How to market your app

How to successfully market

your iPhone Application?

#appstudyParis, January 2010

..…….

2January 2010 • Marketing your iPhone application #appstudy •

Introduction

This study originated from observations made on the lifecycle of “RATP Lite”

and “RATP Premium”, two applications we designed to provide Parisians with

public transportation official information

We decided to go further in the analysis by running mathematical programs

Today we make a step further by sharing the results with you through this

creative commons presentation

We hope your challenge and contributions to the study will favor the

emergence of best practices for iPhone apps marketing

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1 - Presentation of the App Store

2 - Case study: RATP apps

3 - The App Store 4Ps

4 - Conclusion

Summary

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App Store: applications entrypoint

App Store is the unique marketplace

to get iPhone and iPod Touch applications

..…….


App Store: Figures

Apple has locked a huge market

34 millioniPhone

24 millioniPod Touch 58 million

App Store users

3 billion applications have been downloaded

Each user spends an average 4,37$ a month on apps*

Generating over $250 million in revenue per month

*Source: GigaOM.com

http://gigaom.com/2010/01/12/the-apple-app-store-economy

..…….


Browsing the App Store (desktop)

3 Rankings

“Staff

favourites”

Search bar

Banners

Paid apps

Free apps

Grossing apps

Apple

editorial

content

“New and

noteworthy”

“What’s hot”

Categories

..…….


Browsing the App Store (mobile)

Apple editorial

content

Category

browsingRankings

..…….


The big challenge!

There is no opportunity for advertising within the App Store

Getting the right marketing mix is more important than ever

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Case study: RATP apps

• Live on May 13th 2009

• Free

• Ad-funded

• 350 000 downloads

• 126 000 active users

RATP Lite

• Live on May 3rd 2009

• Paid: 1,59€ then 0,79€

• 105 000 downloads

• 80 000 active users

RATP Premium

faberNovel designed two applications for RATP users:

..…….


Case study: sales and downloads evolution

Downloads Lite

Downloads Premium

Price cut V 2.0

Downloads

Time

..…….


Case study: pricing evolution on RATP Premium

The initial pricing was 2,99 € according to the business

plan, but that never happened

We realized that it was too high compared to the market.

We set a premium price of 1,59 €, capitalizing on the

RATP brand

That wasn’t enough to win significant market share, so we

shifted to a volume strategy with a 0,79€ price

0 day!!!

2 months

..…….


Case study: week-end sales peak

Sales peak during the weekend (+20% on Sunday)

It might be even bigger for games….

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Sales breakdown by weekday

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Case study: sales vs advertising

Advertising revenues from the Lite version brings recurrent

revenues to compensate sales relative stability in Premium

45% 37%

55%

63%

May June July August September October November December

Monthly Profits

Advertising Lite

Sales Premium

First ad campaign

Sales Premium

Advertising Lite

..…….


Case study: RATP apps

Those results encouraged us to go further in the analysis

… to identify the the App Store 4Ps

0

With 8 months of data…

… we ran statistical analysis…

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PRODUCT PROMOTION

PRICE PLACE

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Product: great upsell opportunity

80% 50% of users try Lite before buying

Premium

A good free version is crucial to push users towards the paid one

…especially if the price is high

of users try Lite before buying

Premium

We monitored the percentage of RATP Premium owners that downloaded

RATP Lite first

..…….


Product: 4 reasons for a differentiated

product line

Upsell opportunity

Brand visibility

Clearer product definition

Better segmentation

..…….


Price: a price-sensitive market

2

3

1,59€ 0,79€

Sales

A 50% price cut led to 3x more sales

..…….


We booked 500 000 impressions* on a major website…

…generating 4 sales!!!

Promotion: web campaign ROI was not so great

With an average CPM** of 6€ in France

That’s 750€ of advertising for one client

… to make a 2€ revenue!

*Impression = display of an advertising banner

**CPM = cost of 1000 impressions

..…….


Promotion: cross-marketing increases

click-through rate

Cross-application advertising seems a better solution

0,07%* 0,59%*

* Source: appfigures for RATP Lite

Web advertising Cross-application

advertising

8Click-through rate

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Place: availability on the device is key

When we launched RATP Premium, it was way too big (27Mo)

An app has to be lighter than 10Mo to be available in 3G (on the iPhone)

SALES x3,5

RATP Premium available in 3G, on the iPhone biggest sales peak ever

..…….


Place: the App Store ranking algorithm

Ranking is based on sales of the previous

week

Macro observations led to 2 likely hypothesis*:

The formula is a 7 days weighted

average

We ran a program to identify the best combination of weighted coefficients…

… and here is what we found

* See http://tii.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=522655 for precisions

1

2

http://tii.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=522655

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Place: the App Store ranking algorithm

The ranking only takes account the last 4 days of sales

Sales of the current day are determinant

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Key learning: advertising campaign timing

Focused campaign on

4 consecutive days

WIN FAIL

Advertising on a specific day

and repeating over the weeks

Self-perpetuating good position

in the rankingsAdvertising effort will be diluted

Ranking will not be maintained

Good ranking

Highersales

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One more thing… in progress

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 700

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

Nom

bre

de v

ente

jour étudié

We can forecast future sales based on previous sales with a precision of 10%

Real Sales

Our forecast

Time

Sale

s

This algorithm is based

on an ARMA model :

Autoregressive Moving

Average Model

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• These results are based exclusively on our Apps study

• The algorithm can’t be proved, as the rankings are relative to other applications

sales

• To extend the reach of this presentation, we will wait your contribution:

What’s your take on this?

Try the algorithm on your application

Challenge our case study

Bring constructive feedback on iPhone Apps marketing

On twitter: #appstudy

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17, rue du faubourg du Temple 75010 Paris

Tél. : +33 1 42 72 20 04

Fax. : +33 1 42 72 20 03

www.fabernovel.com

Study written by:

Marie-Caroline Lanfranchi @mariecaroline

Baptiste Benezet @Ba_B

Romain Perrier @RomPerrier

Acknowledgements:

Yves, Martin, Clément L., Virginie, Patrick, Estelle, Pierre-Yves,

Cyril, Matthieu, Sabrina, Stéphane, Ouriel and La Cantine

Contacts

Project - Baptiste Benezet

[email protected]

Press - Sabrina Distinguin

[email protected]

http://www.fabernovel.com/

mailto:[email protected]



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http://getap.ps/RATPpremium/appstudy

http://getap.ps/RATPlite/appstudy

Our Apps are available

on the iPhone App Store






Technology

How to market your app