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My First Year in the App Store

trevormckendrick.com

41–50 of 104 posts

Re: My First Year in the App Store

#41
post #11

I'd be interested to hear how you marketed the app. Just building an app seems to be only half (or less) of the battle these days, as far as App Store success goes. I've got seven apps on the App Store, and combined they usually don't even bring in $200/mo. Discouraging.

I'll talk about that in one of the upcoming posts, but basically: I started with an app niche that I knew people were already searching for. And I knew that because there were crappy Spanish Bible apps already making money in the App Store. Since then I have started collecting users' email addresses which helps with promotions and new app launches, but initially all my traction was through search.

> And I knew that because there were crappy Spanish Bible apps already making money in the App Store.

How did you know that? Just judging by the reviews or did you actually buy some to try them out?

Re: My First Year in the App Store

#43
post #42

Nice! Even the most frugal of people will shell out some money when it comes to religion.

True about the copycats. Although there are a few things you have to do right in the app that most people don't know. Most versions of the Bible are copyrights for example.

And I also speak Spanish. I can't imagine doing this app in a different language. The text has to be perfect and it's (obviously?) hard to tell what's wrong when you can't read it.

Re: My First Year in the App Store

#46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll talk about that in one of the upcoming posts, but basically: I started with an app niche that I knew people were already searching for. And I knew that because there were crappy Spanish Bible apps already making money in the App Store. Since then I have started collecting users' email addresses which helps with promotions and new app launches, but initially all my traction was through search.

> And I knew that because there were crappy Spanish Bible apps already making money in the App Store. How did you know that? Just judging by the reviews or did you actually buy some to try them out?

All of the above. I bought quite a few of them.

It doesn't take too long to get a feel for how good an app is.

Re: My First Year in the App Store

#48

I was actually really excited by the "...you can get the next 9 posts delivered to your email by signing up here:" at the bottom. I like it. I like email, because I can read it anywhere and filter it any way I want. I dislike unsubscribing from email updates about as much as I dislike getting updates I'll never read. By making it easy to get emailed only about a story I've already demonstrated interest in (by reading…

I use Blogtrottr to email me when my RSS feeds update, for much the same reason.
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