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[In this reprinted Digital Storytime piece, Carisa Kluver provides an in-depth look at the marketing strategies for children apps. This is part three of a three part piece examining marketing strategies. Carisa Kluver is the sole reviewer for the iPad picture book app review site, Digital-Storytime.com. She co-founded this site with her husband, Marc, an app developer and programmer. She tries to run her site with the following three “A’s” in mind – to be Approachable, Accountable & Accurate.]

This is the third and final post in my series about marketing kids apps. [See: Part I: Three Things No Amount of Code Can Fix & Part II: How Consumers Decide to Download] We end the series with some of the stickiest questions in the app world: What’s an app worth? What price point will encourage downloads? Should an app ‘go free’ for a short time? Is it worth it to develop more apps?

I’m not an economist nor do I have a background in marketing, but I’ve been watching the kids app market pretty closely for a couple years now and do have a few thoughts to share on this topic. My expertise is really in social science, so my ideas are shaped mostly by consumer psychology (and basic market realities).

Like many aspects of app marketing, there isn’t a hard, fast rule for any app pricing decisions. It’s complicated and more importantly, a moving target. Things are changing all the time as the app store gets more crowded with new apps everyday. In the category of education alone, I counted more than 750 new apps for the iPad in just the past week!This means advice from a post in 2009 about marketing probably isn’t going to help a developer in 2011 all that much … and this post may not be very interesting (unless you’re writing a history paper) in 2013.

Harsh Reality for App Developers …

Some very nice apps aren’t going to sell. Period. The reality is that even free apps can get lost in this sea of content. There is a point when consumers actually don’t want or need another ‘app for that’. The top 50 free apps in both education and books, for instance, are more-or-less permanently held by several dozen apps that are always free … so even giving away an app can be perceived as a failure if the goal is to get into the iTunes ‘top 10′ for an app’s category. Just getting into the top 10 for free apps for a few hours can sometimes be considered wildly successful.

But does that mean a great app needs to get lost in the haystack of apps? What a discouraging message to receive just as you arrive at the AppStore with your shiny, new app. The answer is … maybe, but then again maybe not. Once you’ve come to terms with the challenging reality of the iOS app market, then you can decide what you are willing and able to do about it for a product, like a kids app, that you believe in.

Additionally, for future projects, it is so helpful to have realistic ideas about the return on investment possible for different types of apps. When your programmer can make a six figure income working for someone else, it is no small thing to know how much technical effort you need to employ to simply break even on an app. Many new, small developers are experiencing the current app market as a bit of a shock. Developers are often so totally focused on app programming & design, that the changes in the market since they first conceived their app idea, often 9-18 months earlier, have not been on their radar at all. Seismic shifts can happen in this market in less than six months, though.

One thing to consider is the variety of non-financial rewards that you may have already earned by creating an app. In the process of creating Dash & Ditto’s Playground, a sweet but underperforming 7-in-1 iPhone game app for kids, our team also learned a lot of priceless skills. Our illustrator learned about how to ‘go digital’ after a life of print projects, our programmer literally taught himself iOS and Android programming and I got the idea to start our successful review site, Digital-Storytime, as a result of our marketing efforts. Not a bad payoff, if only we can find a way to calculate this when we evaluate our original monetary goals.

Good News for Book Apps

At this point, maybe you’re ready for some good news? For book apps at least, there is a silver lining here. Digital books for kids represent an app product that consumers still desire and it’s a field that thrives on variety. The desire for good book apps, especially for kids, is still there and of all the categories in the app store, book apps tend to be among the highest priced. Consumers can get some content for free but most of the time do expect to pay for downloads for quality titles for children. For educational apps aimed at this same age group, there are also a lot of specialized areas in the market that remain untapped where paid apps should do well.

The market for children’s picture book apps is guaranteed to grow, too. A recent flurry of news articles lamented how digital kid’s books were lagging behind adult ebook sales, but they failed to take into account the fact that color options for tablet apps have not been around very long, unlike adult ‘text-only titles’ so popular as e-books over the past decade. While some may fight the transition to digital, a lot more new readers will be entering this market rather than resisting it.

Any new developers entering the book app market do need to take some publishing history into account as well. Could you have self-published your title before the digital revolution? If not, then it is important to give this new opportunity a bit of time to meet your expectations. Simply being able to self-publish your children’s book to a large market of readers, even as a free download, is nothing to dismiss as an author/illustrator. If you are simply developing book apps to take advantage of a new opportunity to make loads of cash, I’d encourage you to move on. This is a space that demands good narratives and should reward developers passionate about storytelling. Perhaps picture books simply need to sustain the creators of their content, not make millionaires out of limited development efforts?

And for those already committed to this market … I think there is a lot we don’t know … and I’m hopeful that over time the price for book apps in particular will begin to reflect the cost of producing these titles more accurately. There will likely be some narrowing of the producers of content for the industry, but how this will all play out is anyone’s guess. If you wanted ‘to live in interesting times’ for publishing … consider your wish granted.

So what are the most important factors to consider when pricing a new app?

1. Launch Price … What should you start with when launching your new kids app? Some apps launch as free to gain exposure, expand user base, extend ‘beta’ testing or lay a foundation of happy customers for the launch of a series of apps. Some apps start very high to set a ‘value point’ for consumers. Some start out low and plan to raise the price to show consumers that they are worth more. Some start out in the middle, then do a series of price drops to gain momentum for an app they believe will be popular once it is well-known. No one strategy is ideal, but depending on the app, a ‘best practices’ strategy does seem to emerge.

Continue reading at Digital Storytime and learn additional factors like price promotions, “going free”, and price change frequency here.

[In this reprinted Digital Storytime piece, Carisa Kluver provides an in-depth look at the marketing strategies for children apps. This is part two of a three part piece examining marketing strategies. Carisa Kluver is the sole reviewer for the iPad picture book app review site, Digital-Storytime.com. She co-founded this site with her husband, Marc, an app developer and programmer. She tries to run her site with the following three “A’s” in mind – to be Approachable, Accountable & Accurate.]

There are a lot of apps for kids in the app store, so many that even an exceptional app can get lost (or buried) not long after launch. So how do parents & educators find good apps for elementary school age kids (and younger) to download onto their iPads, iPods & iPhones? Over the course of several weeks I’ve been asking friends with mobile devices, educators on Twitter and fans of our Facebook page just this question. I think their responses are really interesting and informative for app developers. This list is in addition to the information in Part I - Marketing Kids Apps (Part I) – 3 Things No Amount of Code Can Fix.

Below are a selection of quotes from book app shoppers about what criteria they use to select children’s apps:

LITE VERSIONS - Many shoppers say they rely on free or trial versions to guide buying decisions. While some consumers find partial book apps unsatisfying at times, most admit that when it comes to paying for an app, a lite version can really help them decide to buy. The key to not annoying customers with only part of the story is to put ‘lite’ in the title – a well-informed customer is a happy customer!

“When an app is more than a dollar or two, I always check to see if there is a lite version before purchasing. Apps like the Nosy Crow 3 Pigs & Cinderella are awesome, but I wouldn’t have paid $6 for them before seeing the sample.”

“I didn’t like lite versions of book apps when I first encountered them a year ago, but now I’m willing to sample a book … so long as they say in the title or description that the whole book isn’t there.”

“Most of (the paid apps I download) for my child … are based on the trial version experience, I prefer to ‘demo’ or try the book first to see if we all like it!”

“I try to find out if there is [a free version of an app] that I’m interested in … I download these lite versions if available, and definitely will buy the full version if I like the preview.”

“I … download the lite version to try with my boys. If they aren’t interested, I usually don’t get the full version.”

“I don’t usually ‘discover’ an app with the lite version, but often I find myself curious about an app enough to check for a free sample. The final deciding factor before I download is based on searching for this trial version or a video review if no lite version is available. After a thorough preview, I feel certain enough to spend those few extra dollars on the paid version.”

SCREENSHOTS – The visual impression of an app goes way beyond picking a great icon, as shoppers often look first at the images available before reading anything else in iTunes. Since illustrations are a big part of book apps in particular, these images are essential. When thinking about purchasing a book that is totally original, not based on a fairy tale or book available in print, this becomes especially important.

“It really matters what pages you can see on itunes, if an app has great screenshots I’m more likely to consider buying it.”

“I probably care more about the screenshots than anything else, if I like what I see, then I read the description next.”

“When looking for (kids book apps) I gravitate toward the illustrations … I prefer something that is hand-drawn, not computer generated … (the illustrations should be) colorful and well put together.”

“The illustrations & the (overall) look of the app is … important … I want to see how much attention it can get (from my kids) before deciding to download an app.”

“I look at the preview pages to see if I like the illustrations and more importantly, if I think my little ones will be engaged by the illustrations … the illustrations need to be strong.”

” … the graphics are what catch the eyes of kids the most, so … beautiful illustrations … and outstanding graphics are the winners!”
“(If developers were to ask for my advice in marketing a kids’ digital book) … I’d tell them to … make sure you have good quality illustrations.”

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WITH A DEVELOPER - As a reviewer and part of the app developer community, I often take what I know about a developer’s other apps into consideration, but I must admit I was surprised to find so many comments from ordinary consumers that echoed this same strategy for searching out new apps. The iTunes “Developer Page” is very important as it turns out!

“I look for books that are developed by someone (my kids and I) already like, by looking at ‘other apps by developer’ in (iTunes) I can be sure I will get something of quality.”

“When the book is in a series, I pretty much know the quality of books that are written by a company.”

“I like to look at what the developers past apps are like … with all the factors (I find) what makes the purchase much easier is knowing the developer by their previous book apps/reviews/awards or having tried one of their previous book apps that was a huge success.”

“I work from what I know of previous books from the same author or app producer … this previous knowledge of a developer makes the (decision-making process) much easier.”

Continue reading at Digital Storytime and learn about additional marketing factors like iTunes reviews and Review websites here.

[In this reprinted Digital Storytime piece, Carisa Kluver provides an in-depth look at the marketing strategies for children apps. This is part one of a three part piece examining marketing strategies. Carisa Kluver is the sole reviewer for the iPad picture book app review site, Digital-Storytime.com. She co-founded this site with her husband, Marc, an app developer and programmer. She tries to run her site with the following three “A’s” in mind – to be Approachable, Accountable & Accurate.]

An enormous amount of time, energy and money go into app development these days. And after the programming dust settles, an app is born into the App Store or Android Marketplace. But many developers are unprepared for the really challenging work of marketing their app … so much so that they may overlook some of the most important things that get that shiny new app the consumer-attention it deserves.

While toiling away this past year on our popular new review site for iPad kids book apps, I have also been moonlighting as the marketing consultant for a kids game my husband developed for Android last year (and just released for iPhone today). This experience has gotten me thinking a lot about how people shop for apps, so I began asking a series of questions on my Facebook fan page to do a little informal market research.

So, what are those ‘most important’ qualities to get a kids app (or any app for that matter) noticed? I’ve synthesized dozens of comments on Facebook, asked friends who download a lot of kids apps & considered my own shopping habits (since I download over a dozen new kids apps everyday to screen them for our curated daily deal page).

While there are a lot of factors that go into the decision-making process, three things seemed to be ‘gatekeepers’ for consumers … things that need to be done, and done well, to get an app noticed in the first place … way before anyone bothers searching for a review on a site like Digital-Storytime:

1. Icon: The icon for an app not only matters more than most developers realize, it also matters more to consumers than they realize. We humans use a lot of visual shorthand in our brains to make decision-making easier, so we unconsciously gravitate toward things that ‘appear’ to meet our needs. In the case of app icons, this means an exceptional app may never get noticed, simply because the icon is not eye catching or attractive.

And for kids apps, this is even more true, because consumers unconsciously ignore app icons that don’t look ‘child-like’ in some way. As shoppers for kids apps, we have to search through categories in the different marketplaces that include both child-friendly and very adult-oriented apps. This means the average person looking for a kids app is going to first glance at the icons and gravitate towards those that look the most like something for a kid. This means that even if the app only contains sight words, for instance, and no images at all, the ideal icon is still going to be something illustrated like it’s right out of a children’s picture book. It also helps to have an image that looks good from a great distance, since these icons are very small in many of the places consumers will encounter them.

A sampling of some of the most interesting comments about the app ‘icon’:
“… if the icon isn’t catchy I wouldn’t even click in to check out the reviews. With so many apps out there the icon needs to look professional and intriguing.”

“I want something that has strong well drawn illustrations … it needs a good icon”

“(how the icon) looks is the first attraction”

“(I look at) the brief look you are given on itunes … (t)hose first few glances tell alot.”

“A really gorgeous icon … will lure me in.”

“I first look at (the icon) for visual appeal … the graphics are what catch the eyes of kids the most, so I look at them first.”

“I look at the initial picture …”

Continue reading at Digital Storytime and learn additional marketing factors here.