages as part of our in-house deal but have a lot of clients thinking they don’t need it…having a successful app in this cluttered space is hard.
I’m interested to find out if you outsourced your marketing and if so did it work?
Also wondering if you think selling apps has got easier or more difficult since the early days…
This is one of the very interesting post on the iPhone application development economics. Many iPhone applications don’t do that well is they are not developed professionally and are amateurish at best in their presentation. A typical offshore freelancer may be cheap – but he has no skill in GUI design, graphics layout or testing applications in a professional way. Therefore, such applications fail in the market. If they are developed with professional approach, the application has much better chance in retaining its market and keeping customers come back for more.
Amy Rosewal
Rapidsoft Systems, Inc.
http:www.rapidsoftsystems.com
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Outsource the marketing. That would be an awesome learning experience no matter what happens – and imagine if you find someone good who can take care of marketing for all your apps, that would be the ultimate.
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Great posting, tx for sharing?
May I know which reviews sites, forums, blogs, etc you submitted your app to for review?
Cheers,
AppDev
Anything new in development?
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