Hi, this is A Minute of Overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps.
This week I want to talk about why you need to talk about your app and not think that
you're annoying people by doing it.
Okay, so something really strange happened last week.
I was talking to two separate clients on Monday and then again on Friday, and they both said
the same thing to me.
They didn't know each other but they both said the same thing.
The first one I was talking to when I said we really need to get this app downloads up,
you need to get out, you need to start pushing it and marketing and more.
And she said "I suppose I need to be more annoying in my marketing efforts" right, that's
what she said.
And then later on in the week, somebody else, somebody completely different, said "I suppose
I need to be more annoying with people and get them to download my app".
And then it really rankled me the first time and it really bothered me the second time
because marketing your app is not being annoying.
This is something where I think like salespeople and marketing people, they have a lot more
over us mere mortals sometimes, because they're used to going out and talking about things.
And as I've said time and time again, if there's one thing that I want you to get from these
videos is that making the app is the easy part of all of this.
Getting people to downloading it, getting people to download it, getting them to notice
it is the hardest part right.
The app market is so difficult.
I mean I see this all the time.
I see this with developers who are, you know, maybe working like I was working in a bank
and then decided to do their own app and they're very super confident with a code.
The code, they spend far too long working on it making it perfect and they release it
and then there are deer in the headlights because nobody's finding it nobody's downloading
it, because they haven't thought about that process.
If there's one thing, and right now, at the end of 2015, when you release an app on the
App Market, it's like opening a shop on the far side of town, on a road that nobody ever
drives down and you need to start talking about it, you need to start telling people
about.
Hopefully you'll get to the point where people will start spreading the word for you and
word of mouth will pick up but, until that happens it's kinda down to you and there's
nothing annoying about that.
I mean, of course it's gonna be annoying if like, say, if I go to like a bus stop or something.
I would never do this.
I would never go up to a complete stranger or even my friends and say hey you should
download Ear Spy, you know, 'cause it's completely unannounced.
However, if somebody's on Twitter and they say I want to learn Mandarin, then that's
my cue to say hey I have a few apps that might be able to help.
And for you, if you have a game that specifically towards a niche like that, like language learners,
then you could respond to that kind of stuff.
Or even if it's something that's similar to another game.
Say, you released something that's like, I always use the example Flappy Birds, but let's
say you do a Flabby Birds clone and somebody tweets that hey I really like Flabby Birds,
then maybe at that point you could just interject yourself and say, "you might also like my
app".
So it's really difficult working, if you think that you're annoying people, then you're never
going to approach them and you never gonna talk to them.
Then nice thing about social media is that you don't actually have to physically approach
anybody.
I mean, there's people out there right now talking about what they want, or the kind
of stuff they want to see and if you have that or if you can provide that then it's
up to you to let them know.
But don't be so blunt about it, like you know you should just go in there say "hey you should
download my app" but you might say hey "you know, I know the feeling" or whatever and
or even just be kind of subtle you know.
Just establish contact with people and stuff like that.
But if you're always thinking that you're annoying people then you're never actually
gonna go out there and do that.
I mean, I get annoyed by the ads I see on TV but it's a fact of life, I mean that's
the kind of thing, it's just something that we expect.
And there's so many good books out there on social media.
I have read so many of them myself Gary Vaynerchuk has a lot of good books out.
His last one, "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook" is really really good.
But the best one I've read is "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki and Peggy something
(Fitzpatrick) and that's, that one's probably the best one I've read so far.
So that talks about more social media marketing.
But it is a case of getting people to download your app and not think that you're annoying
them but just just letting them know what's going on.
So that's what this week's about, don't think that you're annoying people.
Now if you haven't looked at the Overpass website in a while, we did something in this
last week in terms of transparency in order to be more transparent about things.
Like one of the things I hate about people who talk about apps it that they talk about
all this kind of stuff like how great they are, and these kind of stuff you should do,
but you never see their download numbers.
And then you might find out that actually, they're doing much worse than you are.
So I thought with Overpass, let's try to be a bit more transparent.
So what we've done is we've linked up to the App Annie API and every day, it brings in
new stats from our downloads.
And then I just basically on every app on the site, like say if you go to the Ear Spy
page and scroll down to the bottom, you'll see our daily downloads stat.
So you can see which apps of mine are doing well and which ones are doing not so well.
Some of them only get 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 downloads a day.
But basically, I'm separating my app store so you'll see, we get a lot from Google Play,
we get about half as much from iTunes and then we get hardly any from Amazon.
So anyway check it out the website, subscribe to the newsletter and you won't be disappointed.
So that's it I'll talk to you next week.
Hey, I really hope you liked that video.
Now I do this once a week, so if you wanna hear more or you wanna hear more about our
experiences with the app store, either Google Play or iTunes, please go ahead and subscribe
to the channel and please like this video and leave a comment.
I love reading the comments, I love hearing what you have to say, even if it's just hello
or whatever.
And like I say before, If you're not sure what to say in a comment, like I never know
what to say in a comment, I'll make it easier for you.
Like if you liked it, just go ahead and say "Gnarley", which is an 80's term, or if you
didn't like it, just say "Bogus", and didn't think any of it, just say "Eh".
So that would be a big help.
And another thing you could do, which I'd really appreciate it, if you're on the app
store and you wanna try one of our apps, look up some of the Overpass Apps applications
either on iTunes or Google Play and leave a review and let us know what you think about
it, either good or bad.
We're all trying to build up in the market so that would be a big help.
So that's it, I'll talk to you next week.