Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing news of note

00:00:04 ◼   ► and iOS development, Apple and the like.

00:00:06 ◼   ► I'm your host, David Smith.

00:00:08 ◼   ► I'm an independent iOS developer based in Heron, Virginia.

00:00:10 ◼   ► This is show number 152, and today is Tuesday, November 19.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes,

00:00:17 ◼   ► so let's get started.

00:00:19 ◼   ► So I'm going to talk about app promotion and marketing today.

00:00:24 ◼   ► And specifically, I'm going to address something

00:00:26 ◼   ► that just happened over the weekend that

00:00:30 ◼   ► made me start thinking about this a lot more.

00:00:32 ◼   ► And it's really the ways in which we can reach out

00:00:35 ◼   ► with our applications.

00:00:36 ◼   ► And this got started for me because someone

00:00:38 ◼   ► got a push notification from an application that

00:00:41 ◼   ► was promoting another version of their app,

00:00:44 ◼   ► and just appeared one day in my push notification screen.

00:00:47 ◼   ► And it was a little bit offensive in some ways.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It just felt like it was an intrusion.

00:00:51 ◼   ► It was something that wasn't appropriate.

00:00:53 ◼   ► It's also a little bit frustrating

00:00:54 ◼   ► because those types of things are technically,

00:00:56 ◼   ► against the app review guidelines.

00:00:58 ◼   ► And so it's something that I always

00:00:59 ◼   ► get a little frustrated when somebody

00:01:01 ◼   ► is breaking those rules because it's

00:01:03 ◼   ► kind of the unfortunate reality.

00:01:04 ◼   ► If you try and be an honest, good developer who

00:01:06 ◼   ► follows all the rules and other people don't,

00:01:08 ◼   ► that gets a little tricky.

00:01:10 ◼   ► But I'm not going to dwell too much on that particular instance

00:01:13 ◼   ► so much as I want to take a step back and kind of talk

00:01:15 ◼   ► through the way that I think about advertising

00:01:18 ◼   ► and the way that I think about marketing your application

00:01:20 ◼   ► and putting it out there and kind of the philosophy

00:01:23 ◼   ► that I think I've developed over time

00:01:24 ◼   ► and a way that you can hopefully structure these things

00:01:28 ◼   ► so that it makes sense.

00:01:29 ◼   ► So when you're communicating with a customer,

00:01:32 ◼   ► it really-- the way I kind of imagine it

00:01:35 ◼   ► is there's a spectrum that you're communicating them on.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And on one end of that, I would say

00:01:41 ◼   ► you'd have the push end.

00:01:43 ◼   ► And on the other end, you have the pull end.

00:01:46 ◼   ► And by that, I mean you can have-- on the push side,

00:01:50 ◼   ► you are demanding that user's attention.

00:01:52 ◼   ► You are taking your product, and you

00:01:54 ◼   ► sticking it in their face, like the most extreme version of that.

00:01:57 ◼   ► You are literally taking your product and sticking it in their face, whether they want

00:02:01 ◼   ► it or not.

00:02:02 ◼   ► On the pull end, on the other extreme of the spectrum, it's completely passive.

00:02:08 ◼   ► You are just sort of making something available, and it's entirely up to the user to proactively

00:02:14 ◼   ► search that out and to then use it.

00:02:17 ◼   ► And there's a tremendous amount of variety in between, but that's kind of the way that

00:02:21 ◼   ► that I think about it.

00:02:22 ◼   ► Because as a developer, you kind of

00:02:25 ◼   ► have to make that decision for where on that spectrum

00:02:29 ◼   ► do you want to be?

00:02:30 ◼   ► How in your face do you want the user to be?

00:02:32 ◼   ► How proactive are you being to get your message across

00:02:35 ◼   ► to them versus making yourself available to them

00:02:39 ◼   ► to come and find you?

00:02:40 ◼   ► And so to kind of put some handles on that,

00:02:43 ◼   ► I thought it would be useful to kind of walk through maybe

00:02:46 ◼   ► about seven or eight different types of messaging and how

00:02:49 ◼   ► they-- at least for me, I view them

00:02:51 ◼   ► is falling on that spectrum.

00:02:53 ◼   ► So I'm going to start on the pull end

00:02:56 ◼   ► and work my way through the push end.

00:02:58 ◼   ► So on the pull end, the most sort of pull-oriented version,

00:03:03 ◼   ► I suppose, is just putting your app out, for example.

00:03:05 ◼   ► I'm going to be focused on app marketing.

00:03:06 ◼   ► You could probably apply this to anything.

00:03:08 ◼   ► But I'm going to focus on app marketing.

00:03:09 ◼   ► So you could just put your app in the store.

00:03:12 ◼   ► And that's all you do.

00:03:13 ◼   ► Now, it's entirely reliant on customers

00:03:17 ◼   ► to reach out and find it, probably with search,

00:03:20 ◼   ► maybe with the charts, however that happens.

00:03:23 ◼   ► You're not actively pushing your app onto anybody.

00:03:27 ◼   ► All the other people who find that app are finding it

00:03:29 ◼   ► either from word-of-mouth advertising or direct search

00:03:32 ◼   ► or something like that, something that you're not involved in.

00:03:35 ◼   ► So it's an entirely kind of a pull.

00:03:39 ◼   ► You can go to the next level up, is something like promoting it

00:03:41 ◼   ► on something like a website, things outside of the app store

00:03:45 ◼   ► where you're not really putting that in anyone's face,

00:03:48 ◼   ► you're making it available in other media.

00:03:51 ◼   ► You're taking that message and spreading it out

00:03:53 ◼   ► so that it's easier to find.

00:03:56 ◼   ► The reason I think a lot of people

00:03:57 ◼   ► make websites for their applications

00:03:59 ◼   ► is that it gives us somewhere else for someone to go

00:04:04 ◼   ► and somewhere else to find it.

00:04:05 ◼   ► They're doing a Google search and they find it somewhere else.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Or people can link to it and it can give them more information.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Those types of things.

00:04:11 ◼   ► And so it's still kind of very pool-oriented thing.

00:04:14 ◼   ► The user is still going to that website

00:04:16 ◼   ► to find that information.

00:04:17 ◼   ► but you're broadening the ways in which they can find it.

00:04:21 ◼   ► And really the next sort of slight variation on that

00:04:23 ◼   ► is when you start doing things like search advertising.

00:04:25 ◼   ► If you did Google AdSense or things,

00:04:27 ◼   ► which I've never found to work particularly well,

00:04:29 ◼   ► but you're kind of in that same vein of a user

00:04:31 ◼   ► is looking actively for something.

00:04:33 ◼   ► They're looking for an RSS syncing service.

00:04:36 ◼   ► And if I had done Google AdSense or something

00:04:39 ◼   ► and they search for RSS sync and feed wrangler came up,

00:04:43 ◼   ► I'm sort of pushing that onto them,

00:04:46 ◼   ► but it's only in a very contextual and relevant way.

00:04:50 ◼   ► The next step up would probably be something

00:04:52 ◼   ► like having a Twitter account,

00:04:53 ◼   ► interacting with people on Twitter,

00:04:55 ◼   ► and exactly how you do that will depend

00:04:57 ◼   ► on exactly where that falls in the spectrum.

00:05:00 ◼   ► If you're one of these creepy people

00:05:01 ◼   ► who sit in there doing searches

00:05:03 ◼   ► for any time someone mentions

00:05:05 ◼   ► that they're looking for a product

00:05:07 ◼   ► that does something like this,

00:05:08 ◼   ► you just hijack yourself onto the conversation

00:05:09 ◼   ► and start talking, that's quite a lot on the push side.

00:05:14 ◼   ► If you're just being available on Twitter, people are asking you questions, you're responding

00:05:18 ◼   ► to them, those types of things.

00:05:19 ◼   ► It's very much more in the pool and you're starting to get in the middle.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Next kind of way I think about it is you start to get into advertising.

00:05:28 ◼   ► And these are the more kind of noncontextual versions of advertising.

00:05:31 ◼   ► So this is like advertising a podcast, advertising, doing a banner advertisement on say an app

00:05:36 ◼   ► review site, something like that.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Doing an RSS sponsorship on a, you know, one of the various sites that do RSS sponsorships.

00:05:44 ◼   ► These are something where you're taking your message and you're pushing it into the user

00:05:49 ◼   ► or into your potential customer, but in a way that is fairly, I don't know, it's untargeted

00:05:56 ◼   ► maybe is the right way to say it.

00:05:57 ◼   ► So you're not really pushing yourself directly into something that they're going to necessarily

00:06:01 ◼   ► see.

00:06:02 ◼   ► You're making your message available and you're putting it into a place that they're likely

00:06:05 ◼   ► to look, which is a subtle difference.

00:06:08 ◼   ► The next thing you'd probably get into is where you have email marketing.

00:06:11 ◼   ► So now you've kind of moved all the way from the very pool-oriented, passive approach to

00:06:18 ◼   ► something where you are taking a message and you are sending it specifically to someone

00:06:21 ◼   ► personally.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And I think that's a pretty big difference in terms of conceptually when you are taking

00:06:28 ◼   ► your message and you are showing it to somebody very personally.

00:06:31 ◼   ► It changes a lot the dynamic of that message.

00:06:33 ◼   ► And it changes a lot, I think, on how people receive that message.

00:06:36 ◼   ► And you have to be very careful, I think, as soon as you start crossing over into that.

00:06:40 ◼   ► As soon as it becomes personal and it becomes very push,

00:06:43 ◼   ► you have to be much more careful, I think,

00:06:45 ◼   ► about your messaging, the way that's

00:06:47 ◼   ► going to come across to the user,

00:06:48 ◼   ► how they're going to receive that, because you're

00:06:51 ◼   ► talking to them personally.

00:06:52 ◼   ► You're not just making a general-- putting something

00:06:54 ◼   ► out there.

00:06:55 ◼   ► You're saying, I think you should look at this.

00:06:57 ◼   ► And that's a very different thing.

00:06:59 ◼   ► The next level up is probably when

00:07:01 ◼   ► you start to get into these things like push notifications,

00:07:03 ◼   ► using push notifications to advertise other products.

00:07:06 ◼   ► You have interstitials.

00:07:07 ◼   ► So you'll often see these, for example.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Say you have a game where you open it up

00:07:10 ◼   ► And it has like, hey, check out this other game.

00:07:12 ◼   ► And it's done in a very interstitial way.

00:07:14 ◼   ► And by that interstitial, if you're not

00:07:15 ◼   ► familiar with the term, is when you essentially,

00:07:17 ◼   ► if you pop up something that's sort of like a modal blocker

00:07:19 ◼   ► that the user has to interact with before they can move on.

00:07:23 ◼   ► And so it's kind of-- they call it interstitial because it's

00:07:25 ◼   ► in between two screens.

00:07:26 ◼   ► So often, sometimes you'll see these in games

00:07:28 ◼   ► where you finish a level, an ad pops up,

00:07:30 ◼   ► and you have to actively make it go away

00:07:32 ◼   ► before it goes to the next one.

00:07:34 ◼   ► And these are getting very, very personal

00:07:38 ◼   ► because you are demanding that user's attention

00:07:41 ◼   ► in that same way of you're saying, hey,

00:07:44 ◼   ► you need to look at this, and I'm

00:07:46 ◼   ► going to make you look at it.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Email is a little bit less than that,

00:07:49 ◼   ► because you're putting it out there,

00:07:52 ◼   ► but they don't have to read it.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Versus in the concept of a push notification or an interstitial,

00:07:57 ◼   ► you're saying you need to look at this.

00:07:59 ◼   ► If you pick up your phone, you're

00:08:00 ◼   ► going to see my message, because I just

00:08:02 ◼   ► put it on your home screen.

00:08:04 ◼   ► Or with an interstitial, if you're

00:08:05 ◼   ► opening whatever this app is, you're

00:08:07 ◼   ► going to look at this message, and you're

00:08:08 ◼   ► you're going to have to make a decision about it.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And then probably the most extreme version of push

00:08:12 ◼   ► is actually probably in person or phone call

00:08:15 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:08:16 ◼   ► If you walk up to somebody on the street--

00:08:19 ◼   ► I always think about, say, for example, like at WWDC,

00:08:22 ◼   ► where you have people on-- literally people on the street

00:08:24 ◼   ► walking around trying to promote their apps,

00:08:26 ◼   ► literally walking up to you and looking you in the eye

00:08:28 ◼   ► and saying, hey, do you want to look at my app?

00:08:30 ◼   ► Hey, do you want to look at this?

00:08:31 ◼   ► Which is probably the most extreme version of push

00:08:33 ◼   ► because you are not only putting it in front of them,

00:08:36 ◼   ► You are invoking all kinds of social norms and pressures

00:08:39 ◼   ► about personal interaction to demand their attention.

00:08:45 ◼   ► So that's kind of the spectrum as I see it.

00:08:47 ◼   ► That on the one end, you have very passive, very

00:08:49 ◼   ► pool-oriented, it's up to the customer to come and find you.

00:08:53 ◼   ► And on the other extreme, you are

00:08:55 ◼   ► demanding that customer's attention,

00:08:57 ◼   ► and you are saying that your message is absolutely

00:09:01 ◼   ► worth their looking at, and they have no choice about it.

00:09:04 ◼   ► So that's the spectrum that you have.

00:09:06 ◼   ► And it's very complicated, I think, when I think about this, to work out where I feel

00:09:12 ◼   ► more comfortable on that spectrum, doing my messaging, doing my marketing.

00:09:17 ◼   ► And it always kind of comes back to me, the best way to think about it is often to think

00:09:19 ◼   ► about it in terms of things like sort of like the golden rule, right?

00:09:22 ◼   ► It's like you treat others how you'd like to be treated.

00:09:24 ◼   ► And I know for myself, I tend to prefer the more passive versions.

00:09:30 ◼   ► And I think most customers do, in the sense, if you don't necessarily want to feel like

00:09:34 ◼   ► like your soul to, you don't necessarily,

00:09:36 ◼   ► if I'm working on something,

00:09:39 ◼   ► and a message pops up that says,

00:09:40 ◼   ► "Hey, check out this new app,"

00:09:42 ◼   ► that is interrupting me and demanding my attention

00:09:46 ◼   ► and distracting me from what I'm working on

00:09:48 ◼   ► in a way that I don't necessarily appreciate or want.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Now, that's not to say that it isn't necessarily effective,

00:09:53 ◼   ► and that's the unfortunate tension here,

00:09:56 ◼   ► that so often you hear that things like direct marketing

00:09:58 ◼   ► works, or putting out interstitials for advertising,

00:10:03 ◼   ► or these types of things are effective,

00:10:06 ◼   ► because you are demanding that customer's attention.

00:10:08 ◼   ► You are saying, "Hey, you must look at this."

00:10:11 ◼   ► And some percentage of people are going to act on that

00:10:13 ◼   ► the way you want.

00:10:15 ◼   ► They're going to go and find your app.

00:10:16 ◼   ► They're going to think it's useful.

00:10:18 ◼   ► You're going to happen to hit them at a time

00:10:20 ◼   ► that they're available and interested in that messaging.

00:10:24 ◼   ► But the reality is, that's not how I would rather

00:10:28 ◼   ► like to be treated.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And so you have to always, when you're running a business,

00:10:32 ◼   ► you have to make these decisions about,

00:10:35 ◼   ► do you wanna always be trying to optimize, say, for money?

00:10:39 ◼   ► You're trying to say, I wanna sell as many copies of this

00:10:42 ◼   ► as I physically possibly can.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And if you're only optimizing for that variable,

00:10:47 ◼   ► you're gonna make a lot of decisions

00:10:49 ◼   ► that are customer hostile, or at the very least,

00:10:52 ◼   ► not being kind to your customer,

00:10:58 ◼   ► maybe is the right way to say it, I don't know.

00:10:59 ◼   ► you're going to be doing decisions that are good for you,

00:11:02 ◼   ► but not necessarily for them.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Yeah, that's probably a better way to say it.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Is that you're optimizing for your own satisfaction,

00:11:08 ◼   ► not your customers.

00:11:10 ◼   ► And that's a very tricky place to find yourself,

00:11:12 ◼   ► because often it makes me wonder though,

00:11:15 ◼   ► if it's very short-sighted, that you can do these things,

00:11:18 ◼   ► but you start to become,

00:11:21 ◼   ► people start having other connotations about you,

00:11:24 ◼   ► that you're very pushy.

00:11:26 ◼   ► It's sort of for the reason that I typically

00:11:28 ◼   ► don't give my phone number out as much as I can to anybody who's ever going to be involved

00:11:32 ◼   ► in any kind of sale for me. I'd rather give them a fake phone number than my actual phone number,

00:11:37 ◼   ► because I don't want them to have the ability to reach into my life and say, "Hey, if you made a

00:11:43 ◼   ► decision about your car buying decision," or, "Hey, so what about this thing? Hey, so what about

00:11:47 ◼   ► that interrupting me and being able to reach into my life personally and do it?" It's like, maybe

00:11:52 ◼   ► that's a better place for email or something like that, where I can ignore it, where I can

00:11:56 ◼   ► filter it where I can decide when it's an appropriate time for me to open my inbox and

00:12:00 ◼   ► look at it.

00:12:01 ◼   ► And so I think as a businessman, you have to decide which of these lines that you're

00:12:06 ◼   ► going to cross.

00:12:07 ◼   ► Where are you going to think is acceptable to reach out and annoy a user?

00:12:13 ◼   ► Understanding that by not doing that, you may be losing sales.

00:12:18 ◼   ► And that's a tricky line.

00:12:21 ◼   ► But the reality is if you're just in this business to make sales, that makes me kind

00:12:26 ◼   ► of sad. If that's all I'm trying to do here, well, that feels very empty.

00:12:31 ◼   ► What I'm really trying to do is I'm trying to build an interesting business.

00:12:36 ◼   ► I'm trying to build relationships with customers who like me.

00:12:39 ◼   ► I want to make people want to buy my software.

00:12:41 ◼   ► And I want people to feel good about sharing my software with friends, or those types of things.

00:12:44 ◼   ► A lot of my software has grown and developed through personal recommendations, as best I can tell.

00:12:51 ◼   ► from one person saying to another person,

00:12:56 ◼   ► "Hey, I love this app, you should try it."

00:12:57 ◼   ► And doing things, making decisions about how you treat

00:13:00 ◼   ► those customers has dramatic impacts on someone's willingness

00:13:04 ◼   ► to do that.

00:13:07 ◼   ► If they feel like, "Oh, I don't really want to tell my friend

00:13:08 ◼   ► about this app because they're constantly badgering me

00:13:10 ◼   ► about buying other products or by buying upgrades

00:13:12 ◼   ► or whatever it is."

00:13:15 ◼   ► Versus, "I'd rather that customer feel like I really respect them

00:13:16 ◼   ► and I respect their time and I respect their attention."

00:13:17 ◼   ► And that's kind of just a decision you have to make.

00:13:20 ◼   ► You have to find a balance that's right for you.

00:13:22 ◼   ► And for me, I tend to very strongly--

00:13:25 ◼   ► I've very strongly avoided anything

00:13:28 ◼   ► that gets sort of past the midpoint of that spectrum,

00:13:30 ◼   ► where it starts to get very pushy.

00:13:32 ◼   ► I don't think I've really done much

00:13:34 ◼   ► in the way of email marketing.

00:13:35 ◼   ► That's not to say that I won't down the road.

00:13:37 ◼   ► That's probably, though, is the edge of where I'll start to go.

00:13:41 ◼   ► And I'm going to be very careful whenever

00:13:42 ◼   ► I do that kind of thing.

00:13:43 ◼   ► Because I know for myself, almost every email,

00:13:47 ◼   ► every time I get an email from somebody, I immediately unsubscribe from that list because

00:13:52 ◼   ► the last thing I typically want is to be viewing advertising in my inbox. That's a place that

00:13:58 ◼   ► I want to go and be productive and I want to do work. I don't want to be so sold to

00:14:02 ◼   ► there. So I'm going to be very careful when I use a mechanism that I personally wouldn't

00:14:10 ◼   ► want to receive. So that's so far. Generally, I've avoided it. And just what I do is I do

00:14:15 ◼   ► I do some advertising, I do some things like that.

00:14:17 ◼   ► I have websites, I have mechanisms

00:14:19 ◼   ► within an application for users to share it themselves,

00:14:21 ◼   ► which is probably the best.

00:14:23 ◼   ► But generally speaking, I'd rather be a bit more passive

00:14:26 ◼   ► and potentially give up some income

00:14:27 ◼   ► than be very active, in your face, and pushy,

00:14:30 ◼   ► and treat customers in a way that I

00:14:32 ◼   ► wouldn't want to be treated.

00:14:33 ◼   ► All right.

00:14:34 ◼   ► So those are just some thoughts.

00:14:35 ◼   ► As always, if you have questions, comments, concerns,

00:14:37 ◼   ► complaints, I'm on Twitter @_davidsmith.

00:14:40 ◼   ► You can email me, david@developingperspective.com.

00:14:42 ◼   ► And otherwise, I hope you have a great week.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Happy coding, and I will talk to you again soon.