Although promoting iPhone apps and web sites can be done efficiently through online advertising campaigns, the market for LogYourRun (runners, cyclists and other active people) is such that real world marketing can also be a highly efficient way to reach an audience that is unaware of LogYourRun and unaware that such a service even exist.
Historically, print advertising consist of designing a brochure with information about your product and distributing to potential customers. Since a single sale of a $1.99 iPhone app brings in $1.40 and the free app has no revenue attached I have been exploring cheap print alternatives to promoting using a brochure. I have found several places online that will print high quality business cards for very little money. I was able to get 2,500 business cards printed with high gloss front and matte color back for under $150 using Vistaprint – that is about 6 cent per card so only one in 23 cards have to be effective at getting someone to download the app in oder for me to break even.
As it turns out the dimensions of the iPhone are such that it fits perfectly on a business card. So on the glossy side I have a picture of the iPhone running the LogYourRun application so people can see what it is all about and on the back I have instructions on how to get the application. And that is the hard part – since the main screen of the LogYourRun application does not contain the application name – I have to rely on people to turn the card over and read the name of the application. It would be great if apple implemented something similar to the android barcode scanner where all you have to do is take a picture to download an app. Maybe someone is already working on making such an application for the iPhone.
I have collected about 1 months worth of baseline data on downloads of both the free and the paid LogYourRun applications and one of my friends are going to Miami Marathon this weekend and will hand out about 1,500 of the cards there. I will report back the results here after the weekend.
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1. Comment by iphone developer
28/Jan/2010 at 1:03 pm
Very clever marketing idea. I like it alot. This would be good for college campuses or iPhone conventions that you could hand them out, or post your business card in high traffic areas.
2. Pingback by This Week In iPhone & iPad News - February 5/2010
5/Feb/2010 at 4:59 pm
[...] Promoting Your iPhone in Print Better title: drive sales by handing out card-stock mock ups of your app. [...]
3. Comment by Keith Beucler
5/Feb/2010 at 9:35 pm
Great idea. I’d distribute the cards through stores (both brick and mortar as well as online) that runners frequent. All you would have to do is get in with some of the sales people and have them throw your card into the shoe boxes. This way you target runners instead of iPhone users. There are probably more runners that have iPhones than iPhone users that are runners. One of the problems with the App Store model is that it is difficult if not impossible to track your marketing ROI. You just don’t know where your traffic is coming from. One way of tracking this type of marketing is to use time interval marketing. Have the cards included with local purchases, take a break for a month and then try an online store for a couple of months. This way you at least have some idea which program is most effective. I think local is going to win especially if you build up a relationship with the sales people.
4. Comment by Tim
5/Feb/2010 at 11:43 pm
@Keith Beucler
Great idea – I will try to talk to some shoe stores!
The marathon promotion actually did not work that well – I think that it is the wrong crowd to advertise to. When people show up for a marathon they are usually at the end of their training. I was hoping to reach some hardcore runners but maybe they are not attending the fintess expos.
5. Comment by Tyler
6/Feb/2010 at 12:32 am
Nicely done. The cards look very well done.
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6/Feb/2010 at 10:18 pm
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7. Comment by Zaid
6/Feb/2010 at 11:11 pm
Nice to see someone else playing with print.
I did almost all print campaigns when I launched my site on campus. I got about 10 uniques for every 100 fliers.
Here’s my math and what I did:
Goal: drive traffic to my site + build brand on campus
Audience: students at my school
Method: I would print a tonne of flyers; I would goto the biggest classrooms every morning before anyone showed up and put a flyer on every desk; idea is to have one flyer hit many people throughout the day.
Math:
750 pages
6 flyers/page
4.5 cents/pg
Total cost: $33.75
Cost per flier: Half a penny(0.005)
Cost per unique visit(not including labor): 5 cents
Brand recognition: ~30% (I went around campus at different times doing a survey if people had heard of my site)
Can’t wait to see your numbers!