Should You Pitch a Branded iPhone App?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009There are days when it feels like iPhone apps are the new microsites -- every campaign has to have one. And on the surface it seems the numbers stack up just right: a healthy range of demographics, 50K apps, one billion downloads, 40 million devices (source), all going strong. But before you pitch an app to the next client, consider these usage stats from Pinch Media's deck on Slideshare (February 2009) and Greystripe’s Q109 Consumer Insights Report (April 2009, pdf):
-- Minutes per use: 9.6 (Greystripe)
-- Uses per user: 19.9 (Greystripe)
-- Only 20% of users return to use the app after the first day (Pinch Media)
-- After a month, this number drops to 5% (Pinch Media)
-- "39% of iPhone users cited weather-related apps as one of the three kinds of applications they use most frequently (Compete via MediaPost, April 2009)
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6 comments: Responses to “ Should You Pitch a Branded iPhone App? ”
By Jack Zufelt on 15/6/09 8:30 AM
Interesting numbers, but not really surprising. A lot of the apps out there are minor time killers and nothing more.
By Jeff on 15/6/09 9:46 PM
Thanks for the numbers on this it is good to see my suscispions confirmed.
Think of the time and money wasted on the creation of all those apps. Most the time the apps just don't seem to become second nature for people.
By @veronikaharbick on 17/6/09 3:32 PM
thanks for sharing these numbers. i agree jack, not nec. surprising.
i think for a lot of brands this should enough (as long as enough people install) - get a user to download something fun and useless, engage with it and tell a friend. Even if the user deletes it after a few weeks, its still an active engagement with the brand... much better then any banner ad.
are a lot of facebook apps any different?
By Stefanie Hartman on 18/6/09 7:56 PM
Thanks for the stats. I sort of suspected this, not many of the IPhone apps seem to have long term appeal.
By Anonymous on 18/6/09 9:36 PM
I agree
I downloaded a few aps for my iPhone and have returned to half of them. I had considered aps for my business but thought there there were surely other digital marketing options that are alot more effective long term. I found WAAM, a marketing agency that provided reasonable solutions.
check them
www.waam.com.au
By bikingbill on 6/7/09 9:49 PM
Maybe Clients need to consider the developer's track record instead of just deciding on price?
How many iPhone apps?
Any get featured by Apple?
What do users think of their apps?
Sometimes you DO get what you pay for.