Enter Fanboy… I am someone who you would love to have as a customer. Over the past year I have spent thousands of dollars on new MacBooks, iPhones, an iPad, desktop software, a Kindle, another Mac and tons of apps. Most of this stuff came from one company, Apple. Heard of them?
I’m such a huge fan of these products that I’ve encouraged other people to buy based on my infectious enthusiasm alone!
There Are 200 Million People Like Me Out There!
Apple reports that they have sold over 85 million iPhone OS multi-touch devices. 85 million people, like me, are spending money on gadgets and exclusive content and loving it. And they are getting their friends to buy as well. If you could talk directly to this audience of 85 million prospects do you think you could grow your online business?
Today I am going to talk about how you can leverage your iPhone app to get in front of this audience.
Apple Has Left the Keys On the Table
When Apple created the App Store for the iPhone and now the iPad they built a place where their most loyal and enthusiastic raving fans could come and spend money. Apple realized that to make the App Store work they would need to let other companies in because Apple could not satisfy this mob of eager consumers alone. This is the reason that you can get access to us.
All that you need to do is to come up with an iPhone OS app that will be an exceptional value to Apple’s audience. An app that is good enough or even just decent will get you in front of these buyers.
Ok, so how specifically will an iPhone app help your online business?
Fill Your Funnel Up With World Class Customers
Many readers of this blog know that online businesses require a constant flow of new customers coming in. This is the beginning of the sales funnel. Ideally, we would like a large quantity of people who are of high quality. High quality for online business usually means that a prospect is able and willing to spend money and they will be engaged with the product being offered.
By giving away an iPhone app on the app store you are attracting prospects to your funnel who you know are buyers. You can also assume that these prospects are engagers because the very nature of consuming iPhone app content is actively engaging.
Getting people to download your app and use it consistently is a great way of getting prospects to “raise their hand” and consider doing business with you.
Leverage Apple’s Halo Effect For Your Online Business
This is big big big. Apple has spend years perfecting the business of juicing the media, designing beautiful products and simply being super-cool. All of this has created an Apple Halo effect.
Why not leverage this Halo effect for your own business? If you are successful you may be able to transfer all those good feelings to your brand. All this without the huge marketing budget, the fake product “leaks” to the tech press or breathless presentations at expensive venues.
Final Thoughts
Give away your app unless you are publishing software as your core business. You can expect to sell apps for about 99 cents to $2.99 right now on the iPhone and even successful apps can have trouble being profitable at this price point.
Even worse, Apple will not just hand over your customers email addresses to you at the end of the month and so without intervention the dynamics of the App Store will ensure that the lifetime value of each customer will be just 99 cents! I’m sure that you can do better than that.
What I recommend is to get creative when it comes to bringing the people who download your app into your sales funnel. Giving your app away for free ensures that you get the most of these super-customers as possible. You can require an email address to unlock the features of the app (see the free app We Rule as an example of this). Or you can leverage the app itself to maintain engagement with your prospect.
Many online businesses have a product or service on the backend that they are trying to sell. This may be content like an ebook, some type of couching or a membership site. You could even be a consultant, speaker or providing some kind of web service. From my experience, working an app into your own system will pay off more than a simple paid app will.