App-Promo is proud to see our client’s application @Shanatovaapp application (www.bit.ly/shanatovaapp) get such great reviews and feedback. The marketing campaign, focused on social media (Twitter and Facebook) has been extremely successful and demonstrates the power of social media marketing for mobile applications.
Thanks for all those who attended the #mbootcamp today in Toronto, Ontario. As promised, please find enclosed a link to the presentation deck. As a thank you for all those who attended, if you download the deck and follow us @Apppromo, a random draw will be made and some will win a free @Apppromo ASO Package. See it pays to listen 🙂
The following images are for use by the press and media for the Travel+Escape Digital Magazine launch.
App-Promo monitors the App ecosystem on a regular basis and every now and then we like to comment on someone who gets it right. This is one of those occasions! Congrats and cheers to Walgreen!
The popularity of Instagram is indisputable at this point. Big brands aren’t just on the photo-sharing network, now Walgreens is helping bring Instagram to life with its mobile app Printicular.
Printicular lets you print out all of your cool, filtered Instagram pics at your local Walgreens. The pictures come out in 4×4 format and are ready for pickup within an hour. That’s pretty awesome. The app also lets you print photos from Facebook, your Camera Roll (iPhone and iPad) or your Gallery (Android) to be printed in standard 4×6, 5×7 and 8×10 sizes.
For all the talk of “brand utility,” most companies rely on apps that don’t serve any real purpose. It’s nice to see Walgreens step in to create one that’s both useful and lines up perfectly with a business goal: selling more prints in an era when photography is mostly digital.
With 90 million active monthly users on Instagram, and 400 million photos being posted per day, Instagram holds a wealth of opportunities for brands to reach large audiences. Other brands have experimented with photo-related apps. For example, Nike created a branded filter for Hipstamatic. As 59 percent of the top 100 brands are on Instagram as of February of this year according to eMarketer, it’s surprising that more brands aren’t playing with Instagram-related apps and branded filters.
Printicular is an awesome branded app that is actually a useful tool for Instagram users
App Promo loves #AprilFools. But this offer is no fool, tweet us @AppPromo and tell us why your app needs our ASO services and will offer you FREE an ASO package today April 1, 2013. No Joke 🙂 Just results!
We are extremely pleased to announce that the App Promo App Marketing 101 series will be syndicated on the BNotions Blog and the Application Developers Alliance Resource center. The App Marketing series was created as the essential how-to market your app tutorial for app publishers and developers. The 10-part article series walks the reader through all 10 core pillars of app marketing from app store optimization through to paid and social media and beyond.
The series just recently completed its syndication on the Sony Developer World with extremely positive response from the Sony developer community.
BNOTIONS is an Innovation Company that works with forward-thinking global brands and disruptive entrepreneurs. Their team focuses on strategy, design, and development of mobile, web and social products.
Application Developers Alliance is a non-profit industry group founded to serve developers, the people who power and expand the world through software. They work to ensure that developers have the tools, network, and policy environment they need to innovate.
Both of these partners are leaders in empowering publishers and developers in thinking about their app as a business, a mission core to App Promo.
The first part of the article series has already been posted by BNotions. Application Developers Alliance expects to launch this series in the New Year. You can read the complete 10-part series now on the App Promo Blog.
Make sure to log in on 10/2 at 10am to watch @Apppromo being interviewed Advertising Week streamed on @HuffingtonPost–http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtvarv_advertising-week-awe_news …
App Promo CEO Gary Yentin to be interviewed @advertisingweek (www.advertisingweek.com) in NYC, Tues Oct 2nd at 10am on the topic of How to be a #1 App and not loose money! The event will be streamed on@HuffingtonPost for all those not able to attend. Be sure to tune in to hear about app marketing, app strategy and app monetization tips and tactics which are sure to help you improve the success of your own app.
Another E3 is over. We are back from LA and are still processing everything that happened at this infamous gaming industry show. From software to hardware, mobile and consoles there was a lot to take in this year but one thing is for sure – the gaming space is growing and thriving.
Here are THREE things that caught our eye at this year’s event.
1. Playing the Odds with Mobile Gaming
We talked to a number of gaming companies and found that there is a definitive emphasis on developing games for mobile platforms. What we heard was that due to the cost effectiveness of developing for mobile versus traditional consoles and because of the more immediate measurable reaction to the games – gaming companies are developing and launching a large number of games for mobile in order to test out what works and what doesn’t in the marketplace. Mobile’s low cost of entry compared to consoles and its fast and efficient distribution system to reach the market has made it the perfect sandbox to figure out which game is a winner with users for gaming companies something not available with the traditional console.
2. Ubiquity of Gaming and Emphasis on a Second Screen
There was definitely a common focus by the top game publishers – Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, on ways to play games anywhere you are with on any screen. Microsoft Xbox’s SmartGlass exemplified this the most with their app which allows Xbox users to take the game they are playing on their TV and transfer it to any smartphone or tablet that is in front of them. The app can do the same for other entertainment like movies or TV that you are watching on the Xbox. Users can pause anything they are doing on the Xbox and resume on a tablet and smartphone freeing the user up to continue the experience anywhere they want to go. IGN did a great recap of SmartGlass in their article which covered Microsoft’s announcement at E3 which you can read here.
3. New Gaming Console Hardware from Nintendo
With most of the emphasis at the show on software whether it be actual games or gaming console applications, Nintendo’s new next generation Wii U console stood out as one of the very few newsmakers on the hardware side of things. Where Microsoft took the approach of making any tablet or smartphone be a second screen using software/app, Nintendo created their own physical second screen with the Wii U GamePad controller. A great infographic summary was published by Nintendo Wii U Facebook on there new product highlighting among many things the GamePad’s motion sensors and the consoles IBM Power-based multi-core processor.
Where fragmentation is an app publishers worst nightmare on the technology side with various hardware and operating systems, it becomes a powerful opportunity for app discovery with more than one distribution center available for publishers to use to aid them in their mission to gain app sales.
Google Play is a give-in but to really take your app to the next level you need to be looking outside this store to maximize your reach. Three discovery points every Android app publisher must have on their radar at this point are: Amazon, Facebook and YouTube. We’ve broken down what you need to know about each of these discovery powerhouses including the reason why your app needs to be there.
Launched back in March of last year, Amazon’s AppStore for Android now has over 25,000 applications in their inventory according to their February 2012 report by leading app store analytics company Distimo. This may be quite small compared to the 400,000+ apps in Google Play but this app store packs a punch when it comes to making money for developers. The same report concluded that out of the top 110 apps that appear both in Google Play and in the Amazon AppStore for Android, 42 of them make more money on Amazon then they did in Google Play.
If you are a paid application then Amazon is definitely the place for you. Distimo said that paid apps in the Amazon AppStore made up over 68% of all apps in this marketplace while in Google Play this percentage is 38% and dropping.
Revenue may be easier to gain in this store because, like iTunes, Amazon is a well known and trusted online/mobile shopping destination. With books, clothing, furniture, music and more in the same location as applications, the Amazon store is sure to attract a large audience who are already connected to purchase anything Amazon recommends to them
The most recent app store to be announced by a large industry player, Facebook threw their hat into the ring of mobile applications May of this year. Although this store isn’t ready for primetime, we urge that any app that has Facebook Connect or uses Facebook APIs prepare for its unveiling by creating an App Detail page and Submitting Your App.
With over 800 million active users according to Facebook itself, this app distribution center is expected to have a lot of eyeballs when it launches and with over 10.5 billion minutes spent on Facebook online only (this doesn’t even include mobile) this is one opportunity that you don’t want to miss out on for your app.
Facebook’s App Center will be well equipped to serve your app well. It will even support paid applications to help earn you revenue and it was recently unveiled that it will handle the tricky part of getting the app to your phone with their streamlined app install and launch experience via “Send to Mobile” which will use Facebook notifications when you are on a desktop and find an app that you want to install on your device.
If you don’t have Facebook APIs running in your app and you have been thinking about it, now is a good time to prioritize this on your product roadmap. No word yet on when App Center is about to launch but word on the street says that it is soon.
Although not an app store, YouTube, being the second largest search engine according to comScore, makes this discovery point extremely valuable to Android app users. We strongly suggest to all of our clients the creation of a 45-60 second marketing YouTube video for their application as part of their marketing collateral. Not only can you utilize this video as part of your product page within Google Play to enhance the saleability of your app; having this app live within the YouTube environment will allow app publishers to take advantage of the search results.
It is extremely important that any YouTube video you send live be well equipped with keywords and calls to action in order to maximize conversion of video views to downloads of your app. App publishers should maximize the use of the video title, description and tags by creating copy that is chock full of keywords geared towards search engine optimization.
In addition, a link to your app should always be evident in your description for all of your apps. Publishers should also utilize the Call-To-Action Overlay which YouTube makes available for your video which allows for a transparent ad unit to appear during viewing which can be used to illicit downloads of the app.
Above all else, however, your video should be high quality, engaging and relevant to your target user in order to be effective.