tequila bomb

Nice little checklist of things to do / avoid when marketing your app. Read it before you finish your app. Not after it is approved. And implement the advice as best you can.

#10 Not Becoming or Hiring a Marketer

You can’t just be a developer. You need to become a marketer. Either start learning on your own or hire someone who can help you.

I have a caveat for number 10 though.

At the end of the day it is much better to learn how to market your own product. It’s not that hard, and you are the only person who really knows your app well enough to do it justice. Hopefully you are enthusiastic about your product and will pass that on to your target audience far better than any paid suit.

If you are going to pay someone to promote your app only get someone who has come through a personal recommendation, either from a friend, or via people in a community you trust. There are a lot of con men out there. Be warned!

Since writing this article for Touch Reviews I have been contacted by any number of people complaining about an individual called “Ed”, who I used as a template to describe the bogus app marketeer.

We hadn’t given much thought to who would play Dolphin Hero; we just made it. This was a big mistake. Dolphin Hero earned just $300 in its first 6 months on the App Store, but we persevered.

Spoiler : Things works out for them in the end.

Moral : It’s all about planning, hard work and marketing. Oh and a million other jobs that probably never occurred to you.

Lots of cold hard facts, and painfully open figures in there too.

Next time you’re investigating an app (which if you’re at all like me will always be sometime within the next 24 hours), take note of what aspects of its website irritate you. There will almost always be at least a handful of annoyances. Then go and take a look at your own app’s site.

See anything familiar? I bet you will.

Some great advice for Indie Developers.