Zengaku Lite - Marketing success?

Well... it has been a few days now that we've had Zengaku Lite out there. It already has many more downloads then Zengaku, and we've had a couple of days with multiple sales of the full version.

We initially started out with the $0.99 price because we figured we would target impulse buyers and we were more concerned with numbers rather than profit. As the sales began to trail off, it became apparent that we needed to figure out marketing... and maybe people really do want to try before they buy.

With the release of Zengaku Lite - we raised the price (to $1.99) which I feel is still a steal for the quality of the game. So now users can try before they buy, and if they like it, I don't think the extra buck will be a factor.

Now if only we could find a way to get everyone with an iPhone to try Zengaku Lite. I mean... it's free! We're trying Facebook ads, and the review on AppSafari (4.5/5) has likely helped a bit too.

Zengaku 1.1 and Zengaku Lite!

Before Zengaku was even released, we were already working on the next version. Here's a quick overview of what changed.

Most of the changes in the 1.1 release are internal details. We fixed a whole bunch of memory leaks, and a few minor bugs. These won't be visible to most of you, but it gives us a cleaner code base to help us with some upcoming features.

A few user visible changes you may notice are:

• We now show statistics for your puzzles. From the puzzle book selection screen, you can see how many puzzles you completed, and how many are in progress.
• The "Contact Us" button now presents an email form, rather than taking you to the Mail app.
• There's now a link back to the Redshirt Labs website.
  

And the biggest feature of all, there's now a Lite version!

Zengaku Lite has the same gameplay as the original, and is Free! You get fewer puzzles, but it gives you the chance to try the game before you decide that you really really need to buy it. And you will... just try it!

Get Zengaku Lite at http://www.redshirtlabs.com/zengaku/lite or Zengaku 1.1 at http://www.redshirtlabs.com/zengaku/.

My First iPhone App is going to be HUGE!

I think that when most first time app developers set out, they tell themselves "I'm just doing this for fun, but if I hit it big, woohoo!" I know that as a team, the Redshirt Labs crew felt that way. We'd love to hit the jackpot... but we also just wanted to explore, grow, and experience.

Well, if you are a first time app developer just in it for fun, I have some advice/thoughts/opinions for you:

Target Market

Before you submit your app spend at least one week thinking about who your target market is, and how you are going to reach them. Because submitting to the app store and praying doesn't work. You can tell all your friends to buy it, and that will get you a few sales, but it will quickly die out. You can drop boat loads of cash into ads... and quickly watch that money disappear with very little to show for it.

Target market is also important when you are soliciting advice on your app. People who don't own a phone that has apps on it aren't your target market. People who do own one but don't spend money on apps aren't your target market. People who do spend money on apps but don't like the genre of app you are producing aren't your target market. So you can get feedback from all these people, and much of it will be good valuable feedback. But at the end of the day you need to remember that what is important is what you target market wants. Better to have 80% of people hate your app and 20% of people think it is the best thing ever than to have 50% of people think "yeah, it was ok."

Descriptive Name

I think Zengaku may have failed us here... it sounds Japanese and looks like Sudoku but more Zen... but I'm sure 99% of the people who see it in the app store think "meh." If they clicked on it, well our description is top notch and I'm sure they'll like what they see. If they like Sudoku. So 10% of 1%. I think a name that stands out and will get the customer to investigate further is what you need.

Review Sites

I'm still undecided on these... There are lots out there, and we contacted many of them (including giving them promo codes so they could get free copies of our app). As far as I know we have 0 reviews to show for it. Many sites didn't get back to us, and others let us know that they were swamped but a few dollars would get us a review. Frankly, that might be a better way to spend the money then on ads... at least people go to review sites looking for apps to buy/try.

--Edit: We got a review!! App Safari we thank you!

Ads

Set a budget. Think about your wording. Then think some more. If you can find people in your target market, solicit their advice. You are going to be paying by the impression or by the click. Either way... it isn't enough that they click the link, you need to close the sale afterwards. Part of that depends on your description and write up sure... but a lot of it depends on who clicks on your ad. You want customers, i.e. people in your target market, to click your ad as much as possible. You want to make sure other people, who will never buy your app, do not (I guess if you are paying by impression this doesn't matter so much).

Crazy week in Apple news

I've been quite enraptured in the discussions this weekend after Apple dropped a rather large bomb on Adobe's head with a change to the developer agreement that has proven to be slightly controversial.  The one thing I'm not quite clear on so far is understanding exactly how they'd enforce that particular rule.  But nonetheless if you do need a recap Gruber has a good post or two on the subject.  And there are some passionate arguments on both sides. 

Are they going to review our source code now?  If not I'm not sure what an application binary would look like if it were produced with other languages other than the approved set, but ultimately compiled using the Apple tool suite.   I have yet to see anyone discuss how this might be accomplished.  The only thing that comes to mind is that they'd have to review our code as well.  I can't see that going over very well.  Maybe they have some tools that they don't want to tell us about that can sort this out.  Maybe they have installed some software into every mac sold to monitor what language you use when developing your application.  I dunno  I really haven't got a good idea at this point.   

I guess this discussion is mostly interesting to me since the our current application doesn't make use of any of these other frameworks.  But we were certainly looking at those as an option at some point.  Likely for other applications.  Although for now we actually want to be developing in the native environment for any platforms we end up supporting so that we can build up better platform knowledge.  I big part of what interested me and I think a few the other guys about doing this was the opportunity to learn these new embedded development platforms and build something fun.  I'm sure that learning how to build apps with Titanium or Unity 3D, or even Flash that could run on a number of devices would be good too, but just not yet.  So I'm going to be sitting back and watching where the chips fall on this one.  And for now I'll keep my actual opinion on the matter to myself.   

But if anyone has an inkling just how they plan to enforce 3.3.1 please let us know.