by Sharona | Jul 13, 2014 | Development, Installs, Monetization News, Software
Creating an app or software can help you grow your business by adding another way to serve your customers and creating another revenue stream. You could create an app or software that helps your customers solve a problem, or create a product that simply provides some entertainment and relief. Either way, you have the potential to create a whole new arm of your business.
Like your other products and services, you will have to create an effective marketing strategy for your new app or software. However, an essential, but often overlooked, part of the success of your app or software is how quickly it downloads. If the software takes too long to download, users may abandon it, and you will lose a sale. Finding ways to increase the speed of your download can help you capture more sales and meet your business goals.
Here are a few ideas for how to increase download productivity to ensure your success:
Write Clean Code
One of the most significant things that influences the rate of your download is the code used to create the app or software. If the code contains a lot of extraneous information, or if it employs inefficient operation instructions, the software will be very large and take a long time to download.
There are many ways to compress the data in the software through code. For example, on a web-based system, CSS is used to automatically load stylistic elements for a page so that the host doesn’t have to download new information each time. Similar measures can be taken when writing the code for your app or software, and tools can be used to compress the data.
Limit Information Needed at Sign-Up
When you download a new app or software package, you may be asked for all kinds of information. You may be asked to set your preferences for the software, such as whether you want it to automatically start when your computer does or whether you want it to send you notifications. You may be asked for personal information, such as your name or gender. You may be asked if you want to sign up for special offers, such as for purchasing an extension or a related product. While all of these prompts may solicit important information, they also slow down the rate of the download.
Limiting the information you ask for when a person installs your app or software can help increase the productivity of the download. Limit the prompts to what is only absolutely necessary, such as asking where to download the software or asking the person to agree to the terms and conditions. Save the other information for a welcome screen or pop-up after the software has already been downloaded.
Use a Smart Installer
A smart installer can help increase the productivity of your downloads and give you the opportunity to monetize your app or software. Smart installers help guide users through the download process while minimizing the time it takes to complete. They can help to increase the rate of downloads by speeding up the process.
In addition, you can use a smart installer to increase your revenue by showing special products and offers throughout the installation process. These additional offers may be your own products, or they can be supplied by an outside advertiser. Either way, you can increase your revenue stream outside of simple sales from the app or software.
Limit Offers
While showing special offers during the download process can help you generate additional income for your app or software, it can slow down the download process if you don’t do it the right way. That’s why using a smart installer is so important. Limit the number of offers you show to keep the download process moving along quickly.
Limiting the offers you show can also help them have more of an impact. If you inundate your customers with offers, they may tune out the offers and ignore all of them. If you focus on just a few, well-chosen offers, you increase the likelihood of their visibility and success. This will help you increase your ROI and make for a more successful campaign.
The speed of your downloads isn’t just a matter of convenience for your customers. By increasing your download productivity, you ensure that more customers complete the download process and make the sales you want to meet your goal. The way you design your app or software can have a big impact on how quickly it downloads. However, you can speed up the process and open up more ways to monetize your product by using a smart installer. Just make sure that you focus on only a handful of especially useful offers to increase their effectiveness and their rate of success with your customers.
by Sharona | Jul 7, 2014 | Advertising, Development, Distribution, Installs, Monetization, Software
Creating your own software can be one of the most beneficial things you do for your business. Instead of recommending useful software and other technological tools to help your clients meet their business goals or make their work more efficient, you can create software that is specifically designed to meet their needs. If anyone knows what your clients need, it’s you. In fact, you’re are an expert on what they need, so you’re in a good position to create a powerful tool that delivers the solutions to help their business grow.
Just like with any product, you have to design an effective strategy for marketing your software and getting it in front of your target audience. You may know that it will innovate the way your clients do business, but they don’t know that until they try it. The key to your success is getting them to try it in the first place.
Software bundling can help you get your software in front of more people and meet your marketing goals. The way that software bundling works is that you identify another company with a recognized brand name or an innovative (but not competing) software product, and create a partnership. When clients download that company’s software, they also get yours – or vice versa. In the process, they get a great deal on two products.
Here’s how software bundling benefits you, as well as your clients:
More Downloads
By linking your brand to another brand that already has an established client base, you can help drive downloads of your software through bundling. The other company will be conducting its own marketing campaign to promote its software, which you will benefit from by being linked to the software. You’ll automatically get more downloads thanks to the joint efforts of the other company in promoting the bundle.
You’ll also get more downloads because your clients will feel incentivized to purchase thanks to the bundle pricing. In most cases, the bundle will offer the software package at a lower price than if the two were sold separately. If not, then additional features can be offered. Either way, the promotion encouraged clients to download since they will be getting something they wouldn’t if they limited themselves to individual purchases.
More Exposure
Even though you won’t convince every single client to download your software, creating a bundle will get you more exposure with every person who sees it. Partnering with the other company ensures that you maximize your exposure by getting the software in front of a whole new client base. Your software will go out to the other brand’s email marketing list, social media channels, blogs and maybe even their direct mail list. That’s a significant number of new clients you could be reaching with the partnership.
And the benefits don’t end here. You will also reach a wider general audience with software bundling. The excitement behind the bundle will help you to reach more people, who can all become potential clients. Even if the exposure doesn’t translate into immediate sales, it does create top-of-mind awareness that can make it easier to close a sale when you reach out to those same people in the future.
More Sales
Obviously, more downloads translates to more sales of your software. In addition, the increased downloads and increased exposure that you get from software bundling can also lead to more overall sales for your company. Hopefully, those who download will now have a favorable view of your products and your company, and will feel more encouraged to check out your other offerings and buy from you again. They may buy your other software, or they may give your other products and services a try.
Those who become aware of your company through exposure to the bundle deal will be more likely to buy from you in the future. The more often a person sees your brand, the more likely he is to trust your company or see it as an authority (assuming that what the person sees isn’t negative). That means that person is more likely to do business with you in the future. Future sales might include the software you are trying to promote or your other products and services. Either way, it’s a win for you.
Software bundling may not be the first thing you think of when you plan your marketing strategy. However, it can be far more effective than traditional means of advertising. You get more results, which means that you can spend less while getting a greater return on your investment. Software bundling doesn’t just translate to immediate downloads and sales. It also creates a partnership that can lead to more exposure now and in your future endeavors, all of which creates more authority for your brand and helps you generate more sales long into the future.
by Sharona | May 14, 2014 | Development, Monetization, Software
Contrary to what you might think, localization isn’t the welcome you get when you move into a new neighborhood. It isn’t the over-zealous neighbor wanting to show you around town, or the local gossip wanting to bend your ear over coffee.
Localization actually has to do with the printed word: namely, what happens to text when it’s translated into other languages. How does it appear in the UI? Are fonts distorted or sentences cut off? How about usability? Is the meaning – to borrow a cliché – lost in translation? These are just some of the questions a localization manager must ask when adapting text for a foreign market.
We caught up with CodeFuel’s localization specialist, Lena Aronov, to get an insider’s perspective.
Why don’t you start by briefly telling us what localization means?
To understand localization (or l10n, as it’s known in the industry) you first need to understand internationalization (or i18n). This is the process of adapting an application, webpage, or other code to different languages, while allowing for regional differences.
We start by “externalizing” the text from the code, which basically involves inserting a placeholder text, or key, into the code, rather than hardcoding the text itself. This way, if we have to make a small change to a page that exists in 20 languages, we don’t have to update the page 20 times over – we simply update the one key and we’re done! Of course, such changes are bound to affect the layout, so it’s essential that the UI design is flexible enough.
How do you internationalize language that’s specific to a particular region?
We build an infrastructure that’s capable of supporting all kinds of variables, from number formats and currencies, to zip codes and clothing sizes. Also, we prefer using copy that’s easily translatable … that means no obscure local phrases!
How do you judge whether the text will fit?
There are several ways of approaching a UI challenge. For example, if we’re dealing with a language that takes up more space than English, such as German or one of the Slavic languages, we’ll convert the text into a “pseudo language”. We usually define it to be 40% longer than standard English, to give us an indication of how the text will look in the UI, but it can be any length.
Using a pseudo language saves the developer a lot of time and effort in the long run, even before translation has begun. Otherwise, he’d have to check and update the text for each language separately.
What else goes into creating a localization-ready website or application?
Many hands are involved, each with their own set of challenges. Developers, for instance, will look for technical solutions, ask the author to shorten the source text to fit, or work with the designers to modify the layout. Copywriters will try to write neutral copy, avoiding things like slang wherever possible. For their part, designers will create a “breathable” UI that allows for linguistic nuances. It’s a truly collaborative effort.
So far you’ve talked about internationalization – how does localization fit into the picture?
The localization process starts with the creation of an app language. This is essentially an app’s most widely-used terminology compiled into a “glossary”. We do this for the sake of consistency, so that the same language is used throughout the texts.
When preparing a file for translation, we’ll check the structure of the text for common mistakes, such as incorrectly split sentences, bad syntax, or failure to use placeholders where needed. This helps us avoid problems with the translated text later on. We also prefer to have some form of context – whether that’s an explanation or screenshot (or both, if the author is feeling generous), as this gives us a general sense of how the text should read.
Sometimes, we’ll ask a foreign language copywriter to write the copy from scratch, rather than translate the English copy, as this method produces the most organic results.
Once the text has been translated, it passes a linguistic QA stage, it’s implemented it in the app UI, and finally, it undergoes a functionality and layout QA. After all this has been done, the application is ready for use by a foreign-language speaker.
Localization is an integral part of an app’s development process and, as such, should be carefully coordinated along with the other development tasks. Many businesses come unstuck because they leave localization to the last minute. In this industry, it pays to plan ahead.
Finally, can you think of any examples of translations gone horribly wrong?
Oh my goodness, there are so many!
Engrish.com has a pretty good selection of funny mistranslations. Some are just so ridiculous, you’d think they were made up. But in parts of the world where English isn’t commonplace, writers may not know if their text contains a double entendre or simply doesn’t make sense!
Thanks to the efforts of people like Lena, it’s possible to speak to users in a way that’s so natural and familiar, they don’t even realize they’re reading a translated text. To achieve this, you’ll need a fully localized installer that adapts its language settings automatically to user location. This will bring the linguistic and cultural barriers crashing down and maximize your download monetization in the process. For everything else, there’s Google Translate!
