Almost daily in the news we hear about new apps and their creators. For example, a recent article “15 US Cities with the Most Startup Activity” which detailed the 15 U.S. cities with the most startup activity.
It is now the norm for young entrepreneurs like Yana Egorova, Aaron Landy, Marco Change, Dave Fontenot, Conrad Kramer, Dani Grant, Ari Weinstein and Jeremy Cai to drop out of school early and start a company. Contrast this with a few decades ago when it was rare and very risky for technical, scientific, engineering and R&D wizards like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to leave school early to start their companies.
Instead, this new crop of entrepreneurs has a lot more technical armaments at their disposal including: a) growing up mastering the Internet and smartphones b) having many more available development tools to create new technical applications c) plummeting company startup costs and d) possessing a lot more financial options. This has prompted many more to take the plunge and try to develop a new company centered upon a novel app.
Our technical recruiting firm is particularly interested in the field of app development because we are regularly inundated with requests for key application developers possessing Java, Objective-C, Swift and HTML5 and the higher level technical executives to run the operations.
Unfortunately, most apps fail. Furthermore, even a good app does not guarantee financial success unless it is properly marketed. Fortunately, Adweek hosted a webinar on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 entitled, “The State of App Discovery in 2015: Find and Target Your Ideal Mobile User.” The two main presenters were Jennifer Wong, VP of Marketing at Tune, and Christian Calderon, Head of Marketing at Dots.
The key points discussed were:
- 67.55% of all apps are found via app stores.
- You need to take into account the special needs of those using Android versus iOS smartphones. For example, Android users tend to: a) click on ads more often b) use social sharing more often and c) are more apt to do search.
- The main reason most users use apps is to solve a particular problem. Therefore, you need to ask yourself, “What problem can my app solve?”
- There a great disparity in the demographics of app users depending upon their age group.
- Icons have a big impact upon downloads of apps. For example, lighter colors work better and the icon needs to match the ad creative to better bring the user in contact with your ad.
Furthermore, Ms. Wong’s company also recently completed a major research study on how to optimally market an app. Please go to http://in.tune.com/app-discovery-2015-thank-you for a copy of this report.
Also, please contact me if you would like a copy of the PowerPoint presentation from this webinar.
What are your findings on the state of app development?
