We are happy to introduce our new guest blogger Andreas Kambanis of iPhone App Rockstar.
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If there was a video titled ìStuff iPhone developers say one of the typical phrases would be I saw it in the featured apps. We are used to hearing about app success stories post launch, but we rarely get a chance to glimpse inside the pre-launch stages that decide whether an app is a runaway success, or doomed to gather rust in the unvisited depths of the app store.
With that in mind, I wanted to dive in to a story that is unfolding as you read this sentence. The story of the Leap app. An app which I predict, will soon be hitting the big time in the app store.
I reached out to the Leap founder to discuss the pre-launch strategies that they are using to guarantee that they crush it with their app launch. What follows is an shortened transcription of the interview, along with some additional notes.
First of all a little background..
Leap is an app that allows you to create challenges with your Facebook friends. You document these challenges by taking pictures and you earn points on your progress.
The team behind it consists of James Dickerson, who is the co-founder I spoke to, Nick Cramer is the designer and Ryan Tinker is the developer.
Q: How are you generating interest before your launch?
James Dickerson: Our landing page is very important for collecting user information. We built our own custom page since we have a designer and a coder but you can easily use Launch Rock. Which a lot of start-ups are using.
What we’ve done is identify niches that we want to focus on for our launch. We’ve contacted various health blogs and people in the health community. Told them about our app and directed them to our page. They agreed to share Leap with their users once the app is ready. We are going to have a nice base of people to get the app once it is launched.
We focused on the health community and then we focused on the tech community. We ordered out a list of 50 blogs from small, medium and large. It’s much easier to get attention from the small blogs first, before moving on to the big guys.
We’ve drafted up a sample email with screenshots of the app, a picture of the team and a 5-10 sentence description of the application. Then we emailed them and said weíd love to be featured in the blog, here’s some content you can use, then it doesn’t take them much time to create an article about your app.
Once you start getting some traction on the small blogs, you can use that as a good example to pitch medium size blogs and then the bigger ones.
Key takeaways: You need a page that collects users information prior to your launch. When your app finally makes it in to the app store, you then have a list of interested users to help you hit the ground running. These initial users will help boost your app through the ranks and vastly improve its chances of being featured by Apple. Setting up a landing page is easy using a service such as Launch Rock or Launch Effect App.
To build your list of interested users donít just head straight for the huge app blogs. Pick blogs within the niche that your app targets, start small and work your way up. The Leap app currently has an email list of over 800 people who are interested in downloading the app when it launches.
Q: How do you make your message stand out?
JD: If you think about most of the submissions, somebody is probably just typing in a short couple of sentences, a website and being pretty self promoting. If you take the time to craft a nice email, link to a couple of examples where the application has been featured before and convey the message that the readers will be interested in it and itís something new and different I think it will stand out from the other submissions.
Key takeaways: Rather than sending off a generic email, take the time to craft something a little more personal and think about what you can offer the blogger or journalist, as opposed to just what they can offer you.
Q: What has the response been like?
JD: A great response from some of the bloggers. In fact, one of the bloggers is a New York Times best selling author who focuses on health challenges for his readership. I reached out to him and said there’s no app out there thatís allowing your readers to do these challenges together and I think your community would really love this. I didnít try to pitch him right away, I just said let me know if youíd like any more information. Low and behold that worked really well and it was a big win for us.
Key takeaways: I’ve personally seen a far bigger jump in downloads when mentioned in a popular blog, as opposed to getting a two page spread in a huge cycling magazine. Others are reporting the same thing and this example by James shows how following this pre-launch strategy can get your app in front of some really big audiences.
Q: Let’s zoom ahead a little to the launch day. Have you set an exact day for launch and what will you be doing on that day?
When the app is completed we are going to set a day to let everyone know it is ready. Once we’ve got that date set we are going to target the big dogs such as TechCrunch and VentureBeat. Weíll probably give them a week and a half to two weeks notice.
On the launch day itself weíll be using Mixpanel that we have hooked in to the site and the app, so that we can monitor live how many people are using the app. We really want to be talking to users and asking them what can be improved.
Weíll probably have some friends come over, get them to download the app and see how they interact with it.
Key takeaways: As you reach your launch day, step things up a few notches and contact the bigger players. With all the proof you’ll have from the smaller blogs, they’ll be more likely to feature you. When the launch day comes around try to spot any potential problems as they arise by interacting with your eyes on social networks.
Also, make sure you are enlisting your friends and looking over their shoulder to see how they use the app. You’ll gain really valuable feedback for your next version.
Those interested in reading the full interview can find it here.
