It Wasn't An Honor Just To Be Nominated

Getting noticed is the hardest part of app development. Developing an app is straightforward (granted you have the idea). Managing provisioning profiles and submitting it to the App Store can be a painful experience, but nothing that a few hours of Googling will not get you through. Setting the price can be a fantastic internal struggle, but one that you will be wrestling with for months. Bring your app to market was the easy part...marketing it is the part that will make-or-break your business.

Getting your app noticed by Apple is a great way to begin the release of a new app. Out of the 5 apps released by BabyBinks over the past 2 years, 3 have been featured as New & Noteworthy. Based on the comparisons to 2 apps that were "overlooked", spending a week in the top row of the App Store makes a tremendous differnce in the life-cycle of your app. As an example, Elephonics (not featured) and Zombies Vs. Literacy (featured) are simply different themed versions of the same app, the difference between being featured translates into a 100 fold difference in downloads (to date).

And the Award Goes To

Being 'New & Noteworthy' is a great start, but it will not last very long. To sustain interest in you app, you have to do a lot of marketing (and this means more than just posting it on Facebook and tweeting about it on Twitter). There are many channels to market apps, and, despite what you may have been told, all of them are the same as marketing any product or service.

One channel that developers often overlook is awards. In the app market, winning awards is very social and a great marketing campaign (and a lot of friends) can vote your app into a nomination, or even the award winning spot.

And speaking of awards, I recently received an email for the Google Alert I set for Zombies Vs. Literacy. I clicked on the link and was directed to the Ericsson Labs blog for a post titled Vote on the Best Literacy Application. My excitment grew when I saw the full context for the reference:

Today is the World Read Aloud Day. Celebrate the Power of Words and Stories and Take Action for Global Literacy.

Let’s read aloud for someone. Read at home, at work, in a public space, on the train or anywhere. Read a book, a magazine or let the book be read by a device. Many applications exist that support reading text aloud.

We, at Ericsson Labs, support this World Read Aloud Day initiative and want to take action to show the world that the ability to read and write belongs to all people.

Today you can vote for the best literacy application. We have gathered 10 proposals we have received in a list below. Take a look at them and vote for the one you think is the best. They are web sites, web applications, Android applications and iPhone/ iPad applications.

Time to Dust Off My Awards Shelf

Move over Elementary School "Perfect Attendance" trophy. It's time for some real hardware. First, this is Ericsson Labs...as in Sony-Ericsson. Except for their recent attempt to create a Walkman, iPod "killer", Sony-Ericsson is one of the most successful companies in the world. Second, my app is on the same list as the Kindle app (Amazon) and The Cat in the Hat (Oceanhouse Media). That is pretty good company. Third, they have "gathered proposals". Someone actually like my app enough to submit a propsal for it to be considered for this award.

How do you know that I did not just submit a proposal for my app and then fein this fake humility? Look closely you can see for yourself:

Instead of linking Zombies Vs. Literacy to the App Store, the link is actually for an app pirating site. Clicking on the link takes you to a page where you can download the hacked .ipa file that you can download to your iPhone.

But I Just Dusted

As much as I appreciate the recognition for our app, I have to say this is one award I will not be touting too much. I realize its just an Ericsson Lab's blog, but I would have expected slightly more attention to detail from a global, billion dollar company. Especially one who is struggling to mount a response to the iPhone and will want to lure developers to its plaform.

Of course it does not really matter, as nothing could possibly trump my back-to-back-to-back "Best Dad of the Year" awards received each Father's Day...and, at least, I have the t-shirt, tie,and coffee mug to prove it.

How I Doubled My App Store Profits in One Year

The App Store is a harsh mistress. For some, it unlocks a lifetime of riches and for others it swallows months of hard work into the dark oblivion. In between, there are those who make comfortable living or those of us who make enough to pay for a family vacation.

It's easy to forget that the mobile application market is in its infancy; it's also easy to forget what a 'smartphone' meant just a few years ago. While developers flocked to iOS and rapidly adapted their craft to deal with obsfucated method names and an endless stream of braces ']]]]', their skills only gained them entry into the App Store. As we all found out, building an App was the easy part...building a sustainable business is the hard part.

But I Just Wanted to Make An App

We all had reasons to make an App, mine was to help pick a name for our new baby boy. We ended up naming him Oscar. Ironically, Stork Drop wasn't finished until 3 months after his birth.

Building Stork Drop ended up involving a lot things that I never anticipated: lawyers, bankers, marketing, budgeting, finance, etc. It started out as a "hobby", but you quickly become more and more vested in the business of software development, not just an app developer.

Doubling Down on iOS

At some point, it became apparent to me that I was heavily investing in Apple and its iOS. I paid into the developer program, I bought a MacBook Pro, I bought an iPhone and iPod Touch. Most important, I was investing hundreds of hours programming Cocoa Touch. With all of this direct investment into iOS, I was also heaving vested in Apple's success as a company.

Indirectly, I was betting that Apple would maintain it position as the industry innovator and leader in iOS. I was betting that my investment of time, money and effort were for the long term. So, I decided to double down on my investment in iOS and invest my profits from the App Store directly into Apple stock. As the plot shows, this has effectively doubled my profits from the App Store. On the release date of Stork Drop Apple sold for $149, today it closed at $314.

The success of developers, on any platform, rely heavily on the success of that platform. Apple has made it very clear how it feels about its future when it rebranded itself as a mobile computing company. Shrewd developers who believe in the future of iOS can benefit from their success in the App Store as well as in the success of Apple as a company.

In the App Store: A Week in Education New & Noteworthy

It was a dark and stormy night. The full moon, barely visible behind heavy cloud cover, cast shadows over the sleepy suburban town. Down a darkened street, a single house had a single light on. From the house, eerie screams could be heard, "Daaadddyyyy. Daaaddddy. I want a drink of water."

Awoken from a dead sleep, I fulfilled the hollow request. As I shuffled my way back through the kitchen, I grabbed my iPhone to check the status of my latest app. I was rewarded for my fatherly diligence by an email from Apple: "Zombies Vs. Literacy is Ready For Sale". It's alive...alive!

I returned to sleep, drifting off dreaming about the App Store successes that awaited me.

Zombies Vs. Literacy Arises

Zombies Vs. Literacy is a simple app to help practice early reading skills. I designed it for my daughter who is learning "sight words" for Kindergarten. The teacher had prepared notecards with the words printed on them for parents to review with their children at home each night. I scoffed, "Notecards? What is this 1998?" Nobody in the room laughed...especially my wife.

Why would you want to have printed notecards that cost $1.49 for a pack of 100, when you could do the same thing with a $300 iPhone that is extremely fragile, needs to be charged daily, and has enough distractions to practically ensure that your children will end up with Attention Deficit Disorder? Why...ummm...in retrospect, seems like it probably wasn't the best idea.

Either, way I developed Zombies Vs. Literacy. The app functions by swiping to advance through sight words lists (both Dolch and Fry) and tapping to hear each letter spoken. As you advance through the list, the zombie advances towards the brain. When he reaches the brain, he declares "Brain too big!" to eat. My daughter complained that it was boring, so I included a zombie mob that runs across the screen when you shake your iPhone. They rearrange the letters and you have to fix them before you can move on.

I Won't Be Coming in to Work Today, I'm New & Noteworthy

It probably wasn't until noon of the following day, that something different was happening with Zombies Vs. Literacy. I had received 10 support emails that morning about the app. For BabyBinks this was highly unusual, as we have received just over 50 emails in nearly two years in the App Store.

With cautious optimism, I opened iTunes on my MacBook Pro. With one eye, I looked at "New & Noteworthy", but alas nothing. Shouldn't have got excited. Then I switched the education store and (wait for it)...Zombies Vs. Literacy in the #1 slot in "New & Noteworthy".

Over dinner, I told my kids how daddy would be able to spend a lot more time with them, now that I quit my job. Ok, that really didn't happen, but that dream was still alive. I was still anxiously awaiting what "New & Noteworthy" meant in terms of sales. Well I have to say, that I wasn't disappointed. Other than a "Free Day" downloads of Stork Drop, this was by far my biggest day in the App Store.

I Will Be Coming in to Work Today, I'm New & Noteworthy But...

While the first day success was intoxicating, reality set in on the next day. There was a five fold reduction in downloads. This trend continues to this very day. The part that surprised me most, was that Zombies Vs. Literacy spent the entire week in "New & Noteworthy". Literally, Monday to Monday it was listed, but only the first day saw big download numbers.

What Did I Learn

1. Being featured is a great feeling. Even if it doesn't translate into fame and fortune, it does mean that someone at Apple liked your app...and they've seen a lot of them. This is probably the best encouragement you can receive to continue to spend your late nights coding away.
2. Have a special screenshot prepared in case you get featured. I like make fancy screenshots with text and combined iPhone images for my iTuness screenshots. These look great when you have the app open to its dedicated page, but are difficult to read in your app is featured.
3. The undead are marketing gold! The dirty little secret here is that Zombies Vs. Literacy is really just a themed version of one of my other apps Elephonics. Elephonics has the same features, but has an elephant instead of a zombie. This wasn't part of some masterminded marketing scheme, it was simply that my daughter became infatuated with zombies after watching an episode of Scooby-Doo. I had put significant effort into marketing Elephonics (watch the commercial) which was release a few months ago, but it never caught on.

Success, Anyway You Look At It

The whole point of creating Zombies Vs. Literacy and Elephonics was to help my daughter practice her sight words. Together, we have used both apps enough to more than justify the development time. Also, she played a very important role in the app development. Watching her interact with it and listening to her brutally honest criticism, helped me to fine tune the usability and features. She also provided the voice overs for the letter pronunciations and, more importantly, the zombie sounds.

So, she is learning to read, I got a small glimpse of success in the App Store, and we got to spend a lot of time together...I would say that anyway you look at it, Zombies Vs. Literacy was a success.

I just hope that we will be as successful working together defending ourself during the next zombie uprising.

Look What the Stork Dropped: A Year in the App Store

The first year being a developer in the App store has been a fun and educational experience. First off, it was probably only fun because I am not relying on income from my app to support my family. I have a day job that I like and don't plan on leaving to become a full-time developer. It is a hobby, the result of late nights and lunch hours, but I take great pride in my app Stork Drop. Also, I have never had any unrealistic expectations about becoming an overnight millionaire. I do, however, strongly believe that I created a software product of value that could be sold.

The App Store Is The Revolution, Not the iPhone
If I might digress, I believe the App Store is a revolution unto itself. I have studied business and entrepreneurship and never has the barrier of entry to a market been so low where the stakes were so high. Is there any doubt that competition in the App Store is so fierce? Apple has created a platform, environment and level playing field for designers, programmers and marketers to compete against each other solely on the merit and implementation of their ideas.

The App Store may be the first instance of an actual Global Marketplace. Where else could a developer in the Midwest United States wake up and find out that, while he rocking a crying baby to sleep at 3:30 in the morning, he sold his product in 11 countries (two of which he has never heard of and six of which he doesn't even know what their currency is). As far as I'm concerned, the App Store has rewritten all the rules of entrepreneurship.

A Brief History of Stork Drop
The idea for Stork Drop was conceived when I tried to find a baby naming app in the App Store when my wife was pregnant. There were plenty of apps, but they were all boring lists. None of then took advantage of the capabilities of the iPhone...or were any fun. After a brainstorming session with my 3-year old, Stork Drop was conceived. Yes, that's a pregnancy joke.

When I first starting out to work on a baby naming app for the iPhone, my wife was in her second trimester. By the time it was approved in the App Store, Oscar was two months old. During the first six moths, Stork Drop was a Paid app, with the price ranging from $.99 to $2.99 to coincide with random promotions. After fighting a saturated market with many free, albeit inferior, offerings, I moved to two versions: Stork Drop Free with advertising and Stork Drop Premium, ad-free at $2.99. Here is more detailed post about going Free.

Going Ga-Ga for Google
After a month shuffling AdMob, Greystripe and Mobclix, I was ecstatic when I was contacted by Google (yes, someone actually called me) and invited to participate in the AdSense for Mobile Content Beta. My traffic was significantly lower than they required, but I had an offering with a very lucrative demographic that they were anxious to get some ads in front of.

The great thing about Google ads is that they are served from keywords you set. This way the ads are targeted and you don't end up with random ad spam (e.g. Get Ripped Quick, Loose Weight Today, Meet Local Singles) which had been defacing my app with the other networks. Now the ads being served were all relevant to parents and babies...that meant clicks.

Blah, Blah, Blah Get to the Income
Bottom line, I made twice as much the first week from AdSense than I did in two months from the other ad networks. The page eCPM fluctuates dramatically from day to day, but on a weekly basis the income is pretty consistent. There are a couple of nice spikes that seem to coincide with holidays.

Through some rudimentary analytics I implemented with Google App Engine, it was very clear sales of Stork Drop Premium did not correlate to price changes or Stork Drop Free downloads. The conversion rate of Free to Premium was 0.2%. My best guess is that some people probably just can not stand in app advertising or they saw the Premium version in the App Store first.

Regardless of our pricing strategy or offering, we are proud to say that we have been a fixture in the top 10 ranked baby naming app in the store. This translates to between 100-200 downloads of the free version a day. Overall, we have cracked the 100,000 download mark. And just so all you game developers don't feel like your the only ones getting screwed, there is cracked version of the Stork Drop Premium circulating the Internet. Either software piracy can not just be attributed to teenage hackers or those teenage hackers don't know when to pull out. Of course, that assumes that they're getting laid.

Enough Already, How Much Did You Make?
Here is plot of the income generated from Stork Drop Free (red) and Stork Drop Premium (blue) since the implementation of AdSense. The Y-axis has been purposefully removed but it should be apparent that I am not one of the overnight millionaires you have begrudgingly read about. The Google AdSense Beta program explicitly forbids disclosing the financial details, and the last thing I want to do is get on their bad side. Its not the AdSense income I'm worried about losing; its that Google knows so much about me by now and the last thing I want is my kids finding out that I made an "independent" film back in college.




In Midwest, suburban father terms, I made enough income to make half a year of car payments on a Toyota Sienna minivan and take my family on a nice Disney World Vacation without sweating profusely over paying $20.00 for a 8x10" of my daughter and Cinderella (despite the fact I took the same picture with my digital camera).

The Future
I am optimistic about the future of App development, especially for those of us "second shift" developers. For the most part, all it costs me is time, and that's time that I probably would have just been sleeping anyway. As a rule, I have never taken time away that could be spend with my family to work on any app. I have however, extensively involved them in brainstorming and beta testing. BabyBinks has just recently released a new app, Elephonics, that I developed alongside my 4-year old daughter to help develop early reading skills. Her input was invaluable as I remember she said in response to the prototype, "It's not very fun".

As far as Stork Drop is concerned, I have a major upgrade in the works that will transform it from a just a baby naming app to a complete pregnancy tracking app. It's the most requested feature from customers and it will give me a chance to try out the In-App-Purchasing model.

Of course, just like a few other successful apps out there, I have also been busy shopping around a script for "Stork Drop: The Movie". The bad news is that my old director friend from college has picked up the option on it. The good news is that the nudity is very tasteful.

Finally, An Ad That I Like

It used to be that your parents driving a minivan was embarrassing enough; now they're rapping about driving a mini-van.  Now, if you were only taking your cousin to the prom in that mini-van, that would be the trifecta of social outcasting.

As a dad and a minivan owner (I'm rocking a Sienna myself), I like this ad.  I don't know if this will help win back the hearts and minds of car buyers in the midst of automatic acceleration, sensationalized news reporting and massive recalls, but its a good start.  Although, all they really need to do is show someone wrestling to put a car seat in the third row of an SUV versus someone easily walking it inside a mini-van with a sliding door.

In the App Store: 6 Months with Stork Drop

Our baby naming application, Stork Drop, has found a nice little niche in the baby names reference category of the App Store. Unfortunately, "niche" could easily be replaced with "stagnant".

Believe Me I Tried

I am not one the developers who is idly waiting for my retirement check from Apple, I have been actively marketing Stork Drop. I continually email app review sites, parenting blogs, parenting networks to request an app review.  I've tried to be active in forums, blogging, twitter'ing, Facebook'ing. Everything short of sexting. I even print business cards with my app logo and a promo code and hand them out to expecting mothers at the Apple store in my town (really).

In the app itself, I implemented two social network options, Facebook and Twitter, allowing people to automatically update their status with their favorite baby names.  Of course, the tag line "...from Stork Drop for the iPhone" was on the bottom of each update.  I thought this would help to generate the valuable word-of-mouth exposure that it seemed to be lacking.

Yes, I have done everything...except spend any money. Stork Drop has not brought in enough profits to justify any real marketing expenditures. I have gone back and forth about reinvesting everything in an ad campaign, but I have a very targeted market that should easy to reach.

It Should Be Easy, Right?

Unlike a lot of apps in the App Store, we have an established market: expecting parents. Many other developers have the burden of convincing a potential customer why they should spend their time popping bubbles, growing flowers, or running from spiders. We have it easy, our customers come to us (so to speak). If you have an iPhone and are expecting a baby, there is a pretty good chance that some day you will type "baby names" into the App Store search bar.

Herein lies the problem...Stork Drop is #12 on the returned app list.  In iTunes, you are presented with 6 apps from the query: 2 free, 4 paid.  The apps range from a poorly rated free app (at position #1) or highly rated $3.99 app.  Of course, there is a pet naming app there which doesn't make any sense, but, if you want to live in the App Store, you need to come to terms with the oddities and insanity that exist.

A Drive to the Top 6
I ran the numbers and figured out if I could get in the Top 6 than I could retire in 2 months.  Of course that's a joke, but who really knows.  My goal is simply to be on the front page when you query "baby names".  My strategy was to release a Lite version that would reach the front page, driving sales of the paid version once people realized how awesome it was.

Originally, I was hesitant to release a Lite version, thinking it would cannibalize sales.  After all, even though most people think they want to be creative and unique when naming their baby, the same names have been in the top 100 list for the past 50 years.  People stick to the most popular ones and those are the ones that would have to be released in the Lite version.

Instead of a Lite version per-se, I tried to "web 2.0" it up and called it Stork Drop Social Edition.  It contained a smaller name database, but you could unlock more names by using the social networking features.  All of these Lite users who used the Twitter and Facebook integration to unlock more names would be running a small ad campaign to all of their followers.

Except I Forgot About One Very Important Thing

The Lite version launched without much fanfare, just a blog post, but was instantly downloaded about 8:1 over the paid version.  The graph shows the month after the launch date (cyan:Social Edition; navy: Paid).  The Lite version gradually pulled the paid version up, but it was not significant.  What was most disappointing was very few people, literally 11, used the social networking features.  I came to two conclusions: they were content with the name lists provided or they don't want to share their favorite names.

I'm a parent of three so I don't know how I forgot that protecting your favorite baby names is something to be taken very seriously.  In particular, I know a family where two sisters who haven't talked in 5 years after one named her baby Max, even though the other sister had "called" it.  She wasn't even pregnant when she "called" it.

That was clearly a mistake on my part, but either way it proved that the Lite version was adequate for most peoples needs and they weren't interested in the paid version.  This was evident by the 0.9% upgrade conversion rate.  This was not what I had wanted from a Lite version and was not going to get us in the top 6.

When All Else Fails, Brute Force

I decided that I needed to get it that top 6 any way I could, to see if that exposure would drive a sales boon. I thought a free day after the New Year would keep the uptick in sales that we saw over Christmas rolling along. So on Jan. 4, I changed the price to free.  The results were pretty incredible, as seen in the plot.  The time period outlined in red corresponds the plot previously shown.

During the free day, at some times we were averaging 2 downloads a minute. On some days, we see only 2 downloads a day.  This blew my mind and our server, which had been comfortably calculating real-time name popularity statistics.  I guess you can view it as a good thing when your Google App Engine account rolls over from a free service to a paid service because of the traffic hit.

It Worked For About 4 Hours

During the free day, we hit as high as #2 but never lower than #4 for a "baby names" query. Thanks to the iTunes connect latency, our price updated faster than the popularity ranking switch from free to paid, so we enjoyed a #3 ranking the following day and a dramatic uptick in sales.

This had confirmed what we had thought, being in the top 6 results in iTunes connect for a targeted audience would be essential to any continued success. Unfortunately, when Apple's server switched us from free to paid, we dropped right back to #12, like nothing had ever happened.  That's not exactly true...our rating, which had been 4-1/2 stars, dropped to 3 stars from all the unsatisfied, free customers that had downloaded it that day.  We saw this before on our last price drop.

What Next?
After 6 months, maybe it is just quite possible that our app is where its supposed to be in the App Store.  Despite our efforts, we can't seem to get penetration in the App Store popularity algorithm that holds back any sales breakthroughs.

We can simply enjoy that our app is near the top of the popularity list for "baby names" and that we have great reviews and feedback from our users. There are several new apps in our pipeline that need more attention at this point, although I can't stop imagining how the name drop will look across a 10" tablet screen. In addition, many of lessons we learned from marketing Stork Drop are probably more valuable than any lost sales during our pricing experiments (A Week at $.99, A Day at Free).

Overall, our sales numbers are pretty consistent day-to-day and that helps pay for the essentials in life: diapers, formula and beer.

Proof: Product Placement is Everything

While doing a little late night grocery shopping, I couldn't help but get the feeling that I forgot to buy something else for taco night.  Awesome marketing for Meijer Antacid Tablets; brutal for the do-it-yourself Taco Bell gordita kit.

Ok, we bought the Gordita kit anyway. I sort of took the antacid tablets staring me in the face as dare.  We'll find out this Tuesday who is the winner.

Stork Drop Social Edition: A New Class of Apps

In the Beginning
On the first day, Steve created the iPhone...and everyone thought that was good.  He looked around and saw the iPhone had no companions, so he allowed native Apps. On the second day there was Paid apps, but the people said that was no good. On the third day there was Free apps, but but the developers said that was no good.  On the fourth day there was Lite apps, but everyone felt a little screwed.  On the fifth day there was Freemium apps, but no one is quite sure how that's going to work out.

Today, on the sixth day, there is Social, a new class of iPhone apps. On the seventh day, everyone has to shovel, because the Midwest just got a ton of snow dumped on it.

Stork Drop Social Edition
Today, BabyBinks is proud to announce their latest iPhone application, Stork Drop Social Edition.  This is a free version of their not-very popular, but highly rated baby naming application Stork Drop.  Stork Drop SE has all the features of the full Stork Drop app, with a limited database of names.  You might be thinking, that sounds just like a Lite version.  Yeah, it pretty much is...but with a social twist.

Being Social Has Its Benefits
We are also introducing a new class of apps: social.  Social apps allow you to unlock additional functionality by sharing via your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts.  When you download Stork Drop SE to your iPhone, you will have access to the name, meaning, and origin of the top 100 baby names of all time.  If you choose to sign-in to your Facebook or Twitter accounts, you will unlock 900 more names.  While signed in to either social networking service, your status will be automatically updated with your top 5 favorite baby names.

Of course, if you want access to almost 10,000 baby names you can always purchase the full version of Stork Drop.

It's Not a Marketing Secret; We Want You to Share
The biggest obstacle to success in the App Store is visibility.  Getting featured on the front page of the iTunes Store, either as a Favorite, Noteworthy, or in a Top 10 list increases your visibility.  Having websites or blogs review your app increases visibility.  Of course, getting this kind (or any) of visibility is difficult, especially for small, unknown developers.

So, with over 115,000 apps (and growing), how do you let people know about your product?  We decided to turn to social networking (my local news told me its all the rage).  By rewarding Stork Drop SE users to link their social networking, we enter in a mutually beneficial arrangement: users get more functionality; BabyBinks gets more visibility.

The Bottom Line
A Lite app allows customers to try before they buy.  A Social app allows customers to try before they buy...and tells the whole world about it.

In the App Store: A Day at Free

Last month we conducted a one week marketing experiment to measure the effect of dropping the price of Stork Drop, our baby naming application, from $2.99 to $0.99. While the price drop did increase the volume of sales approximately 200%, the price differential resulted in 33% loss in revenue (based on the weekly average). The most detrimental outcome of this experiment was not the revenue loss but a downgrade of our rating. In our case, the experiment seemed to suggest that price was not a major barrier to purchase for a customer who was willing to make a purchase.

A Highly Inaccurate Breakdown of App Purchasing Behavior
An informal survey of the 30 or so people I know who own an iPhone, suggested to me that only about 1/3 of them have purchased apps.  I am aware of the reports that, on average, an iPhone user has spend $80+ in the App Store, but those numbers are averaged out across the whole population and could be misleading.  Of the 20 I know who have not purchased an app, 15 actively search for free apps to meet their needs.  The other 5 (including my mom and dad), had little intereste in using the iPhone as anything other than a phone (blashphemy).  As a developer, this tells me that no matter how good my app, no matter what features I work feverishly to implement, no matter how slick my artwork is, that there is a large population of iPhone users who will never look past the "$" in the App Store.

Diapers and Beer

One of the few things I remember from a business statistics class  taken many years ago was the correlation between beer and diaper purchases by men. Correlation analysis of grocery store data confirms that men, between the ages of 25-35, were purchasing beer and diapers more frequently in combination than was expected.

While you might have just shook your head, it actually makes a lot of sense.  It's late at night, you need diapers so you run to the store.  While at the store you see people shopping without chasing down a three-year old running down an aisle with an open box of Lucky Charms while trying frantically to eat all the marshmallows before you catch her.  You need a drink.  A couple of young women untouched by the "joys" of motherhood walk by without so much as a glance, confirming that you no longer have "it", whatever "it" was.  You need a drink.  You catch your reflection in the store security mirror positioned high in the corner allowing you to see the thinning spot on the top of your head. You need a couple of drinks.

So you bring home a box of diapers and a 12-pack of beer.  Either way, both you and the baby get what you need to make you stop crying.

It may only be a matter of time before advertising agencies pick up on this trend and try cross-promotion.  This is Tad and Lilly and they want to help you learn!  This is Sam Adams and he wants to help your dad forget!

Of course, the other scenario is its Fall, and Sam Adams' Octoberfest is out.  In which case, you don't need a reason to drink because it's a damn fine beer!

In the App Store: A Week at $0.99

"Naming your baby should be as much fun as making it. Well, at least as much fun as you can have with your iPhone." This is the tag line to the BabyBinks' iPhone application Stork Drop. After 2 months in the App Store priced at $2.99, we decided to conduct an experiment to see if we were leaving 'money on the table' with our pricing strategy.

The "Baby Names" Category
Currently, there are currently 53 applications returned when using "Baby Names" as the search query in the iTunes App Store. There is about a 50/50 split for free/paid applications, with only a few Lite versions of paid apps. In these cases, the Lite versions consistently rank significantly above the Paid versions.
The overall quality of the apps vary significantly. While I am biased, since my app is in this category, I would say only about 5 apps are well-designed and thought out attempts at creating a quality product. The others are simply table views of data with some sort of baby image on the front page. Given that all these apps (including mine) use the same data source (publicly available U.S. Social Security data), the presentation of the data is the only thing that allows the apps to differentiate themselves.

Interestingly, there are many apps that appear from the query "Baby Names" that don't have any baby naming functionality. These include: Baby Tracker: Nursing, Pet Names Plus, Toddler Flashcards, etc. This problem speaks more to some highly-discussed problems with the App Store indexing and the new keywords in iTunes Connect. I'll leave that for another day.

Our Place in the App Store

Stork Drop has enjoyed moderate success in the App Store. It has been consistently in the top 5 paid apps in the "Baby Names" category and typically floats around position 15 for all baby naming apps. Stork Drop is circled in the App Store search below. Monetarily, the word 'moderate' is extremely generous. I would put it in the beer money (or more appropriately baby formula) range.

From a feature set position, Stork Drop stands out as one of the only applications that provides any real interactivity or utilizes the iPhone as more than just for statics data display. For example, Stork Drop provides real-time statistics of name popularity by monitoring all users "Favorite Baby Names" lists through an external server (screenshot of this "Snoop" feature is shown). I would concede that some of the other apps have better graphics, but then again, every app (including Stork Drop) is based off a series of UITableViews.

What's in a Name? - Part II

 

Well that worked.  Stork Drop is the 29th app returned when searching “baby names”.

What's in a Name?

I noticed that searching “baby names” in the App Store doesn’t return Stork Drop.  Since the search indexing is mysterious and undocumented, I have changed the application name to “Stork Drop - Baby Names” in the App Store application description.

Marketing 101: Temporary Tattoos

It creates brand awareness without relying on traditional media outlets.