The single biggest weakness (or gap) in our ability to provide amazing customer service is that a lot of people still use iTunes App Store reviews to communicate their issues but there is no way for us devs to contact those people to help them resolve it. Apple needs to fix this one-way channel.
This is very frustrating. I don't think users realize there is no way for developers to get back to them and so many questions go unanswered. In the end I wrote a script to pull all the reviews into my apps site so I can post comments there and I let the users know that in the app. Plus now it's also easy for me to send myself a notification for a new/updated review. Seams to be working so far as some users have come back and added comments.
My site is Drupal 6 based and I wrote a module to do the scrapping and populate a CCK content type that I display with a Drupal view. I configured Triggers and Actions for the notifications.
If there are any other Drupal people out there I'm happy to share the code. Just needs a little polish before I could submit it.
I understand this isn't really comprehensive, but money wise, 2 people spent about 1.5 years on the apps and finally made 100k. Seems like they are just starting to get decent ROI and the battle for profitability is yet ahead.
Technically speaking, we'd made about $40K in app revenue from our previous apps before we launched iMockups. That $100K is just iMockups revenue, not total for the company.
But you are correct that it was the best ROI so far for any of our apps.
Note, though, the app is now generating a fairly steady income. If the app does not require much maintenance effort on their part they can go on and work on their next app.
I think that might be the path for most app developers to profitability--having many apps that generate steady income, rather than having a big hit.
All other marketing efforts pale in comparison to the dramatic effect that an Apple feature has - at least that's how it was when we launched last April. In some ways, this has diminished (more avenues for app discoverability) but I'd say it still has the biggest effect.
However, it should be noted that iMockups has not been featured since June of last year and still is able to maintain a Top 50-60 ranking in Productivity in the US. As noted in the article, some of the key post-launch factors have helped us keep iMockups in the rankings.
Are there any apps that aren't featured get as many sales as the featured ones? Can any apps be considered "success" without Apple's promotion?
I found it interesting that almost all App Store success stories mentioned their sales went up when the app was featured by Apple, which indirectly makes me time that getting Apple's attention is the #1 priority for an app developer.
Was the relaunch of Tapbots' Camera+ featured? I don't think so, and it would seem weird for Apple to do it, after they initially blocked it - considering that it would look like a concession on their part - but I'm not completely sure.
Tapbots is one of the really big guys on the app scene, and I wouldn't put it past them to pull something like this off without Apple's help.
But people obviously shouldn't assume that they could follow in their footsteps.
Great stuff. I've always thought that the way to crack the App Store is to create a brand associated with a number of apps in the same segment. If you can do this with Developer Tools or similar, then I'm sure there is money to be made!
Still requires a decent app to be featured, and furthermore, to back up the feature. I don't think it's fair to caveat every app store success story with a comment about being featured.
If you look at the chart, you'll notice the 3rd feature didn't affect our sales much at all. We've pushed out 12 major feature updates since launch and I believe that had an impact on our sales as people can feel confident that we stand by our product.
This is very frustrating. I don't think users realize there is no way for developers to get back to them and so many questions go unanswered. In the end I wrote a script to pull all the reviews into my apps site so I can post comments there and I let the users know that in the app. Plus now it's also easy for me to send myself a notification for a new/updated review. Seams to be working so far as some users have come back and added comments.