Article:
”Hacking the iPhone App Store’s Ranking Algorithm”

They seem to have a really good handle on what’s going on and I guess it’s really easy to pull statistics and trends from hundreds and thousands of downloads but what I’d really like to know is how to market an iPhone app that is non-viral. ie: Project management apps like our ProWorkflow iPhone app.

We’re doing ok and there have been thousands of downloads, but I want to find out more about marketing lower traffic but more commercial applications through the App Store. Let me know your thoughts and I’ll compile a blog post abut it.

In the meantime here’s the SlideShare presentation from ReadWriteWeb. It’s a good read and great analysis.

I do realise that not everyone hangs on everything I have to say, but for those out these who leap out of bed in the morning just to hear my thoughts on things, here’s your very own “Julian101 iPhone app!”

Keep me in your pocket! Show me to your friends (and followers)! And let me keep you updated with my latest ramblings! I’ll be sharing thoughts on business, design, creativity and to be honest, whatever comes to mind!

Download Now!

Refer people and companies to the ProWorkflow solution and when they sign up as an ongoing customer, we’ll thank you with an affiliate payment! Easy!

Note: The affiliate program only pays out for Subscription accounts at this time (ie: not code sales)

WHATS THE COMMISSION STRUCTURE?

ProWorkflow subscription accounts sell for $10, $20 or $30 per user per month depending on the plan chosen.

We have 3x plans ($10, 20, 30 per user p/m). But ultimately there is a monthly price for an account based on the number of staff users.

So for example, a typical sale could be $160 per month.
The Affiliate program pays out the first month’s value of the signup as a one-off affiliate payment. This payment is paid out after the 3rd month the customer is with us.

Example: Customer signs up on the 15th Jan 09 for a $160 per month account

ProWorkflow receives from the customer:
    $160 on June 15, 2009
    $160 on July 15, 2009
    $160 on August 15, 2009

The Affiliate program will pay out $160 (first month) to the affiliate when 3rd month’s invoice is billed, ie: after the 15th August.

How does it work? Where are the banners?
When signed up, login to the Affiliate area and click on the ‘Creative’ tab. There are banner ads and text links to place on your website. Simply copy the appropriate code, place it on your site and the ads will appear. People that click the ad and sign up for a subscription account are tracked and will appear in your reports.

Note: Affiliate payments are only applicable for sales that occur within 180 days of clicking on your website ad.

WHERE IS THE REPORTING?

You will have access to a login area for affiliates where you have access to comprehensive reports about your referred traffic and affiliate sales.

HOW DO I GET PAID?

We are using the MyAp system for the affiliate program. This is one of the leading solutions for affiliate management. As part of our contract with MyAp, we will approve payments and transactions, but MyAp will post cheques out to affiliates when due. These will be sent out on the timeframe shown above.

WHAT IF I HAVE QUESTIONS?

If you come across any issues or have questions, please contact us through our contact form.

Here’s the article…

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To Sell? Or Not to Sell?

As an old playwright once said…

To Sell, or not to Sell: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous, less fortunate entrepreneurs,

Or to take arms against that sea of tall poppies, and by opposing their methods make thy sales? To chase the sale: to automate thou sales methods; Yes; and by sales automation we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks, that can arise from older traditional methods.

Selling software online always works the best when you don’t have to sell. Rather all you do is ‘Fill a need’ or ‘Solve a problem’. It should be transactional (automated where possible), not emotional. Transactional selling scales, emotional selling doesn’t.

If you have to ‘convince’ a company to buy your software, chances are you’re doing something wrong. The reason I say this is that the brand, messaging, product, website, documentation and value message should already have done the ‘selling’ to the customer. You should only need to ‘close the sale’ or make a ‘transaction’ depending on your model.

The only reason to talk to potential customers should be to help/assist/train them, or to build a relationship (important in the business SaaS arena). If enough time is invested up-front in the online marketing material and documentation, then they should be able to self evaluate and quite easily work out if the product is or isn’t for them or worth pursuing. Put another way, only the HOT leads should get through for any sales people to keep an eye on.

Keep an eye on? Don’t I mean ‘Sell to?’… No, I definitely mean to ‘keep an eye on’. You should aim to have a fairly well automated sales/trial funnel and just focus only on talking to either hot leads or people needing help, but not equal effort on every person in the door. That is high inertia selling and doesn’t scale (and carries a high cost).

So for every 100 leads in the pipe (trial accounts, general enquires etc) you should be looking for the top 10-20% of leads to proactively contact based on size, their level of interest, activity etc. And when these leads are identified, you shouldn’t have to do the hard sell, rather just email or call and introduce yourself, and ask if you can help. Don’t be pushy. Where possible, simply direct them to website material, PDF White papers, Testimonials etc. Let the marketing material do the work. That way they’ll evaluate your solution in their way, in their time and make their mind up (rather than be ‘Convinced’ by a seller). And if they want help, they’ll contact you as you were friendly and not pushy.

Although this method seems to put the control at the customer’s end, that’s not the case. As an example, we have developed an efficient ‘Call Manager’ tool designed to schedule calls and follow-ups at particular times in trial periods so we can keep encouraging and following up those hot leads.

So the parting thought here is that the sales model should be geared to automating the sale rather than hard selling. This isn’t true for every business model but in the SaaS market, I believe that 80-90% of all sales activity should be able to be automated. It just makes good sense. It’s scalable, costs less, doesn’t require offices and allows less sales staff to focus on only the hot leads!

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this, so feel welcome to comment below!

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for:
ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com, ProWorkflowBlog.com & Julian101.com
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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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Here’s the post:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/watching-market.html

In the post, Seth talks about the move from a ‘mass marketing’ culture to a ‘permission based’ culture and the onset of the ‘idea virus’. These are some hugely important areas to understand as they are on the money. I’ve just read his book “The Purple Cow” and I have to admit it’s one of the best reads I’ve had in the past  years. I agree with the concepts and they stack up against our own analytics we’ve been tracking around our marketing efforts.

Read the book! I’ve recommended it to heaps of people and have bought copies for others… With our project management software, we’d been seeing a decline in conversion for some time with mass marketing efforts and and increase in the conversion from more personal methods, so his theories stack up. Now we are starting to invest more in social media and blogs, articles, RSS etc we’re seeing results.

I’m very keen to read the new ‘Tribes‘ book! However, in his post, in the last paragraph he says:

“Here’s the wager: A year from now, 10/16/09, will you be leading a tribe of people? Will you be creating stories, connecting people, giving them a platform and making things better for people who care about each other? I’m betting you will.”

I see this happening now, but wanted to say I’m looking forward to this coming true across the board. I think we’re moving into exciting times on the web where we’re all on a level playing field in terms of our ability to reach large audiences. I just hope we give our audiences the respect they deserve and don’t abuse the opportunities. As long as we all have at least 50% of our thinking set to “What can I give people” we should be right!

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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So in the spirit of all things web, I decided we needed to celebrate by throwing out and old dance vid from the earlier days as it was quite relevant. Get out of your seats and have a groove to the M-People’s “Moving On Up!”

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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Here’s the article on the New Zealand Herald if you want to read the PR guff… There are plenty of hard working genuine businesses out there needing a push – shame on NZ Herald for printing this…

“Nelson businessman Alan Trent says he is committing more than $1 million to the development and launch of a shopping website, 735pm.com, aimed at New Zealand retailers and consumers.

One of the site’s features is it gets redesigned every day at 7.35pm. While retailing websites including Telecom’s Ferrit have struggled to win significant numbers of customers, Trent said 735pm.com would provide a unique shopping experience and offer significant opportunities for companies to market nationwide.”

I’m fairly black and white with my opinions, but I also like to explain. I’m going to point out some areas that need consideration or work. Also just some random thoughts. The main issues I have with the concept are these:

Be Careful What You Say!

Be sure that if you make claims through PR that you can back them up. Bloggers are sitting there ready to pounce on every opportunity to prove people wrong (if they are)

1 Million Dollars! – Holy crap! Development is Cheap These days!

“Alan Trent says he is committing more than $1 million to the development and launch of a shopping website,”
You have to be kidding me! EVERYTHING on the website/sites shown could be developed by a single basic developer for 5-15k max. Any web person reading this will agree. Unless we’re missing something here, basic configurable shopping cart software to build a website like this can be purchased for next to nothing offline.

Just look at these Google Searches:
http://www.google.com/search?q=free+shopping+cart+software
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cheap+shopping+cart+software

And even most hosting providers throw in e-commerce and shopping cart software as standard these days. It’s so cheap they can hardly give it away!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cheap+web+hosting+with+shopping+cart
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=free+web+hosting+with+shopping+cart

And as for CMS (Content Management Software) to actually build the structure of the website – that’s dirt cheap these days as well…
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=free+cms
Note: There are some great, more powerful tools in this space that cost a bit more, but for this website, it could have been done easily on the cheap in a few weeks.

Development Note:
This is a business model that ABSOLUTELY should be market tested before throwing ANY money at it. The reality is that the entire concept could have been tested using a custom Wordpress blog for the website, and link daily blog posts of products to a simple PayPal account. It would have taken 1x day to setup, and I actually think would have been more successful, not to mention actually able to be found in Google, unlike many of the pages on the current site (Don’t use flash – Google hates it).

“Unique shopping experience” – The Concept isn’t Unique!

I’ve seen it done heaps before. Here’s just a few:
- http://firstin.co.nz/splash/index.php
- http://1-day.co.nz/

Think About Conversion!

Ok, here’s the crux of e-commerce – it’s all about conversion rate and conversion cost. Let’s say you had 1000 people visit the website. How many people are interested in purchasing a $399 jacket right now? (note: coming into spring). 1% maybe? so you have 10 people wanting to buy a jacket. Great! oops! We only have one style? Ok, so how many of the 10 people (out of 1000)wanting to buy a $399 jacket want that exact style – perhaps 5%? 

So we’re getting somewhere now – we know that 5% of 1% of 1000 visitors want to buys this exact jacket (coming out of winter). So the conversion rate is 0.05% of site traffic.

But! Wait! How many of them, actually not only want the winter jacket coming into spring, and that exact style, want to purchase now, but ALSO have a credit card (most kids have eftpos – buy in malls), and how many want to buy sight unseen without trying it on for size/feel???

Can you feel the conversion rate dropping here? I would guess it could be down to 0.01% by now! And that’s no problem as it’s a numbers game, so all you do is lift the website traffic. So with a 0.01% conversion rate, how much traffic do you need to sell a jacket?  Answer: 10,000 genuine visitors (if you’re lucky)

So to sell two jackets? Another 10,000 visitors? These numbers are very difficult to achieve and sustain naturally as to drive a free ’social’ marketing campaign, as anybody in the know will tell you, it takes a HUGE about of work. The work would cost more in time and effort than you’d ever make in profit from the margin on a cheap traffic. I mean would you stay up day and night for months building social traffic just for a few dollars?

So that won’t work. It’s a one sided affair for the business, but it’s not the sort of model that’ll virally spread – it’ll take effort.

So that leave paid marketing. And simply put, the ongoing cost in banner ads, CPC’s, Adwords etc to drive 10,000 unique’s a day to the website will be WAY higher than the profit from the margins on the products shown after expenses and wages come out.

This is why people build stores with VARIETY: http://dse.co.nz, http://www.blizzard.com/store/, http://ascent.co.nz, http://www.gpstore.co.nz, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.trademe.co.nz etc…

In this day and age of people and businesses competing for eyeballs, you HAVE TO convert AS MANY of your traffic leads as possible, so any model that limits product selection is doomed to failure in the long term. Simply put, the maths won’t work.

Some Other Observations

 
On this page, there’s no way to get back to the homepage. Stick a link on the logo or at least a text link.

 
“Please Wait…” – aaaahhh, nup – Off to TradeMe. There is no excuse for a black loading page like this.

Here I can sign up to be notified 4 days before the Official Launch Date set for 24th of August, 2008.
They should sell an ebook on how they invented time travel as it’s the 28th today. Come on guys! Remove old links like this! You say you’re in ‘Daily Update’ mode. The least you can do is update your own blog’s main post!

I got to this page, which said “We will have products…” (haven’t you launched?) and it also had a typo “Click a catagories…”   sheesh!
So I clicked the categories and nothing was in there? No prob, I’ll click the 735pm logo to go back to the 735pm website. Nup! Took me to the blog! Aaargh!

 
Saw this ad on their blog! (Note: Image was scaled and this made the ad text rough) Can you believe it? They are wanting to tell people this is the ‘Ultimate Website’. Maybe tell ya nana, but hold off on the intelligent web community for now mate.

 
I had a hunch… Checked the bad ad image and found it is code scaled from an un-optimised 800px wide JPG.

I think this is the current website. nice lady. Not sure who she is or why she’s there… Maybe they just like her? It’s a huge image though, 600×1200px so they should keep in mind download time… Heaps of people will want to download her – she’s Russian (russianchick.jpg) ;-)

 
Also, can’t click products to purchase off the homepage.

Anyway, back to the main launch website…

 
Personally, this brings back memories from 1995 (December). It’s all Flash, and badly designed. I thought that they’d have at least put some good SEO bits in the source code…

I like the Meta bits…

<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″ />
<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”no-cache” />
<meta http-equiv=”expires” content=”-1″ />
<meta http-equiv=”pragma” content=”no-cache” />
<meta id=”metadescription” name=”description” content=”735pm” />
(What, no description to give to your friend Google?)
<meta id=”metakeywords” name=”keywords” content=”b & b, boats, cheap, coffee, concrete, cool products, deals, food, furniture, garden, gifts, holiday, houses, landscaping, luxury, quality, restaurant, shopping, specials, stocks, sweet as, travel, wine” />
(Seriously, who searches for the keyword: “Sweet As”, and are you planning to sell “Boats” and “Concrete” on one day sales via the web? If so, will you still honour the $7 shipping fee?
<meta id=”metacopyright” name=”copyright” content=”copyright © 735pm” />
<meta id=”metaauthor” name=”author” content=”735pm” />
<meta name=”resource-type” content=”document” />
<meta name=”distrbution” content=”global” />
<meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow” />
<meta name=”revisit-after” content=”1 days” />
<meta name=”rating” content=”general” />

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Ok, so I want to buy a snowboard bag…

 
Wow! That is a punchy layout! I’ll check the terms and conditions. I’m sure they’ll be thorough as I’m trusting this business with my credit card…

 
Excellent, I like doing business with simple terms and conditions… Where’s the privacy info though? This is credit card stuff we’re talking about? Maybe in the spirit of all things Web2.0, they decided it was just ‘to cluttered’. So anyway, I signed up and activated my account… Then go linked to my friend again…

 
But I like the last line underneath the lady (A mouthful):
“Your account has been activated, click the link below to be transferred to 735pm.com. 735pm.com Welcome to 735pm.com!

So let’s buy it…

 
“More Shipping Options Coming Soon” – eh? What’s the current shipping option? I have no idea if it’s even going to arrive on a Camel?

Country? You mean they’ll ship to my PO Box in Russia for only $10 (by Camel?)
Wait! What’s this ad in the corner….

 
Ahhh!!!! I get it now! It took me a little time, and I’m a bit slow. It’s a short term venture. According to this website, the business must be planning to go under on the 10th September 2008.

Let this be a warning to all. If you plan to launch a new web business, make sure you’ve run it by some people in the tech industry first. Otherwise you could launch into a storm. Sack the developer of this project now – today.

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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I’ve copied the full-page graphic of the ad and placed it below, I’ve also noted the increase in account stats from the time we got the data for the magazine ad to now. It’s kind of an odd thing to put ever changing stats in a print ad – but we thought it was an interesting piece of content to ad to lend further product credibility.

Managed Through ProWorkflow

Note: Current numbers as at 23rd July 2008

Interesting to see the gain? It’s great validation for the team that people are definitely using the ProWorkflow tool for their project management. Oh well! Back to work, just thought this worth sharing…

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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http://www.drury.net.nz/2008/05/24/if-i-was-in-charge-2/

But as much as I agree with nearly all his points, I wanted to expand on point number 15 about assigning a design dictator. Here’s the comment (or essay) I posted. Thought I’d repost it here as it ties in with some other topics I’m covering. Here’s my thoughts on the ‘Design Dictator’ comment…

Re: Number 15. The comments about the design dictator and rebranding. Whilst I think it’s a great idea, it’s not quite that simple in reality. if you really wanted to rebrand Microsoft here’s what I’d do.

1. RENAME ‘MICROSOFT’ TO ???

Lets face it – it’s a lame name these days. And the name carries too much baggage – period! No amount of design will erase the memories of the past. It may take a decade or two of turmoil, but new generations coming through will appreciate and accept the new brand. And this is a multigenerational corporation so rebranding needs to be though out as such.

2. CHOOSE THE DESIGN DICTATOR WISELY! Trust them and step back!

Microsoft shouldn’t ’seek’ the designer. This would amount to ‘old thinkers’ choosing who to represent them – not a good idea. A third party should be appointed to find the designer. A hard task, and it could take some time, even years, but if this step is rushed, all could be lost – there would be one shot at this, so for the future of the company it would need to be the right person. Someone prepared to die for the company in order for it to live. Redesigning MS would be a few decades work so that’s a fair chunk of life to commit!

It can’t be a ‘Multiyear Contract Job’ for the designer. Look at Steve Jobs – it has their passion, nothing else – just that job and a pile of love!

3. DESIGN IS AS MUCH ABOUT CULTURE AS IMAGERY.

Let’s face it – Apple has great design, but also great culture. If Microsoft just rebranded, did a few screens and box shots (a few thousand…) all it would be is a facade. Cool people buy Apple Products. Nerds and geeks buy Microsoft products. Yes it’s a generalization – but 90% of the world’s population would probably agree. See the problem?

You can make cool products and branding for Microsoft but you’ll find it near impossible to shift entrenched Apple users from their stunning gear – this is because they love the gear, culture and Steve (God). So that means Microsoft would need to compete with Apple by not grabbing Apple’s customers, but rather taking their current users and trying to sell them ‘Cool Microsoft Rebranded Stuff’.

Hmmm.. Ever tried to make the nerd at school look good for the nightclub? He’s bright, he’s intelligent, he ‘does the job’ but despite putting him in baggy lowriders and a hoodie, he’s still a nerd. You can make a duck wear a tie, but he’s still a duck.

Or simply put, You can rebrand Microsoft, but you can’t reculture Microsoft users ;-)

4. VIRAL SPREAD

To be effective with a rebrand you need to impact the ‘design culture’ of Microsoft. Apple does so well partly because it releases a ‘cool toy’, their fans love it, buy it and most importantly ‘talk about it’ to other people. Great design spreads virally, but ONLY when the customers CARE about the design. Here’s the problem that reinforces my ‘Design Culture’ comments. Ready? Here it comes…

“Apple users CARE” – “Microsoft users USE”.

For example; Rod loves his Apple gear so he blog about it, Twitters about it, Allows people in the street to touch it etc. This is Great marketing for apple – It’s free!.

Microsoft could rebrand but would they have the same viral spread? I’d bet anything that they’d have a lot less viral spread than Apple if the rebrand was good. But if it was bad they’d have a HUGE viral outlash, and worse – it’d be ammo for Apple who, as history tell us like to get the boot into Microsoft at any chance – good on them too! if MS had some balls they’d take a few decent shots at Apple!

IN SUMMARY…

These are some initial thoughts on the issue. I’ll sum up though by saying that I believe rebranding Microsoft has to happen at two levels. Firstly, start to change the company culture from within for a few years – shake up the business by taking shots online at Apple, then secondly (and ONLY when the culture starts to shift) CHANGE THE NAME AND BRAND – RELAUNCH THE BUSINESS! Not just the design!

if done right, a relaunch of a company of this size could be the biggest thing to ever happen online! Once and for all it would lay the Microsoft baggage and history to rest.

Question is… Who’s got big enough kahunas to make this happen?

Republishing Note:
Anyone is welcome to republish this article as free online content, provided that the paragraph below is included in the full form as shown.
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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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