Branding our apps
A successful app brand is based on a singularity, i.e. creating the perception that there is no app available quite like ours. This post suggests three ways to achieve this.
Focus
We should focus on an app market niche and be a specialist. To grow our app brand, we don’t need to expand our range of products. Maintaining a single focus enhances our brand identity. A previous post identified How to Target a Niche Market. If we do create a sibling app then we should differentiate it from our current app brand.
Category
We should promote our brand category and not just our app. Embracing competition stimulates interest in our brand category and will drive growth for us. It is even better if we can create a new category for our app’s brand. By doing so we automatically become the best in the category. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone it occupied a unique brand category for devices with phone, internet and music playing functionality.
Mind
Users’ perception of our app’s brand is the most important thing, not ours. Exclusively owning a word in their mind is extremely powerful. Google owns the word search and Apple owns apple. I own the word Conxy - here’s the Google search results for ‘Conxy’. Once my game Scarper launches, I will focus efforts on owning the word Scarper by applying User Growth tactics.
Other resources
22 Immutable Laws of Branding book by Al Ries and Laura Ries
This is Marketing interview with Seth Godin
3 Influencing Tactics for App Designers post by Phil Martin
This post suggests ways to create the perception that our app is uniquely valuable. Until next Sunday, think of a word that you would like to own.
Have fun.
Phil…
