After many months of brainstorming, designing, coding, prototyping, and reiterating, we’re finally ready to announce our newest and most ambitious product yet. Greenbox, the eco-friendly smartphone-controlled irrigation system is now available for pre-order on Kickstarter.

Greenbox is made up of a single physical controller unit, an iOS application, and a backend (Greenbox Cloud). The 6-station controller, which takes just minutes to install, can replace existing AC irrigation controllers without requiring any updates to existing infrastructure. It receives local weather data and customized watering recommendations from Greenbox Cloud through the iOS app. The weather-based automatic programming enables users to prevent unnecessary watering. This makes for healthier yards and helps conserve water and save money.

The user experience provided is above and beyond anything offered on the market today. Setup takes 5 minutes, and the interaction with the iOS app is intuitive, efficient, and fun.

And possibly our favorite feature of all? It’s truly affordable. Existing smartphone-controlled irrigation systems with weather integration start at $500, whereas Greenbox will retail for about $200. ÜBER EARLY BIRD units are available on Kickstarter for just $99, so if you plan on getting one, you’d better hurry.

We couldn’t be more excited about this product. If you want to see Greenbox come to life, please support us by pledging or sharing the following link: www.22seeds.com/greenbox

Thank you!

Dori and Uzi

At last, after seemingly endless brainstorming, wireframing, coding, testing, bug-fixing, re-testing, submission to Apple, approval, and dealing with the awfulness that is iTunes Connect, it’s time to make your app available for sale. You’ve already prepared PR materials and targeted your audience, and now it’s time to embark on the final, most exciting phase of building an app: the launch.

Don’t kid yourself by thinking that once your app is available in the App Store you’ll be able to go on vacation and occasionally check your download figures and chart ranks while sipping a piña colada. Your work is far from done. Actually – and you had better sit down for this – it will never be done, for as long as the app is available for sale. That is, if you actually intend to make money from publishing apps.

Cheer up, though – one of the great things about the App Store ecosystem is that if you cover your bases by developing a useful, well-designed product that’s reasonably priced and gets at least a modicum of public attention, in most cases you’ll very quickly get a sense of whether your app is a success or not. You’ll know this through download numbers, App Store ranks and reviews, the amount of press it generates, website hits, and direct user feedback. Failing is never fun, but failing fast enables you to immediately move on to your next project without losing too much time or money. But no need to dwell on that option for now. Think positive!

You have your work cut out for you, so roll up your sleeves and prepare yourself for the effort, anxiety, and thrill that come with launching your app.

Deploy your PR and marketing plan

Get press coverage
Once your app is live, submit an email with your press kit to websites like Appshopper and 148apps, tech blogs like TechCrunch and Gizmodo, and mainstream sites such as The Huffington Post and Yahoo. Also submit links and blog posts about your app to social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites to which you can submit your app. Don’t limit yourself to just local ones – go global! And most importantly, don’t forget to submit your app to sites related to your niche and target audience. For example, if you’ve published a fitness app, you should develop a presence on relevant fitness websites and forums.

Don’t be surprised when most websites ignore your submissions. That’s normal. Some websites only look for exclusive stories, some won’t ever notice your email among the hundreds per day they receive, and some might just genuinely not be interested. Remember: they don’t owe you anything. Be gracious about it.

Provide exclusivity
Before launching, if you think a tech reporter would consider it a privilege (i.e. a scoop) to break the news of your product before anyone else, then contact them, and only them. If they decline or don’t reply, move on to your 2nd choice, and so on. This strategy usually works only when dealing with apps that bring something truly original to the tech news cycle. The latest and greatest fart app just won’t cut it, so to speak.

Keep in mind that you’d be limiting potential exposure by working with just one media outlet, so once the selected journalist writes about your app you should approach the competing publications, too.

Get reviewed
Word of mouth is quite powerful in this industry, and if you can get an influential thought leader to support your product, it will most probably boost your download numbers.

Robert Scoble is one such thought leader. When he says “check out this app”, his followers flock to its download page, myself included. Why? In short, because Scoble knows his stuff. The trust his followers have in him makes him very powerful, and getting someone like Scoble interested in your app early on can pay off big time.

Scoble predicted that Highlight would be the hottest app at SXSW, and he was right. With his reach and influence, it may have just been a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, there are other tech evangelists who could help you as well.

When Apple approves your app, you’ll receive 50 promo codes via iTunes Connect (this applies to each new version you release). A promo code allows its holder to redeem a particular app free of charge. You’ll be amazed at how quickly they run out, so use them wisely!

Send the codes to prominent app reviewers, bloggers, and niche websites, and politely ask them to take the time to download and review your app. Many sites already have standard submission pages for review requests, such as 148apps, Macworld, and AppSafari. These sites are great, because they’re actively inviting tips about interesting apps. Some reviewers are happy to offer a video review in return for a promo code, so that’s pretty good value for money, even for just a handful of views. Promo codes can also be useful for mainstream media outlets, so keep some handy for them, too.

Erica Sadun, a writer at TUAW and independent developer, recently gave an interview in which she explained how to stand out when approaching reviewers. Be sure to read that for some helpful tips. The post even includes a link to a sample template that you can use for crafting the perfect pitch.

How to talk to bloggers
If you’re new to interacting with professional bloggers and reviewers, you should spend some time familiarizing yourself with their world. These are people who generally have a deep understanding in their field of expertise and have strong opinions about it. They often interact with thousands of individuals online each month. These factors make it hard for you to stand out.

However, if you follow bloggers online for a while before approaching them, you can optimize your pitch according to what interests them most. This isn’t foolproof, but it’s vastly more effective than approaching someone without any preparation at all.

You should also read this article on how to approach bloggers. It’s a great starting point full of valuable tips.

Personalize your messages
Nobody gets excited about mass emails anymore, especially not sought-after bloggers and journalists. Address them using their name (first name is usually fine), and spell it right! This is a huge pet peeve of many people.

App store reviews
My feelings on App Store reviews are mixed. On one hand, having an overwhelming amount of negative reviews doesn’t necessarily mean that the product is bad, and it no longer deters me from downloading an app. The Twitter iPhone app’s 2.5-star rating is one example of an underrated app, in my personal opinion. On the other hand, having an overwhelming amount of positive reviews generally doesn’t happen for products that are less than spectacular, and having a 4- or 5-star average can do wonders for your app’s download numbers.

“The app is almost perfect, but due to the lack of a small feature I’m giving it a one-star rating” -about 25% of all App Store reviews

— Dori Dayan (@doridayan) March 9, 2012

Leverage positive reviews
If you get positive reviews on your app, you should definitely use them as part of your marketing arsenal. Do this in the form of testimonials on your website and App Store description. It’s very important to accurately quote and credit the source – don’t paraphrase, and link back to the source if possible.

Engage with users
Be part of the discussions that take place in the various comments sections of websites that mention your app. Monitor user feedback and make quick fixes for major issues when possible, but don’t waste time trying to make everybody happy – that will never happen. Aim for about 95%.

Accept legitimate criticism gracefully (and be sure to address it in the next product development cycle), answer any questions, correct any misconceptions, and be honest and open.

Get your app on the charts

Every app developer dreams of seeing their own product among the top-selling apps in iTunes. It seems as though apps that rank high in iTunes stay there for a long time, virtually guaranteeing their developers continuous revenue or an ever-growing user base. While this isn’t always the case, being among the higher ranked apps certainly could help your download numbers. So how do you get your foot in the door?

Hold sales promotions
Putting your app on sale is a great way to attract attention, especially since the advent of websites that notify visitors about on-sale apps, such as Appshopper, Appminer, etc. Timing is important, so follow your download numbers closely. If you start seeing a substantial dip in sales or if your numbers are consistently low, it might be time for a price reduction. Even consider making your app free for a limited time, if you’re looking to create a larger user base and/or additional word-of-mouth buzz.

Be sure to communicate the time limit on your price reductions so your users won’t miss the sale, and also to give them a sense of urgency to download your app. 

Get some free advertising
Do cross-app advertising with another developer or between your own different apps. You should only do this if both apps are relevant to the same audience (for example, you probably wouldn’t want to advertise an app aimed at business professionals inside a children’s game).

Explore alternatives
There are other more clever ways to get ahead in the App Store, such as integrating inbound marketing or pay-per-install services. I’m not a fan of the latter since it gives an unfair advantage to developers who have more money to spend (and not necessarily high-quality apps), and also because PPI violates Apple’s terms.

Another option is to partner with a third-party company. I’ll dedicate a separate post soon to share our experience with promoting Last Night Never Happened this way.

Be everywhere
Ubiquity is a great way to increase your app’s exposure. If you are marketing an app for a certain niche, write blog posts, Facebook posts, forum discussions, or tweets about that niche and include a link to the app’s website.

Include download links to your app all over your website, social media accounts and posts, blog, paid ads, and any other platform in which you have a voice that’s heard by your target audience.

Final thoughts

There you have it. In this 3-part post, we’ve reviewed all of the basics of marketing and promoting your app. Each of the issues covered can be expanded upon greatly, and there are many other useful resources for marketing advice. But if you want to keep things simple, go through each of the items in my 3 posts on Marketing & PR for App Developers and use them as a checklist to ensure you’ve covered your bases. Be creative, and don’t be afraid to experiment. There is no magic recipe for success – trial and error is part of the process. Good luck!

I would love to read any comments you have, and I invite you to share your own tips and experience with the rest of us.

So you’ve already created a killer app, and equally killer PR materials after reading Part I of this post. Now you need to find someone who cares enough to listen.

If your app provides value to its users and is competitively priced, then your audience is definitely out there, and it’s up to you to find it. Once you identify your audience, you’ll be ready to efficiently deploy your marketing and PR strategy. This post talks about some of the ways to get that done.

Target your audience

Every app requires some sort of targeting, whether it appeals to a mass audience or a narrow niche. The first step in targeting your audience happens when you build your product.

In order to convey your marketing messages efficiently, you should be spending a lot of your time communicating with the people who may potentially download your app, and little to no time communicating with irrelevant audiences.

No matter what type of app you’ve created, whether it be a game, a productivity app, photography app or others, there are communities that cater directly to your target audience. You need to find these communities and use them to interact with your audience. There are countless ways of accomplishing this, from simple searches on Google and forum indexes such as Big Boards, and all the way up to clever search engine optimization, targeted tweeting, Adwords campaigns, and more.

Chronologically speaking, you should start working on targeting from the very beginning of development. In other words, it shouldn’t happen only when you’re ready to launch. By the time your app is about to go live, you should already know exactly who you’re going to approach and with which materials. This requires a considerable amount of planning.

Envision your audience
You should have a clear mental image of your audience when working on your product and marketing materials. This even includes things like your product’s name, the keywords used in its App Store description and keyword field, its pricing, and more. You need to make a genuine connection with your audience by tapping into their needs and communicating to them how your product will help solve their problems.

Buyer personas
If you see yourself as someone who would buy the product you want to develop, that’s great, but it’s not enough. You need to validate your idea further. One helpful way to understand your audience is to create buyer personas. David Meerman Scott explains the importance of having buyer personas in great depth in his excellent book The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Here’s a short video of Scott explaining what buyer personas are:

The key takeaway of this clip is:

“The first thing, and the most important thing, before you even try to create any kind of content at all, is to step back and understand who are your buyer personas…Who are the people that you’re trying to reach? And I want to know who they are in detail.”

This is true for any product, not just apps. And while it isn’t an exact science, figuring out your buyer personas will help you gain perspective on your potential users, which in turn will lead you to make better decisions in your development and marketing processes.

Scott’s suggestion is an exercise that probably very few app developers do before beginning work on a new product. But they should. If you can’t convince yourself that the combined income from all of your product’s various buyer personas will make it profitable, then you should reconsider developing it at all. 

Don’t fear the narrow niche
Many apps, such as games and photo-sharing apps, appeal to the masses. This may seem like a good way to guarantee success, but there are actually some advantages to targeting smaller, more niche-specific audiences:

• It’s often easier to deliver focused messages to these audiences, since they can be found in dedicated forums, websites, social media outlets, magazines, trade shows, etc.
• It’s easier to stand out when your app helps solve a very specific problem, since there’s usually less competition.
• Niche-specific audiences know how to appreciate a true expert in their field, assuming of course that you really know your stuff. Don’t try faking it – that will never work. If your first app in a certain niche is successful, you should continue establishing your brand as an authority in that field.
• The more specific the niche, the easier search engine optimization (SEO) is achieved by using unique keywords in your marketing materials.
• Niche buyers are often willing to pay more for a product that caters to their specific needs. For example, an app that helps users improve their golf swing could easily cost $5-$10, whereas arcade games, which appeal to mass audiences, rarely ever reach that price level. The lower supply enables you as the seller to charge higher prices than you could in broader niches.

Compile a “hit list”
Once you find your audience, start compiling a list of press contacts, websites, bloggers, reviewers, thought leaders, and forums related to your app’s target audience. This will henceforth be known as your “hit list”. Maintain this list for future use, too.

There’s no magic recipe for compiling such a list – you’ll need to invest a lot of time and go through quite a bit of trial and error. Establish relationships within the media prior to launch, and maintain them. Spend time engaging in social media by commenting on articles and forums and by replying to tweets and Facebook/Google+ posts. Interact directly with the authors and maintain that communication so that they start recognizing you.

Don’t be a troll. Communicate with your contacts only when you have something of value to say, and stay on topic. Feel free to ask questions. Worst case you’re ignored. Best case you gain a contact to use for every product you’ll ever release. In the next post I’ll describe in more detail how best to approach your press contacts.

Final words
Here it is. The moment of truth. You’ve successfully built an app, prepared marketing materials, and targeted your audience. All preparations are done, and after months of hard work, you’re finally ready to launch! Take a deep breath, and prepare for the most exciting part of your journey yet. Stay tuned for part III.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your experience with targeting apps, so please feel free to share it in the comments section below.

Let’s face it. There are some harsh realities to being an independent app developer. To name just a few:

• Despite popular opinion, selling apps isn’t easy money
• There are approximately 1 bazillion titles in the App Store
• It’s seriously difficult to stand out in this market
• Many app developers don’t have extra cash lying around to fund heavy-duty PR campaigns

We all know this by now. So yes, your app is, by far, the greatest creation ever to grace the App Store, and it practically sells itself. But you’ll still need to work pretty hard to captivate users.

Drawing attention to your product requires public relations, and the costs of funding mainstream marketing and PR campaigns are completely out of reach for many developers, who are left to do it themselves.

This guide contains the basics you’ll need to spread awareness of your product, which in turn should increase your sales.

Following these steps requires a substantial amount of time and effort, and still doesn’t guarantee success. Timing and luck also play important roles in every product launch. But without doing this, you’re almost guaranteed to experience the frustration of seeing dismally low download numbers.

Note: Due to the complexity of this topic, I decided to split it into a few digestible posts. Today we’ll focus on how to create the materials needed to start a successful PR campaign for your app, and the next parts will be about the targeting and deployment phases of your marketing strategy.

Prepare your PR materials

Build an eye-catching website
Your website is the primary platform for communication with potential customers, and often the first place they’ll look to see your product. The good news is that these days, you don’t need to pay thousands of dollars to build a professional-looking website. Just purchase a ready-to-use theme, add your own copy and images, and boom, you’re all set.

If you’re building the site yourself, I’d recommend using WordPress, since it’s easy to learn and the community is vast and helpful. Within days you can have a fully functional website for your app. You can instead choose to create a page for the app on your company website.

I recommend the iPhone App theme by Templatic, which we used for Last Night Never Happened, or the Apz theme by WooThemes. If you have trouble mastering WordPress, or simply don’t have the time, sites like Elance and oDesk are great resources for finding affordable WordPress experts.

The one thing you shouldn’t skimp on is graphic design. This is what makes the first impression on your potential customer, so make it count. This applies to the graphic design in your app, too.

Here are some items you should consider including on your website:

• Screenshots, icons, and other imagery from your app
• A description of what the app does and its main features
• A download link to the App Store
• A press page with links to articles covering your app and a link to download your press kit (more on that in a bit)
• About page
• Contact info
• Links to your Facebook/Google+/Twitter pages

These are merely suggestions – not all items are relevant for every type of app. Use your best judgement and be creative. Remember, the website is a means, and not the end. Everything on it should be aimed at getting people to download your app.

Create a press kit
Your website should offer a basic press kit for media inquiries. This is a standard practice, and saves media outlets the effort of having to request press materials from you. The kit should include the following elements:

• Press release – I could write a whole post just about this, and I hope to some day. It’s quite normal to spend a full day or more working on perfecting one. First, read a bunch of press releases that you like, then use the inspiration to compose one in your own writing style. Be sure to keep the tone professional.
• Images of your app’s icon, your company logo, and screenshots of the app
• Intro letter – this is to introduce your company, the product, and the contents of the press kit.
• Sample news story – this is optional, but has proven quite useful in the past, and gives you more influence over the language and sentiment used in the articles about your app.

As an example, you can refer to the press kit we created for Last Night Never Happened, which can be downloaded from here. The media narrative closely followed the one we provided in the press kit.

Engage in social media
Not to pick sides, but Facebook has a clear advantage over Google+ in terms of numbers at the time of this writing. But in Google+ it’s probably easier to stand out, precisely for that same reason. Also, each social network appeals to different audiences. Linkedin is an option too, if your product is business-oriented.

Whatever networks you choose, build an attractive looking page, populate it with content from day one, and remain active there for as long as you’re selling your product. Use your page to announce special promotions, events, blog posts and anything else that you as a customer would be interested in knowing. Don’t spam your followers – give them valuable content!

Your app should also have a Twitter account to inform followers about new versions, known issues, and any other relevant updates. Twitter makes interacting with your brand extremely easy for your customers.

All of these pages can coexist to maximize exposure. To illustrate this point, below are Evernote’s Twitter, Google+, and Facebook pages:

Make a promo/demo video
Studies show that people are more likely to buy a product from a website that features a video. Viral videos do even better.

Now it’s easier than ever to create a video. YouTube and Vimeo are the most prominent video hosting sites for businesses, and both are very easy to use.

There are infinite ways to go about making a video, so try to pick a direction that feels suitable for your target audience. Not every video has to be a huge production. Even the simplest demo with an amateur voiceover adds value. Go the extra mile and make one!

Here’s a promo video for an interesting app called Here, File File!:

Build virality into your product
Make it easy for users to share your app with others via Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. Do this by generating an interesting and relevant piece of content that your user would want their friends or followers to see. A beautiful example of this is Soundtracking, an app that detects the song you’re listening to and shares it with your friends:

♫ soundtracking “Peso” by A$AP Rocky sdtk.fm/x1z2S6

— Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) January 19, 2012

This is both informative to the user’s followers, and includes a link to Soundtracking’s own website, where visitors can learn about the service and easily download the app.

Don’t forget to build a fantastic product
You know, useful and pretty. This is clearly the “duh”-est item on the list, yet so many developers seem to miss it. All the marketing in the world won’t help a lousy product.

Take a breather
That’s quite a lot to take in with one read, so we’ll stop here and continue soon with the next phases: targeting your audience and deploying your marketing strategy.

What other materials have helped you promote your app, and how did you go about producing them? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section below.

“What’s that? We’re supposed to spend our hard-earned money to download some silly apps? In this economy?”

 What exactly is it about apps that makes people so instinctively close-fisted? How can the same person who shells out $4 every morning on a Starbucks coffee-to-go agonize over the decision to buy a 99-cent app that will last them forever? Why does this distortion occur in our minds, causing us to view app purchases as a waste of money, even though the benefit gained from many apps is glaringly obvious? And what can we learn from this as developers to help us determine pricing for our own apps?

I don’t claim to have all the answers to these questions, but I hope to shed some light on some of the main factors that motivate people to purchase apps (or not to purchase them). This is not a post about pricing strategies. It’s aimed to help developers learn about the various perspectives on the value of apps in this highly complex and ever-growing market.

I’ll break my view on the valuation of apps down into 4 main categories:

• Cost of production
• Value of ownership
• Market competition
• Alternative acquirement methods

Cost of production

When we consider purchasing certain products, on some level, whether conscious or not, we try to guesstimate the cost of production. This is a very logical thought process, which basically says that the sales price should cover the cost of production and leave the seller with a fair profit. I’ll avoid getting into the long debate over what constitutes a “fair profit”, but the general idea holds.

A good example of this is gasoline. When you go to the gas station, you know that what you’re going to pay is directly affected by the cost of the materials used to produce it, namely crude oil. When oil prices go up, gas prices immediately follow.

Now let’s look at apps. The cost of developing a single iPhone app is quite high, generally ranging from several thousand dollars all the way up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on its complexity and maintenance costs. At the time of this writing, the average sales price of an iPhone app is $2.13. So on average, a publisher needs to sell many thousands of units of a given app just to break even. But honestly, how many of us have ever taken the time to think about this as app consumers? It must be something else that’s driving consumer valuation.

“I don’t care how much it costs you to build the app. I care how much it costs ME to buy it.”

 Value of ownership

Value of ownership, as opposed to cost of production, focuses on the consumer side. It’s a subjective measurement of how much benefit the consumer gets out of the product. It could derive from any number of factors, such as personal taste, short-lasting vs. long-lasting value, return on investment, how fun or entertaining it is to use, its contribution to social stature, and of course its benefits vs. competing products.

Going back to the Starbucks example from the introduction, there are a few obvious benefits of purchasing your coffee there: it saves time and effort; it’s widely considered delicious (I personally beg to differ); it’s available everywhere and consistent in quality; and you have the option to use the space provided at their stores, so you can work on that screenplay you’ve been meaning to finish. It’s true that the cost of materials for a home-made cup of coffee is negligible in comparison, and the long-lasting value of Starbucks coffee amounts to an aftertaste and extended wakefulness. Yet many people apparently value the other factors I mentioned enough to make up for the difference in costs, and that is how they justify paying $3-$6 for a cup of coffee.

Valuing apps is a bit more complicated. Apps are still largely considered a luxury product, therefore they are perceived more as “want” items than “need” items, regardless of their actual usefulness. That being said, some apps offer more obvious value than others. For example, 1Password for iPhone is a very useful productivity app with a clear value proposition: it enables you to manage all of your passwords in one place in an efficient, secure manner. It’s not hard to justify the $9.99 expense to yourself if you take into account all the time it will save you, and the risk you will avoid by owning it. The long lasting value of this is tangible. On the other hand, a game app like Cut the Rope isn’t a “need” product per se, so it might be harder for one to justify spending money on (personally, it’s one of my all-time favorite games, and at $0.99 I got a high ROI out of it).

And of course, in the world of apps there are many alternatives for almost every product. Which brings us to…

Market competition

In highly competitive markets, consumer is king, and so is the case for the app market. With over half a million apps available on Apple’s App Store and a similar number in the Android Market, it’s clear that the intense competition is affecting consumer valuation of apps, in a downward direction.

Looking at just one niche of productivity apps – password management – we find a plethora of apps available to purchase, and some are even free. 1Password, Lastpass, Roboform, and KyPass are just a few of the better-known ones. The prices of these apps range from free to $10, while some require a subscription fee. Each product has a unique set of features, and it’s up to the consumer to decide which product best suits their individual needs. The bar is set high, and each player in the market needs to consistently release new features and improvements just to stay relevant.

What if there were just one password management app available for the iPhone? It could be priced at $20, or even $50, and some people would still buy it (that’s not to say that the publisher would necessarily price it that high; they would still aim to maximize total revenue).

But since in reality there are many alternative apps, the competition for consumers’ hearts (and wallets) is fierce. That’s why app developers are always searching for the next killer app or feature. Market competition is clearly a key factor in app valuation.

“I pay so little for apps because I can.”

Alternative acquirement methods

Imagine going to the Apple Store with your heart set on a shiny new MacBook Air. Kind of expensive, isn’t it? Oh well, there’s always hope of winning the lottery. Now imagine being able to go into an Apple Store in an parallel universe, where you can just pick one up off the shelf and walk out of the store – no questions asked, no consequences.

We already have something like this for apps, in our own universe. It’s called Installous.

Installous enables users to install cracked iOS apps on jailbroken devices. This essentially facilitates stealing, but it sure doesn’t feel that way for most users.

Internet piracy has been discussed ad nauseam, so I’ll give my two cents and move on. As opposed to physical products, many people have no moral issues with illegally downloading digital products. I would assume, however, that the average Installous or Torrent user wouldn’t shoplift from their local convenience store. How come? The reason is often attributed to the fact that digital goods aren’t conceived as being “real products”, since they are duplicable and the cost of duplication to the publisher is zero. But at least part of me thinks that the real reason is because the risk in stealing physical goods is much higher. In other words, if people could get away with taking whatever they want from the convenience store without paying, free of any repercussions (besides knowing that it’s illegal), many probably would.

Figures show that most smartphone users are law-abiding citizens who pay for their apps, or at least stick to downloading only free ones. The reason? Probably because building up a collection of apps, as opposed to music or movies/TV shows, is actually affordable.

Ultimately, it isn’t worth spending too much time trying to understand those who download apps illegally – if they’re using Installous to save $0.99 on Whatsapp or Words With Friends, then you’ll never get them to pay for your app. Don’t waste your time trying.

Another factor worth noting, that doesn’t fall into any of the categories above, is that there is no return policy for apps in Apple’s App Store – all sales are final. This uncertainty likely causes users to be more hesitant to make a buying decision.

Final thoughts

After exploring the various valuation perspectives on apps, we can conclude that the most powerful ones are value of ownership, which is often quite difficult to estimate, and market competition, which is easy to estimate, but changes constantly. Hey, no one said it would be easy. Understanding the consumer’s perspective is vital for any developer, not only for the product itself, but also for its pricing. Focus on these two factors, and if your business case for developing an app doesn’t satisfy both perspectives as well as your own financial goals, you may want to rethink it.

Now it’s your turn: what do you think about consumer valuation of apps? How do you use it to market your products more effectively? I would love to hear about it and any other input you have in the comments!