Windows Store apps: Marketing and PR Tips

[LambdaLambdaLambdaFn]

I posted some questions here asking for Windows 8 app Marketing and PR tips about a year ago.  I got some great responses, many by PM -- thank you to all who responded, you were a great help.

 

Original thread

 

In the interest sharing info with folks who have similar questions... Here's my update... 

 

Apologies for the long post.  I hope this is useful to other devs out there.

 

I've had some successes achieving goals in terms of exposure in media and on blogs.  Lots of failures, too.  And lots of lessons learned about the Windows Store that I'll share here. 

 

Background:

• app is a "re-make" of an existing Win32 (desktop) app that I currently sell, and has an existing customer base
• SaaS product
• existing customers who bought desktop get modern app at no charge and vice versa, so no barrier-to-entry on the modern side
• modern app also has a Free Edition -- in an effort to attract users -- and it's much prettier.  Desktop doesn't have free edition and it's not as pretty.
• target market is B2B (remote support software, Instant Housecall, modern app here)

So there is no barrier-to-entry and the modern app has strong incentives to use it like "Free".  And most of my customers are techies, and familiar with the modern platform.  All that should be enough to grease the wheels in favour of the modern app... right?  Right?   (TL;DR: no)

  

Lessons learned in the Windows Store

• New and Rising.  Just because your app is new, doesn't mean it'll show up in New and Rising.  You need 3 reviews before your app will even show up as "new".  This seems to be on a per-region basis.  So while my app was showing up in "New" for the US Store, it was nearly invisible in the Canadian store for example
• Stars and reviews are region-specific.  A single negative review can tank downloads in a given market.  In the US, I have 30-someodd reviews, mostly 5-stars.  But my first reviewer in the UK gave me a 1 star rating (with no comments, grrr!) and that tanked UK downloads
• App store optimization in the Windows Store is comicly easy.  Everything is scraped for search terms.  You'll rank for just about any word you put anywhere.  It's so easy, I can assume that it's intentional to make the Store look fuller.  Will probably change in time.
• Download:review conversion for me is less than 1%.  I'd be curious to hear what other devs have experienced.  Since mine is a B2B app, I don't push too hard for the reviews
• Organic traffic I don't get much.  I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have an existing customer base and didn't advertise, I'd get very, very few downloads.  My sense is that people who use the Windows Store today are mostly consumers -- maybe Windows 10 will change that
• Review process is pretty quick, and a real human being at Microsoft does actually open the app.  Their testing is very superficial.  As far as I can tell, they open it, make sure it doesn't crash, make sure it has no porn in the resource files (I'm making that up but it's probably true) and then stamp it for approval. They don't actually use it. The reviewer will not get you in to the Featured queue.  Which leads us to....

Getting the Word out:  Marketing and PR

• Getting featured.  I'm not going to let Microsoft's super ninja secrets out, but if you think that having a great app that solves world hunger will get you there:  it doesn't work that way.  My app was not featured in the Store.  It did get some promo from Microsoft through other channels.  Make your app great because you want your customers to enjoy using it, not because you think it'll get featured
• Mainstream and industry media coverage.  My app was covered by a couple of magazines (real magazines, made out of paper and everything).  I even had a ~5min spot on a syndicated tech radio show.  There's really no "secret" to getting on these shows that I know.  Here's what worked for me:  I wrote a personal note specifically targeted to a person, did not use a template.  I did not get into a big shpiel about my product. I focused on what their audience would be interested in and tried to start a conversation.  Some got back to me, most did not.  Those that did get back to me said they'd reach out at a later date.  I listened to their shows, or read their columns, and kept gently in touch.  Example:  when heartbleed hit the news, one of the journalists was talking about passwords with special characters and numbers.  I sent a note with this comic from xkcd.  That turned into an invitation to a show, and mainstream press.  When it fits their news cycle, they'll reach out to you hopefully... Or not.  And for the record, I did do press releases and they did nothing for me.
• Do stuff in-person.  Be social.  If you live in a big city (I'm in Toronto), there are gobs of events happening all the time.  Events are better than e-mail on an hours-of-effort basis.  It doesn't always turn into press -- in fact, most often it does not -- but I make useful contacts at most of the events I attend.  If you live somewhere with a tech business incubator or similar, pay them a visit.  They can point you in the right direction.
• Blog coverage.  Surprisingly thin.  Almost shockingly so.  Most tech blogs that I contacted, even those that I had a previous relationship with, were visibly repulsed by anything Windows 8 (including replies with "hahahaWindows8hahaha").  Still worth trying though.  Podcasts are also a good resource.  If you can find some that are related to your app in some way, reach out to them.
• I tried promoting the Free Edition of the modern app in the hope of getting more downloads and reviews (targeting Windows-y communities, including Neowin).  I tried promoted tweets, LinkedIn, website display ads, etc.  Barely moved the needle. 

All in all, I think the best advice for marketing and PR of an app is to not think of it as an app:  think about how your grandfather would have promoted his business back-in-the-day, and do that.  It still works. 

 

The State of Modern apps in general

• My app is a pretty good Petri dish for app A/B testing (if there is such a thing).  Again, I have both desktop and modern apps that do roughly the same thing; one is free when you buy the other.  And since I have a SaaS service, I can tell who's logged in with which version of the app.  It's easy for me to compare side-by-side, and I can even tell who tried one and went back to the other
• Even with the advantages and a lot of promotion specifically dedicated to the modern app, still only a very small fraction of my users opt for the Windows Store app experience.  Desktop is the winner in this contest, hands-down. 
• The modern app requires a lot more hand-holding.  Even things like "right click to show app bar" have to be explained in the app itself (I've gone out of my way to make this clear in the app and still get people asking where the features are).  And even when it is explained people complain that it's not intuitive.
• With all this said, I don't think it's a lost cause at all...  I experienced something similar with Vista.  In the Windows Vista days, my app was compatible with UAC while my competitors were not.  At the time, people brushed off that "feature" saying "I hate Vista and I'll never install it" or "I always turn UAC off".  Sound familiar?  Eventually a tipping point came and people demanded it.  Time will tell whether that will happen with modern apps. 

So to wrap up:  Still developing my Windows Store app and still committed to the platform.  On a personal level, I prefer the modern platform (with some room for improvement which will hopefully be address in Win10), but the market does not.  I really enjoyed building the app.  In terms of commercial success:  not there yet.  Hopefully its time will come.

 

That's my story.  Hope at least some of this is useful to other Windows app devs out there.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this. It's very useful information. I have plans to develop store apps in the future and this info will come in handy.

[Jombi]

Great write up. As someone who has been thinking about releasing an app for a while now, this information really does come in handy.

Thanks!