First Impressions Count - a useful article on app promotion

A blog post from an app marketer.

"Imagine for one minute that you own a shop and customers are walking down the high street. You’ve got big windows and have packed the window with amazing goodies to entice customers to come in and buy stuff. Now imagine you own another store. Except the window is the size of a shoe box and the customers are all running past at a fast jog. Think we’re crazy? Well the last retail experience is much more akin to what you and thousands of app developers and publishers have – a tiny space ( more often than not a few inches on the mobile screen, unless you’re lucky and it’s a tablet) with impatient customers who will make a very snap judgment,

You see, consumers are fickle beasts, we know this because we’re consumers too and we’re all looking round the app store for something interesting. The main point here is that first impressions count with consumers and you’ve got a few touchpoints to make them want to try your app. So what are the things that will affect the customer decision?

- The Name. Customers like brands because they trust them but they also like things they recognize. If you have a Chinese cooking app then call it ‘Chinese Cooking’ and not some utterly random name. The name will often help with app store SEO if it is relevant and matches a term people look for. However, don’t just call your app ‘Zombie, Ninja, Birds’ in the hope that these very popular phrases will help it get picked up

- The icon is a great sales tool. Making a great eye catching icon is a must and it needs to look polished. Don’t try to shoehorn text into a tiny space – you’ve got text under the app to add the name! Spend time making a great icon

- As soon as you get good reviews, stick them on top of the app description, Customers trust good reviews and a great quote from a review site can work wonders.

- The app description is crucial. Often, the top two or three lines of your app description copy are all that a customer sees before they are asked to click on ‘more’. Snappy text is everything so we recommend you invest in a good copywriter. Customers don’t really enjoy bad text written in broken English

- Put some sales numbers or pedigree info on top of the app store blurb if you can. If you sold a million copies on Android and you’re launching on Apple then tell people as a million people on another format can’t be wrong!

So there you have it, Just as you would put on your best suit for a job interview or wear your best clothes for a date, giving your app the slickest possible appearance can make the difference between a download and someone walking on by your shop window because we all well know, first impressions count.