Tie into Seasons and Holidays
Another way to come up with a winning app is to look at seasons and holidays for ideas. The only problem with seasonal apps is, well, they are seasonal. You’ll see a burst of sales for apps tied to a particular holiday or season and sales will drop off dramatically after it has passed. One strategy is to create multiple apps for different holidays so you are focusing on selling apps all year long. This means, however, that you will have to apply your marketing efforts to selling your brand with some specific holiday sales campaigns for each app during their holiday.
Seasonal apps can do better because a season can last for a number of months. There are apps for spring, summer, autumn, and winter as illustrated in the next image. Games, however, can transcend all seasons and do well with consistent marketing.
Tie Your App to Part of a Wider Solution
Perhaps the most popular category of apps is the social networking-related apps. Anytime there is a powerful and well-known Internet application such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and so on, there is an opportunity for you to create an ancillary app to one of these (and many more) Web 2.0 technologies. Look for ways to add value to these applications, and you may be able to create a blockbuster app that people will purchase to help them use these other technologies.
A winning app requires some real planning and thinking. While there is no single formula for creating a blockbuster app, winning apps must be sufficiently unique, and you must be able to create a message that will generate huge interest. Hitting on a completely unique idea for an app is fairly difficult although not impossible. If you are having difficulty coming up with a great new idea, look to improve an existing app out there. Download some of your competition and see what features they offer and which they lack.
A successful app must also have frequent feature updates. Use the updates as an opportunity to broadcast your message to your existing audience and to new buyers. Marketing is not a single event but a series of events that persuade the buyer to take a look at your app and then buy it. Rather than looking at doing a single press release, look for opportunities to make multiple announcements to keep your app in front of your market.