1. YOU YOU R RADAD HER HEREDevelopers Guide to EMarketing and Monetization ofWindows Phone Apps Alan Mendelevich | AdDuplex | ailon@ailon.org | @ailon

2. Richard Foster, once a DOS programmer and now working for thefamily dry cleaning business and developing mobile applications part-time for his company Edgeway Software, is ecstatic about the resultshe is seeing developing for Windows Phone 7.Richard has made $28,882 in four months with his suite of apps.Fast forward to February, and now I am making around $380 a day from adsfrom my 7 games.I started going full time [indie] April 1st, 2011 Grand total revenue for 2011 - $61,321.58 -- Elbert Perez , occasionalgamer.comI generally get about 1.5 hours a day for game developmentTotal marketplace/ad revenue for both Krashlander and KrashlanderFree - $23,215.68-- Jeff Weber 3. Did you know Product20%Marketing80% Research shows that 20% of products success is determined by the product itself and the remaining 80% is marketing** I totally made this up 4. Developers Work CycleEmployee/Contract developerSALE Task DeliverablesMoneyEntrepreneur developer Task Deliverables SALE Money 5. What to build? 6. Scratch your own itch 7. Original vs. Me too 8. Megahit vs. Smaller Hits 9. Getting ideas and inspiration The Daily Practice Every day I write down ideas. I write down so many ideas that it hurts my head to come up with one more. Then I try to write down five more. The idea muscle atrophies within days if you dont use it. Just like walking. If you dont use your legs for a week, they atrophy. You need to exercise the idea muscle. It takes about 3-6 months to build up once it atrophies. Trust me on this. http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-be-the-luckiest-guy-on-the-planet-in-4-easy-steps/ 10. Make Money 11. Front-end for your main service 12. Paid Apps Set a competitive price Consider psychology Consider who and where your customeris Set a price that makes business sense WP7 Developer ROI Calculator http://www.wpdownunder.com/?p=2055 13. Trial Cant try == wont buy 70% more purchases than without trials Counter example: Cocktail Flow* 14. In-app purchases No built-in centralized mechanism Roll out your own Use 3rd party services (MoVend, Linxter) 15. Free apps with ads Generally perform better than paid apps* Best suited for long/frequently runningapps (games) 16. Ad networks Microsoft pubCenter Google AdMob Smaato Millennial Media Mobclix MobFox Inneractive AdDuplex* 17. Fill rate Smaato: Worldwide, the average adnetwork fill rate was 10% in Q3 2011 Maximize ad space value by multiplenetwork fallbacks. Fallback to AdDuplex orin-house ads. Silverlight: Windows Phone 7 Ad Rotatorhttp://wp7adrotator.codeplex.com/ XNA: ImproviSoft AdStreamerhttp://www.improvisoft.com 18. Promote yourapp, promoteyourapp, promoteyourapp, promoteyour app 19. Dont monetize your app on day one 20. Dont monetize on day one Giving your app away is the cheapest andmost effective marketing instrument youhave Ren Schulte: Helium Voice was released inNovember 2010 and has 18,773 downloadsas of today. Helium Voice Free was releasedin March 2011 and has 143,002 downloads asof today. Jeff Weber: Krashlander total downloads(Includes both trials and purchases) - 23,500,Krashlander Free total downloads - 327,000 21. Case Study: ChicksnVixens Released as absolutely free (while in beta) Went on to be #1 paid game for some time after switching topaid Meds: After being #1 for almost 2 weeks as a paid app I can say that Im very happy with the results. I wont give specific numbers but suffice to say it would make many iOS and Android devs green with envy. New version released as free with ads 22. Case Study: gMaps Started as absolutelyfree Added ads and a Proversion later 23. Release date is a feature Be the first to solve a problem Ren Schulte: this was quite important since itgot a lot of attention for being the first real pictureeffects / photo filter app in the market. The bigblogs like Gizmodo, Engadget and MSNBCcovered a few of the must have WP7 apps andPictures Lab got featured in all. I guess thathelped to jump start the app. With every SDK/OS release theres a chanceto be the first to utilize some previouslyunavailable capability 24. Before youlaunch 25. Marketplace SEO Name Keywords Tile A/B testing? 26. Release Betas Beta-testers are your first evangelists Recruit beta-testers: WindowsPhoneBeta.com Twitter #wp7 #wpdev 27. Feedback loop Facilitate userfeedback and ratings Bad feedbackshould go directly toyou, good feedback to the Marketplace ConsiderGood feedbackencouragingrating/review after anumber of launchesBad feedback 28. Localize Keep in mind that you will probably start gettingfeedback/support requests in languages you dontknow 29. Publication Have everything to get featured background image is not required, but your chancesof being featured without it are low Dont submit on Friday Andrs Velvrt: If you look at the charts fromWP7AppList, you can see that almost no applicationsget verified and published during the weekends. You essentially have two more days to test and makesure the app doesnt fail digestion without impactingthe publishing date. Ren Schulte: 48h difference in submission (Fridaynight - Sunday night) -> 12h difference certificationemail (Thursday morning - evening). Dont auto-publish 30. Online presence 31. Demo video Easier to watch than try your app Great asset for marketing activities 32. Online presence Web site or section Facebook Page Twitter account Google+ Page Blog 33. Free promotion 34. Tip specialized blogs WPCentral.com, WMPowerUser.com,1800PocketPC.com,BestWP7Games.com, WP7Rocks.com(Russian), etc. Filterable list at WindowsPhoneSites.com Make it personal Include short description maybe even something that looks like areview Link to your demo video. You made it,right? 35. Tweet and post to Facebook Decorate tweets with #wp7 hashtag Tweet, retweet, post to Facebook fromyour personal accounts Help fellow developers (retweet, like, etc.) Temporarily change your avatar to appstile Mention app in your personal profiles 36. Monitor and react to feedback Monitor mentions of your app on Twitter,blogs, etc. Encourage transformation of positivementions into 5* ratings React and address negative feedback 37. Social media integration 38. Show off your app everywhere! Show your app to your friends Show your app to Windows Phoneenthusiasts Show your app to influential communityand Microsoft people 39. Case Study: Wordament 40. Empoweringdevelopers tohelp each other Cross-promote apps withother developers Utilize full potential of yourad space 41. Paid advertising 42. On the web Specialized blogs App catalog sites WP7AppList.com, appsfuze.com,windowsphoneapplist.com, etc. BuySellAds.com (search wp7, windowsphone) 43. On the phone WPUG12 50% off 44. In discovery apps 45. Summary 46. Summary Marketing is at least as important as theapp itself Starting with free is the cheapest and mosteffective marketing instrument Be creative, be active, utilize all channels. 47. Thank you!@ailonblog.adduplex.comailon@ailon.org