I’ve been fortunate enough in the last 2 years to help Pinger promote 11 different apps into the iTunes app store top 100. In doing so, I’ve learned a lot. Here are top 5 mistakes I’d encourage you to avoid.

#1 Being TOO in Love with your App

You’re marketing plan starts with your app. App no good = tough to market. I’ve seen many developers that believe their app is AMAZING, while it’s not always the case. You’ve got to be your apps biggest fan AND biggest critic.

I’d encourage you to listen to as many folks as you can give you honest feedback about your app.

#2 Marketing Plan = Get Promoted by Apple

This is what I’d call a lottery ticket marketing plan.

I’m not saying don’t try anyway you can to be promoted by Apple, but realize it’s unlikely to happen.

You need a detailed marketing plan with 15-20 items on it. Apple promotion should be one item, but not even at the top because it’s so unlikely to happen.

#3 Not Having a Prioritized Marketing Plan

Most app developers do make a marketing plan. Great start. But the mistake they often make is in not prioritizing it by the impact it can have.

Let’s take 3 activities (you should obviously have more on your list!):
- PR
- Contact app review sites
- Mobile ads (Admob, Quattro, FreeAppADay, etc)

Based on your goals, you prioritize these. If you’re goal is to make it into the top 100 apps, I’d suggest you prioritize these like this:
- Mobile ads (Admob, Quattro, FreeAppADay, etc)
- Contact app review sites
- PR

Why? If you can make mobile ads work for you, they have the most likelihood of driving you into the top 100 when compared to app review sites and PR. That’s in my opinion anyway.

NOTE: This is just an example to get you thinking. If you have no marketing budget that would obviously change everything. Tweak your thinking for your own situation.

#4 Not Being Willing to Spend Money

You’ve spent hours and hours building a great app. You should be willing to spend some money to promote your app. I realize it could be a waste of your precious funds, but you may also have a hit on your hands that no one ever finds out about.

#5 Not Tracking Everything You Can

The App Store doesn’t help developers much with tracking marketing efforts.

But here are some things you can track:

- Your app’s analytics using companies like Flurry, Mobclix, etc.
- Mobile ads (Admob, Quattro, and others offer conversion tracking)
- Poor man’s tracking (keep track of each marketing effort and the resulting downloads*)

*This is a very flawed method, especially if you have more than one effort going at once. Unfortunately sometimes it’s the best you can do.

Hope this helps you avoid mistakes and have success in the app store!

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