Winning on the Marketplace-  Finding the pricing sweet spot

While browsing some MSDN blogs I came across a five part series of posts from the Canadian Mobile Developers’ Blog that are called Winning in the Marketplace.

The entries were all authored by Paul Laberge, a Microsoft Developer Advisor in Canada, and focus on areas developers can work on to see their apps have success.

Although the posts are from January and February of 2012 the recommendations are still pertinent and deserve another look by all developers wanting to be successful in the marketplace.

  • Winning on the Marketplace- Where in the world are you publishing?
    • If you’ve built modern mobile apps, you probably already know that coming up with the idea for the app/game and coding it is really only half the battle.  Success is largely determined in the marketing strategy you adopt for your app.  There are quite a few strategies that you can take and you can likely mix and match them, but there is no one “silver bullet” that will make your app an instant success.  This post is the first in a series of five that will give you an idea of some of the ways you can help your app become a success in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
  • Winning on the Marketplace- Trial mode–the art of the upsell
    • Part 2 of this 5-part blog post series on success strategies in the Windows Phone Marketplace deals with a fairly unique component to the Windows Phone platform called Trial Mode.  If you make use of trial mode in your paid apps and games (and you really, really should if you plan on putting a price on your app/game), then you are making it much more likely that users will download your app and in response to that, make the possibility of them paying for your app much higher as well.
  • Winning on the Marketplace-  Finding the pricing sweet spot
    • Ah, the ultimate question for developers trying to maximize their profits on the Marketplace:  “What should I charge for my app?”  The question is simple.  The answer is always far from simple.  As a developer who spent intense and likely long hours making an idea come to life in the form of a Windows Phone app, honing it and tweaking it and then tweaking it once more, this decision is an agonizing one.  Fear, uncertainty and doubt creep into your head… What if I overprice it?  Even worse, what if I underprice it?  How many apps will I have to sell/distribute to break even?  Every single app situation is unique; there isn’t any single silver bullet that can solve your pricing questions.  This post is meant to provide you with a set of tools to help you come to an answer to that incredibly important question.
  • Winning on the Marketplace-  The differentiation game
    • When a mobile app marketplace hits a population of five figures, it becomes a little tough at times to have your app stand out of the crowd. Even if your app or game is the most awesome thing ever invented since the spork, it’s still tough to get that initial traction when there is a sea of other apps that also get users’ attention. One of the ways to gain that traction is to create an app or game experience that is fundamentally different (in a positive way) from your competitors’ apps and even making your app stand out across apps that are not even related to yours. Experience trumps almost everything, so if you make the experience of your app amazing, then you will get traction sooner or later.
  • Winning on the Marketplace- Tips on getting promoted
    • Once you have built your app or game and have published it into the Windows Phone Marketplace, you’re likely going to want to monitor the uptake of your app via download and (potentially) revenue statistics.  You are also going to want to find ways to market your app to people who may not know about it.  There are several ways of doing this, some more costly than others.  One of the most effective ways of marketing your app is actually completely free – have the Windows Phone Marketplace showcase your app!  It sounds easy but there are a few things you need to do to increase the chances of this happening and that is what this post focuses on.