So I released Screen Spy 3 days ago. It's been up for 3 days now and I've sold 7 copies. Screen Spy is a remote desktop application over a protocol I made up.

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I'm worried the app will stop selling once I drop off the "New App" lists (just a day or two from now). Here is a graph of the sales so far.

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Any ideas on how to better market this thing?

See on Apple's Website

Edit
One more pretty graph, just 'cause they're pretty.

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Mite be just me but that name sucks. very useful tool but name sucks

Try experimenting with the price? $25 seems sort of steep, is VNC really that bad on the iphone?

The name seems very misleading. From that name I'd expect something like an app that does screen captures without the user noticing it.

Also, Dusty Technologis?

"over 15x more responsive than vnc"... did you actually measure that?

I may lower the price or I might raise it. I am unsettled on that issue.

For comparison, there are a few dozen apps in the $5 - $25 range (and they're all crap). Most of these are for wifi use only.

A handful claim to work over the internet. I don't have the budget to verify these claims but I suspect most only do given specific firewall settings (aka. they do not work for the average consumer).

There is 1 app for $30 by LogMeIn that I believe works in practically all conditions. In terms of connection quality my app falls somewhere between the $25 app and this $30 app. Corporate firewalls often block all (even outgoing) traffic that is not TCP port 80 or 443. To work in these conditions I must create a TCP->UDP proxy that relays on TCP port 80. Due to a few missing features (Control, Shift etc) and lack of this TCP 80 proxy I have come down from the top price bracket ($30) to the next down ($25).

LogMeIn runs in-app advertising campaigns to drive sales. With a $30 app this becomes practical. I may copy this approach. Or I may go cheaper and just be an amazing and affordable app. On this issue I have not yet decided.

For reference, I estimate LogMeIn($30) revenue to be 250k-500k/yr and iTeleport($25) to be 250k/yr. The cheaper apps likely have much less revenue.

I will look more into changing the name.

How did you reach those numbers? Afaik, you can't see how many purchases a certain app has.

I think it sounds a bit pricey... Do you have a "lite" version that one can try, or does the user have to take a chance at 25 USD without having even tried out the interface and whether or not it works on your computer (at all/to satisfaction)?

I've actually lowered the number considerably to sound more believable. The description very clearly says "up to 15x" btw, not 'over'.

We can assume you have compression turned on but since my protocol also utilizes compression we will discount this for both.

In a better case (for my comparison) we will do the comparison:
VNC: 24 bits-per-pixel / 3 bits-per-byte * 320 width * 480 height = ~1.2 MB per frame
SS: 24 bits-per-pixel / 3 bits-per-byte * 320 * 480 - "magic" = 1.5 KB per frame

This case is a command line program with text scrolling by at a ferocious rate. "magic" is my secret sauce. You can see in this ideal case the factor is actually 100x, but no one would believe that.

There are other very significant benefits to the algorithm that aren't revealed by a raw comparison of this nature.

Edit

When you're in this long enough and talking to the right people you find ways to learn these things.

I assume VNC only sends the parts of the screen that changes, not all of it (at least that is my experience with it).

EDIT:

No offence, but "I'm more experienced than you so you'll just have to trust me even though I cite no sources" isn't quite going to cut it I'm sure they could be making that kind of money, I'm just curious how you got to those numbers.

Which algorithm are you alluding to? If you mean dirty rectangles it will have essentially no effect in the example given.

Okay! Have a nice day.

Sorry, edited a bit. Didn't mean to sound like an ass

Okay, no problem. I'll give a few clues as to how I get to these numbers. The charts tell you who is making the most sales and in what order. If you managed to find out how many sales someone is making that is also in that chart, you can guess fairly accurately how many sales the other person is making.

With this app in particularl I may have heard a rumor or two from a guy who heard from a guy who heard from the owner of an app how many sales that app was making. I know all the people involved and trust that they have no reason to lie.

<Edit>I have a buddy with an app in the top charts in this category, extrapolating from his app sales and his chart number to the app(s) in question is one of the approaches I used</Edit>

Every once in a while someone posts their sales numbers in a blog. You can see where their app is in the charts and extrapolate from there.

In summary, there are a bunch of ways to get a sort of gray feeling of where things are. You also kind of know how much the top apps are making per year and as long as you stay in tune ('cause it'll change from year to year) you develop a guy feeling for how everyone is doing. This might be analogous to getting a gut feeling what your grade your class mate is getting or what the salary of a co worker is -- You can usually get a good ballpark.

Edit
It looks like I can't change the name...
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Drat.

Thanks for all the advice so far -- I'm still looking for more .

Do you have an AdWords account? Setting up iPhone-only ads that are triggered on (e.g.) VNC might be effective. Just spending $10-$20 should help you determine the click through and conversion rate. (First set up an affiliate program at Link Share, then send your AdWords link through it.)

I tested that out with Monster 2 and came to the conclusion that the break-even price point would have been $8.00, assuming the same number of people would have bought the game at that price (as opposed to $3.00).

$25 might be expensive, but I wouldn't go much cheaper. If it works (and there should be a free demo to test) and people need the functionality, then they shouldn't object to paying for it.

One $25 sale is worth twenty-five $1 sales, but is it really likely that you'd increase sales 25x by dropping the price? Probably not. Finding the sweet spot is tricky, but I'm sure it's closer to $25 than $1.

Things that turn me off:

• Screen Spy: Stupid name.

• By Awesome Game: Stupid name.

• The next evolution over VNC: I can't even parse this into a sensible phrase, are you saying it's the next big thing and it works over VNC, or that it's the successor to VNC?

• 15x more responsive: Sounds 99.2% made up.

• when using your phone's internet connection: So, it's more responsive when you're actually connected to your computer? No way!

• Holy shit, I'm going to use every single sentence, aren't I?

• We're the only app that uses our collection of proprietary ultra-efficient algorithms:

• Color Fade technology:

• Pretty much the entire thing.

Basically, you come across as a grifter, which isn't any different than how you come across on this site, but... Well, no "but", you just come across as a grifter.

Okay let's try to be constructive here. You're just being a douche. Please work at being nicer.

It's perfect, good job, I don't see anything wrong with it. Better? Passive-aggressive strikethrough text.

Edit: Don't take this silly post to mean that my previous was in jest. I was 100% serious, and if you're not interested in criticism then you shouldn't ask for marketing help.

What would be a better term for color fade technology?

I find it educational to watch you sell your app, and document some of your process here. Did you develop it on your own, or are others helping you here? I really am curious to watch this, because I suppose its educational to people like me who haven't sold work independently and it is nice to watch a fellow developer earn money from his work

I got an email from AdWords about a week ago offering $100 of free advertising for new users. This is the link which also came with a coupon code. I don't know if the coupon code is unique to me, so I won't post it here. You can just try the link and Google around if it asks for a coupon. Or I can PM you my coupon if you can't figure out some other means of getting the $100 offer.

You could use that $100 to gauge the click-through rates as ML described, and make some money-cash in the process!

Other than Bob's help, it's all my own creation. It's been something that has held my interest for years though (ever since I first used sub7), so who knows what someone taught me along the way that I've forgotten to credit .

I have a long feature list of things I want to add, most notably a sort of "alt-tab" interface. However I want to prove this will sell before investing more time into it.

Thanks for the coupon! I will use it and document if and how well it worked.

Edit Oh wait I see, could you PM it to me?

Something more plain English.

"IE 7 has Multi Tab technology." vs. "IE 7 supports tabbed browsing."

The former has a tone of superiority and is trying to sell rather than inform. The latter is more humble and purely informative. Trust is essential in any marketing effort, but it's especially important for places like the App Store where scam artists are so common.

It's very hard to regain trust once you've lost it. For instance, by making several posts talking about flooding the App Store with shitty apps for a quick buck. Or by calling someone a douche when they mistake your self-promotion thread for one that was genuinely interested in opinions. Or both.

I apologize for using harsh wording. It was a gut reaction to a mean description of an app that I have put god knows how much work into. I realized this after posting which is why I crossed it out and wrote something else. Let's try to keep it friendly.

To be clear, I'm looking for help marketing to my customers. This is historically very different than marketing to programmers. If I could get your help analyzing this it would be good to keep this fact in mind.

I agree saying "over" is a little funny here. What is a good way to communicate that this algorithm is a large improvement over VNC? I'd like to show customers who have already purchased a VNC app (or are considering it) that this app is enough better that it is worth buying.

I think you're using and making up buzzwords like they're goin' out of style. But I don't know jack about marketting. Personally I'd K.I.S.S. And no trial version? Only people with too much money are going to buy a $25 app without even trying it first.

I'd say this isn't true based on the competing apps. The numbers suggest the opposite is true.

As to inventing buzzwords -- how else do you describe techniques that did not exist previously?

That's common in the AppStore, from what I've found. Plus I think you can always get a refund on an App later, if you so choose.

I'm not a marketer, but I consider myself your customer (though I am a programmer). If I had the money, I would buy your app. What I would want to see is a video showing a side-by-side of your app vs. VNC. Both doing the same thing, and obviously your app would be keeping up with the ferocious stream of text, while VNC crumbles and falls.

Does it require a coupon code at some point? I'll be happy to give you mine, assuming it actually works (maybe they tie it to my gmail account?) ... mostly because I'm interested in how it boosts your sales, and because I won't be using it myself.

EDIT:
Call it Speed Booster or something It boosts the speed of the screen updates, albeit by "compressing" the color space.

I'm not convinced there is anything truly new here at all. "Remote desktop" type programs are a dime a dozen. I wrote one for J2ME, you can download it for free (70-80 thousand people already have).

Okay! Good talking to you.

It's interesting that you're still not interested in feedback. Why do you even bother to continue with this thread if you're just going to ignore people genuinely trying to give you what you asked for?

Someone saying "there's nothing new here" isn't helping out the request for marketing ideas.

I completely disagree. Dustin's current text has already been shown as being disingenuous. Trying to say that you have something wholly new in an area that has been done to absolute death, is sketchy at best.

And while other marketers are disingenuous most of the time, I don't think that gives any other marketer an excuse to be disingenuous at any time (if mary jumped off a cliff, would you too?).

To me it sounded much like the others asking for information. Maybe trentg was just a little bit more subtle (probably because even the slightest non subtlety will cause dustin here to fly into a rage ) than everyone else.

I wasn't being as helpful as I could have been. The text of the app just seems like the app is a complete scam. Looking at the few screenshots, you can't tell ANYTHING about how good the app is, you're supposed to trust this phony sounding text.

That's why I would just be honest and use plain english to describe the app and its features. "great speed boost over VNC" sounds better than "up to 15x faster than vnc", because it sounds more honest and not like complete bs which I believe it is (as you said, only in some certain circumstances is it faster).

I would also without question make a lite version if it were my app. The only reasons for not making a lite version is that the app is crappy and you don't want people to know before they pony up 25 big ones for it.

This kind of app could be worth some serious money. And I'm talking about individual sale price. But I don't think I would spend $25 on a vnc app. It's a pretty simple thing to write TBH... took me about a week to make one that has desktop view, keyboard/mouse control, even streaming audio... I wouldn't pay or charge over $10 for something like this unless it was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. In other words, it would have to use Apples protocols for remote desktop, not require installing a server or anything and the app itself would have to be 100% flawless, allowing you to do ANYTHING you can do while sitting at the computer. Maybe it is that, but from what I gather from the app page, there's not way to tell and to me it comes across as just the opposite.

I would also get a new icon. Just a nag but it's really ugly, especially for a $25 app. Give people what they pay for.

@Trent Gamblin
nice points but you cant use your self and your knowleg of how long it takes to make as price juding factors.
The people buying this type of stuff are not programers. all these people care about is "is it useful?" or "who else is using it?"

Yeah, I'm not being of any help here... I apologize if I offended you Dustin. I'm not a marketer so I don't have any useful information for you.

Hm, I will consider this for a while.

If you think my app's advantages are BS than why help me market it? Maybe your effort would be better spent somewhere else.

Because marketing this well is very important to me and there is a chance helpful advice will come to me from this thread. This is meant in the friendliest way possible .

@Billybob A youtube video is a great idea! I am definitely going to do that (albeit it will take some time write a script or outline and get a camera etc).

Edit Also I haven't gotten the google promo code in case you are still interested in giving it to me.

Your explanations were BS. The only hint we have of knowing if your app itself is BS, is through the explanations you give.

You're just too kind .

Just trying to help

Just saying that its in your best interest to provide a meaningful explanation of your product.

I myself prefer hard numbers to adjectives in advertising. Saying "The Toy Yoda has the best fuel economy in its class" where class is unspecified tells me nothing beyond they're trying to pull a fast one, OTOH, saying "The Toy Yoda gets 26.6mpg city, 32.7mpg highway according to the government tests" is something you can use.

Dustin: Who is your target market?

Anyone who knows enough about the complexity of such a project to realize that the price is actually reasonable is not going to fall for marketing hype. They'll be knowledgeable people who just want pertinent facts.

Conversely the type of people who will go "15x faster than something else? Awesome!" or "Hey, wow, cool, I didn't know you could control computers remotely." is probably going to see the price as being too steep.

15 times faster certainly should make you think twice, but it's not inconceivable. I have a ton of personal stories that no one would believe, to the point I won't tell them anymore, and resort to jokes and wild anecdotes to have anything to talk about at all.

Seeing such a crummy text makes me wanna write a better one. I hope it at least gives you some inspiration. (Or a good laugh )

This is much better than my text.

Thanks for putting in the effort - Do you want a free copy of the app?

How does this sound?

Good As far as you have taken over exactly what I typed.

Really in that order? Better split up this sentence and add bullets to all steps. Referring to "the application" might be ambiguous/confusing to laymen. Name it (f.i. "PC client application" or "PC part of Screen Spy").
Add something like "adding additional computers takes the same easy steps".
The last sentence describing it's functionality should be longer and more descriptive: it's the climax of the story.
And thanks, for the offer, but I'm doing this because I think it's fun... I should get a job in marketing

How is this?

You should do bluetooth too for those quick office presentations.

I also think the app name sounds more like a screen capture utility. I find "Remote Screen Spy" to do a much better job of conveying the functionality.

Confusing sentence is confusing. Do you mean 'on an unlimited number of computers' - or perhaps 'with an unlimited number of computers?' 'For' doesn't seem to fit in this context.

Here are the next 3 days of sales.
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Friday and Saturday are the popular app purchasing dates, so if something is going right I should see sales today as well (but possibly not tomorrow).

I updated the description on May 13th, so it's possible it worked as shown by sales on May 14th.

Edit I will update "with" to another word.

Here is the graph of all 6 days.
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App sales are always high on the first few days because you get on the "What's new" lists.

Here is the breakdown of which counties are buying my app.
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Apple only pays me the total for a given region if the amount in that region exceeds $150. They pay 90 days after the month in which you reach that number (something like that). So I haven't gotten a single dollar yet.

More Editing
If I can get to just one $150 payment than I will build a version 2 with more polish and better features.

Then you can pay off the developer fee Apple charges

What a scamjob rip off. Sounds like a cheap way for them to leech even more money off people - think of all the interest they're pulling on those funds, not only until you hit $150, but for 90 days after.

Android market uses Google Checkout, so you get paid immediately per transaction (well, after 48 hours or whatever the refund period is, the charge isn't put through until the user can't refund anymore).

Apple has to hold on to your money for 90 days because of their refund policy, it seems.

The real crime is Apple charging developers 30% of the purchase price whenever something is returned. I could understand them charging enough to cover transaction fees and such, but 30% seems high.

If you question Mr. Jobs in an e-mail at 3AM he will reply back to you while he is drunk, and then you can blog about it.

90 day return policy on apps? Seriously? That is extreme overkill. That, and charging of fees, AT ALL, on returned apps is horrible. With Google, it's just a reversal on Google Checkout, just like any other cancelled transaction, and doesn't cost anything for any party involved.

Except google which has to pay banking fees. Unless they don't charge the buyer until the refund period is up.

Ninety days is a bit overkill, I agree. Thirty would be more reasonable. Not sure what their reasoning on the ninety day rule is, except extra profit for them since developers carry all the risk.

You get paid within 45 days of the end of the month, not 90. The people I've talked to (and myself) have been paid around 30 days usually.

Your app store page provides a 'support' link, but that just takes you to a website selling till receipts.

It would look better also, if you surrounded your screenshot with an ipod. As mentioned earlier, a video would do wonders too.

They put the authorization through, but don't actually charge the card until after the 24 hours is up.

I think even 30 days is a big overkill. I feel 24 hours is generous enough, otherwise you can buy apps that you only want to use for the short term, and then return them after.

Kibiz0r: its not like he is not providing anything for their money. Of course there are stupid buzz words and stupid speed comparisons. People like that. Most of you who are against such things don't know anything about marketing or don't like money, which Dustin is making.

He's not making that much, probably because his price point is a bit too high. I'm sure there are many people who would buy it at a lower price, likely enough to offset the losses from lowering the price. Simple supply and demand here.

Correction, Stupid people like that. And if thats what you want your customer base to be, go right ahead