The Online Magazine Focused on App Design, Branding & Marketing

There have been some stories floating around the web that Apple offered to buy Loewe, a manufacturer of high-end televisions based in Berlin, Germany. Loewe said it hadn’t received an offer, but that doesn’t mean anything, so I did some research.

Browsing around on Loewe’s website, which is mostly in German, and incomprehensibly to my single language mind, I did discover some interesting facts that lend some credit to the rumors: (1) Loewe is already working to integrate its televisions with the iPad, check out the Loewe Assist Media App in the AppStore – think of it like an awesome remote control; (2) Loewe TV’s are similarly sexy to the Apple designed products we’ve come to love; and (3) Loewe’s financial difficulties make it an attractive target for Apple.

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Designed by Rocksauce Studios, iGoToo is an upcoming iPad app that has one simple goal: to forever change the way you travel! In addition to using it to find local recommendations and make your way around your location, iGoToo lets you design custom tours, letting you plot out your daily adventures and follow them like clockwork. Your tours can then shared with all iGoToo users, letting other travelers share in your experience.

There’s a lot going on in iGoToo and rather than blather about it up here, how about we watch the awesome commercial we shot for the app?
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The best app idea on the planet is little more than just that: an idea, a drawing on some paper and some neural connections in your brain, without a good software developer to manifest your vision. Likewise, that finished app, polished to a spit-shine, may appear pretty lackluster without effective marketing efforts.

Rule #129: Don’t overlook the importance (especially in your budget) of marketing!

Marketing is often what separates the and gold from the dirt (and often the discovered gold from the undiscovered gold) in the mobile app world. Print, online, word-of-mouth, and the ever-elusive viral marketing campaigns all work together to help your app rise to the top. However, they need not work independently. The most effective campaigns employ a call-to-action for getting users to sign up across all channels.
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Social Media Marketing has quickly become the new wave of advertising and avenue to promote products and services. Not only does social media center around your personal contacts, it can also bring a new level of interaction and networking with potential customers. It has increased communications for businesses to foster brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media has become an inexpensive way for businesses to organize marketing campaigns.

Before getting the word out on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ LinkedIn, Youtube, Vimeo, or Yelp an evaluation needs to happen. Who is the ideal audience: clients, users, customers? What kind of social media are they engaged in? How will you market your product across these networks?

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When your app is in its infancy, you should be doing everything you can to validate your idea before you plunk down the big bucks to have it brought to life in development. One way to get some feedback on your idea is through primary research.

Primary research is a fancy way of describing anything you go out into the world and collect yourself. Surveys, interviews, observations, focus groups, and specimen samples are all examples of primary research. However, the type of research I’m considering here is primarily surveys.

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I am a big fan of the freemium business model. If for no other reason, I like trying out new apps without having to take the risk of spending money on something I discover I don’t like or don’t need. I’ve even discussed this approach briefly in two previous posts: A Look at Dropbox’s Business Model and Monetizing Your App (Or How to Make Money Off Your App).

Both of the above articles, in addition to representing literary brilliance, discuss successful strategies that companies employ to first get you hooked on their app, and second, and perhaps the most important to developers, get you to spend money on their app. Basically, the two approaches discussed in these articles look at giving away a limited version of your product in order to get the customer to later spend money on the “premium” or full-featured release.

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One of the people I follow on twitter recently posted a link to an article discussing the freemium business model, titled Give Away the Diagnostic, Sell the Remedy. In his article, Nathan Kaiser discusses a fresh perspective on the freemium model. That is, what exactly should you be giving away in order to secure future sales? His answer: give away the diagnostic to a problem. The more I think about this approach, the more I’m digging it, with two shovels!

Granted, this approach is easier said than done. In order to give away a useful diagnostic, you need to identify a real problem. Not just any problem, though, you need a problem that has your target market aching for a solution. In his article, Mr. Kaiser gives the apt example of anti-viral software: you get a free virus scan, discover your computer is infected, and are now in need of an inoculation. The solution? Pay for their software and kill those buggers.

Many of today’s most successful mobile apps take the same approach, though maybe not as through such apparent fear mongering. The logic I see goes something like this:

1. The problem – an insatiable need to fill every second of downtown with entertainment. DrawSomething, Angry Birds, and Plumber’s Crack are all representative apps that help solve this problem.
2. The diagnostic – download a free version of the app and discover how much fun you’ve been missing out on. Granted, the free version will be an ad-supported app (watching ads are not the kind of fun you’re looking for), or it will come with limited features. For example, DrawSomething only gives you a couple colors to start out with and only a handful of bombs to help you guess poorly drawn pictures.
3. The solution – more cowbell. The free version helped subside your itch. It’s great, but you need more. My pictures would look so much better with green!!! In comes the premium (paid) solution.

So, when you’re panning out your app, think about how you can give the customers a taste that makes them thirsty for more.

Our new travel app, iGoToo, hasn’t launched just yet, but I still thought I’d provide a little “behind the scenes” on some of the process that goes on with our creative team, especially in regards to marketing. The clients were very interested in creating a commercial with us. Now, that may sound beyond the capability of most app companies, but our CEO, Q Manning, also happens to be an experienced feature film maker, and several members of our staff have a background in film production as well (and if you’re wondering how filmmaking translates to the world of app design — it’s all about production coordination and clarity of “storytelling” — things we use in our app-making every day).

We pitched three storylines for a one-minute commercial, and you can see the pitches and the finished product after the jump.

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The iPod turned ten on Sunday. Yep, it’s only taken a decade for Apple and its army of iDevices to emerge from out of nowhere and conquer our lives. There really is no looking back.

To commemorate the birthday of what may be the most important gadget of the 21st century — smartphones, apps and tablets certainly wouldn’t exist as they do today without the iPod redefining what a mobile device could do — let’s take a look at the evolution of the iPod family.

Exciting photographs and tech history after the jump… More after the JUMP…

Last week, Rocksauce Studios was lucky to be a presence at the second annual Android BBQ, an incredible gathering of Android enthusiasts from around the world. We’ve found a cool video after the jump that will give you the flavor of the event (we brought the awesome Android cupcakes!), but first, our press release. After all, we were there for business as well as pleasure!

Rocksauce Studios, Austin’s crackerjack mobile app design studio, put its money where its code-captivated heart is as one of the sponsors of the Big Android BBQ this past weekend, which drew participants from as far away as Tokyo. Banding together with Verizon, Motorola, HTC and Texas Instruments to celebrate everything Android, the spirited event overlooked Lady Bird Lake. Tech execs talked shop with Illustrators, Developers and UX pros while partaking in face-to-face social networking.

Specializing in superior app design, the Rocksauce Studios tent featured (among others) company founders Q Manning and Peter Yoder in person, delivering first-hand industry knowledge about the latest trends and movement in the app community. Q and Peter also premiered documentary style footage on the often overlooked fundamentals of mobile app development that Rocksauce offers: bleuprinting, UX optimized design, clean development and killer marketing. Their bright green Android-like cupcakes were also a smash hit.

Google’s Android platform has become one of the fastest growing and most popular platforms around the world. The Big Android BBQ featured panels on Adobe Air, Android Development, Meta Watch, Cyanogen, Skifta, XDA, Swype and SwiftKey and a host of others.

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When we wrote about Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, we talked about how Google having complete and total control over the software and hardware of a future product could be beneficial not only in quality, but in how it is seen by consumers. For example, as great as some Android-powered devices are, their owners often view them as the cheap stop-gap while they pinch their pennies and save for that slick, sexy iPhone. Let’s face it: as much as hardcore tech geeks care about the inner-workings of their gadget, many people flock to the Apple store to pick up the latest iDevice (and desperately search for weeks because they sell out in an instant) because they’re cool. Those hit-and-miss Android smartphones, manufactured and designed by dozens of companies and given away like candy? Not so cool.

Which brings us to this New York Times article, which uses the power of statistics — and therefore, SCIENCE! — to prove that an overwhelming majority of the general public have no interest in any tablet that doesn’t begin with a lowercase “i” and end with a “Pad.” A ridiculous number of tablets are hitting the market in the next year and their biggest challenge won’t be proving to be a capable device, but rather convincing everyone in the world that they’re just as amazing as the iPad.

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