In 2010, the word “app” was named “Word of the Year” by the American Dialect Society. This highlighted the importance that apps play in our daily lives. We use apps to conduct business, play games, discover news, and keep in touch with our friends.
With millions of apps available in the App Store, Google Play and Windows Phone Store, it would seem that anyone with a good idea and technical proficiency could simply create an app and cash in on it, like this kid.
Unfortunately, succeeding in the mobile app world isn’t that easy. App Promo, an app marketing and strategy company, created this infographic based on the results of a survey they conducted with their app developer community. It illustrates the difficulty of creating a successful app and shows the tactics developers need to use to market their apps.
The majority of mobile app developers have made less than $5,000 to date and the only the top earners (the 12 percent of app developers who have made more than $50,000 in total revenue) were able to say that their apps turned out to be a sustainable, standalone business.
To succeed, top earners invest a lot of time and money marketing their product outside of application platforms. They invest in SEO and paid search, landing pages, social media, public relations, price promotions and other important marketing tactics.
Mobile users spend more a lot more time on apps than they do on their mobile browsers. Does this mean you should you build an app? If you want to use the profits from an app to retire early the answer is, “No.” However, if you develop software, you need to consider how these mobile users affect your offering.
