Uproar Blog

We built Gratuitous in order to learn about developing and selling iPhone applications. We’re always looking for ways to improve our visibility in the App Store. Recently, though, we’ve been looking for ways to increase our visibility from outside the App Store into the App Store.

AdWords to the rescue! Right? Maybe not. AdWords didn’t work out for Gratuitous, so we quickly changed course and moved on. But I’d like to share our findings with you

Keyword Pricing

We didn’t know anything about AdWords when we started, so we kicked it off with default settings. We typed up our ad title and body, and hit “go.” The default setting in AdWords is to optimize for impressions (how many times an ad is displayed) by automatically bidding on clicks. For our keywords (iphone tip calculator), the bid went to $2-3 per click. While that may not be bad for a lot of products, it doesn’t make sense for an iPhone app that sells for $1-2. Even if you were able to get the cost per click down to $0.50 – $1, remember that an ad click doesn’t guarantee a purchase – far from it.

So, we switched over to manual pricing. We figured if we could get some clicks for $0.10 – $0.15, then they might be worth it. At that price, we didn’t see enough ad impressions to be worth our time. When bidding high we saw 3 clicks for 10,000 impressions. At 10 cents, the impressions went down to just a few per day. There is no way we’re going to see enough clicks to make that worth our while. If you’re selling a $10 app, then AdWords might be worth looking at.

Copyright and “Limited” Distribution

When we first submitted our ad, it went into review by the AdWords team because it included the word “iPhone.” It’s kind of hard to sell an iPhone app without saying “iPhone,” so we trusted that Google would see that our use of the term “iPhone” was an instance of fair use. After a few days, our ad was approved, but was marked as “Approved (limited).” Limited, to Google, means US-only. That was good enough for us, so we left it as is. If you need ad distribution outside the U.S. you can email Apple and ask them to approve your use in AdWords. Email lwidup@apple.com with your AdWords account number and a nice, friendly note.

Moving on

It’s pretty obvious that AdWords isn’t going to work out for Gratuitous, but apps are only part of our business. “Apps for your life. Consulting for your business.” Instead of advertising Gratuitous, we’re now trying AdWords as a way to generate leads for our consulting service. This is agile business. We tried something, quickly evaluated the results, and adjusted strategy decisively.

I resisted the temptation to spend a bunch of time becoming an expert in AdWords and going in 100%. There may be a way to make AdWords increase Gratuitous sales a bit, but it’s not worth our time. It’s clear that AdWords will not sell thousands of dollars worth of Gratuitous, so the experiment is concluded and we move on and adjust strategy. As a small business owner, I knew I needed to be quick and just test the waters. You’re going to do a lot of new things as a small business owner. Having a good sense for what to spend time on and what to do “just good enough” will be very valuable.

In case you haven’t heard, Gratuitous 1.2 was approved and is now available in the App Store.  Go grab it!

Right now, if you take a look at the Finance category of the App Store, you’ll see Gratuitous front and center.  If all goes well, we should remain on the Finance category home page for the next few days.  Perhaps due to this increased visibility, we had a significant increase in sales during our first day on the home page.  We understand that correlation is not causation, but we’re still hopeful this significant uptick in sales continues.

8/13/2009 update: Uptick continues! Day 2 sales were 18% higher than day 1.

How’d we pull this one off?

It’s a simple trick involving manipulation of your application’s availability date in iTunes Connect.  When set to the current date, your app will appear in your respective category sorted to the front of the list as by default, iTunes displays apps by release date.

The availability date is intended for developers who want a deterministic release date for their application in order to coordinate press and advertising around a known date.  This is common in the video game, music, and film industries where companies coordinate a media blitz around a specific date.  However, with the uncertainty of the App Store review process, developers do not know when their app will be approved.  Thus, companies can use the availability date to set a future date (after their app has been approved) so they can then coordinate press around this known release date.

However, most iPhone developers don’t coordinate media around applications, instead allowing the application to be made available immediately after it is approved by Apple.  Here’s how to set the availability date to maximize the exposure of your app each time you release an update.  These steps must be taken on the day your app is approved by Apple.

1. iTunes Connect > Manage Your Applications
2. Click Edit Information under your respective app
3. Click the Pricing tab
4. Set the Availability Date field to today’s date.  If this is set to a future date, your app will be pulled from the App Store and won’t be made available until this date.
5. Click Save Changes

This change will take a few minutes to propagate throughout the various App Store servers, after which your app will be shown on front page of its respective category.  Depending on the frequency of app releases in your category, your app could be on the front page for anywhere from less than a day to several days.  Being in the relatively quiet Finance category, Gratuitous should remain on the front page for around 5 days.

You might ask yourself why you shouldn’t just constantly adjust the availability date so that your app is permanently displayed on the category home page.  Well, Apple has this scenario covered by using either the lesser of the date your app was approved or the availability date set in iTunes Connect.  For example:

8/10/2009 – App or update approved by Apple
8/11/2009 – Availability date in iTunes Connect

In this case, Apple will use 8/10/2009 (the lesser date) for your application in the App Store.  This is why you should set the availability date to the same date your app was approved.  Additionally, setting the availability date past the approval date will simply cause Apple to withhold your app from the App Store until the availability date, after which your app will be listed with the earlier approval date.

Know of any other tips for fellow iPhone developers?  Leave a comment below!

Rebrand

We launched Uproar in an instant.  We incorporated, threw up a web site, and started building software.  This is the right way to start a company. A lot of people start things; be they companies, blogs, clubs, or bands; by making a logo, choosing colors, writing mission statements and business plans, and yada yada yada.  Those are the wrong things to focus on when you’re starting something.

Once we got our first product out the door and people started paying attention, then we knew it was time to put our efforts back into the company.  So we’ve recently relaunched the Uproar brand.

When it comes to building a company and a brand, you get a lot of do-overs.  That’s one of the reasons you don’t need to spend your first burst of energy creating a logo.  But there is one thing that is very hard to mulligan, and we got very lucky because we hit a home run on it: the business name.  We’re very proud of the name Uproar and we’ve had nothing short of 100% positive feedback on it.  If you don’t love the name Uproar, please leave a comment – I need knocked off my high horse.

Since we got step 1 right, we started looking at options for colors, a logo, and our brand.

Type & Icon

The new Uproar logo is both typographic and symbolic (not to be confused with iconographic).  I love typography, so I wanted to use a strong, identity building typeface for Uproar.  I chose Gloriola by Suitcase Type Foundry.  Gloriola serves Uproar well because it is a strong, modern, but classy typeface which will stand the test of time and comes in a variety of versatile weights.

Although there are some very good examples of type-only logos (or logotypes), such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Google, and id software, I wanted to have a logo that included a graphical element that could be used in isolation as an icon, an avatar, etc.  Examples of logos like this are NBC, 37signals, and Pepsi.

We went through a lot of different iterations on our logo (I’ll post a design exploration if anyone is interested – leave a comment or @ me on twitter).  We wanted something that represented our personalities and really paid off a name like Uproar.  We went with fire and landed on an illustrated flame which I quite like.  This simple shape works at many different sizes, in 1 color, 2 color, or full color, and it gives the right first impression.

Versatility

Versatility was very important to me with the Uproar logo.  The type can work on its own if needed.  ”Uproar” in Gloriola all by itself still carries our brand quite well.  Likewise, the flame by itself is a memorable graphic element that evokes our brand image.  This versatility lets us span the Uproar brand consistently across all media, be it a business card, t-shirt, web site, favicon, avatar, bumper sticker – you name it.  You won’t see the Uproar brand looking out of place. That versatility reinforces the brand of thoughtful, flexible, resilient software that we build.

Pictures of real people

Uproar’s biggest challenge is that no one knows about us.  We don’t have industry notoriety of our founders to rely on (yet).  Therefore, it’s very important that someone’s first impression of Uproar is that we’re a couple of real people — real professionals — not just a web site.  I asked my friend, and amazing photographer/designer, Josh Okun to take our picture.  It turned out great – thanks Josh!

What do you think?  Is having our picture on the homepage a positive or a negative?

Simple, direct message

Also because we’re new, we wanted to have a direct and clear message that describes what Uproar is about.  We sat down one day to talk through what we think sets Uproar apart. The exercise revealed that we combine design and engineering to create an overall best-of-class experience for the user.  This goes beyond just getting a good designer and a good programmer.  Doing this effectively means that all members must be able to significantly contribute to that unison.  It is the nuanced and experienced manner in which we meld these two things together — to the point where they do not exist in isolation during the build process or the final product — that we want to convey.  Do you see how hard that is to explain?  We explained it with a simple infographic that employs the philosophy itself:

This equation is our story.  In Seth Godin‘s book All Marketers Are Liars, he teaches you to tell stories about your company or product.  Good stories get retold; they endure; and they are pervasive.  Stories are way more effective than ads.

Recency

The final, but possibly most imporant thing we did on the homepage was to include “recency.”  We have our blogs titles, tweets, and most recent work on the homepage.  In my experience there are a lot of small business web sites out there that look nice, but you get the idea they were created over a year ago and the company might not even still be operating any more.  This is a “first impression” play, but it’s even more important on the second impression.  If you’re lucky enough that someone comes back to your web site, then you have a chance to show them that you’re an active and vibrant company.  You have the tools to do this — Twitter, blogs, etc. — so you’d better feature them on your homepage!

What could be better?

We could easily tweak this for weeks or months longer, but a small business needs to be quick and deliberate.  We designed a logo, shot photography, built a site, and launched it all.  It was a lot of work, but I’m pleased that we go it done in a timely manner.  Looking at the site now, there are things that could be better.  Most notably, the links in the lower-right corner of the photo don’t stand out nearly enough (unless you’re on the iPhone-specific version).

I want to hear your feedback.  What could be done better?  What do you think we did well?  Finally, if you made it all the way down through this post then you’re a trooper – thank you for reading.  @ me on twitter and tell me your favorite part of this post and we’ll get you a redeem code for Gratuitous.  I know you already have it, but you can give it to a friend or loved one

At Uproar, we’ve benefited from numerous free tools.  These are the 6 tools I couldn’t live without.

1. Google Apps

To me, the most valuable free tool has been the Google Apps suite of applications.

• Gmail provides all of our email.  Nuff said.
• Documents stores all of our documents and spreadsheets online.
• Sites provides a great wiki-like site for ideas, designs, etc.

2. Subversion

All of our code and design is managed under SVN.  By having a version control system, we can easily track changes while working in the same project.  Additionally, each of our code releases are tagged providing an easy means to go back to a previous code version should the need arise.

3. bit.ly

How does a URL shortener turn up on this list?  Well, anytime we provide a link via Twitter or this blog, we use bit.ly to wrap it.  This allows us to track how many people click each URL and when.  bit.ly also tracks various social networking sites and can show you if others are posting the link.  This data is great for understanding the reach of your messaging.  For instance, here are the details behind our link to Gratuitous.

4. Google Analytics

Where bit.ly provides a means to analyze your URL traffic, Google Analytics provides a means to analyze your website traffic.  Our site is completely instrumented with Google Analytics, providing us the ability to see what is being visited, by whom, and when.

5. WordPress

WordPress runs the blog you’re reading right now.  It is incredibly easy to manage, providing a means to auto-update both the WordPress software and each plugin directly from a web interface.

6. Twitter

Twitter provides a significant portion of our overall traffic (mainly due to our use of the service).  Most importantly, it is a great communication tool and allows you to keep a good pulse on your community.

The Rest

The above list of course does not include all of the free apps we use, just those that I found most beneficial.  Honorable mentions:

• Mint – Tracks our finances
• Tickspot – Tracks our time spent on projects (useful for uncovering avoidable time sinks)
• Highrise – Tracks contacts
• Vimeo / YouTube – Storing videos of our apps using SimFinger

Outside of this list, what free tools do you find invaluable to your business?  What paid tools do you use?