How to Check if an App Store Icon is Any Good

I see on many times on Facebook groups people sending in App Icons for feedback from fellow app developers in a format that I consider suboptimal.

Example:

App Icon Evaluation - the wrong way

(Sorry to pick on you Steve Young 😉 )

So first off, its great to get feedback, so that’s fine.

The right way to check if the app icon “works” is to see the icon as it compares to its COMPETING apps in its natural setting, the App Store.

Personally, I get my designers to send in their App Icon previews on the Google Play Store search results for our target keyword.

For example:

Lets say we are creating a game where the target keyword is “Pharaoh Slots”.

So I will get the designer to send in a screenshot of the Google Play Search results for “Pharaoh Slots”, with their new icon placed on the search results.

They should NOT indicate which is their actual icon because I don’t want to be biased.

I want to look at the search results and the app icon which I think stands out the most SHOULD BE OURS.

google-play-search-pharaoh-slots-icons

Why Google Play?

Just because you can search it from the web so its easy and quick and in our specific case we publish games cross platform including Google Play so it makes sense to us.

You should do something similar for whatever your target outcome is.

In our case, we are looking for search rankings for specific keywords, so again the search results make sense for us.

If you are aiming for top charts in a specific category – then get your designers to put their preview on a screenshot of your specific top charts category from iTunes.

You get the idea.

The principle: 

Evaluate your app icon as it compares to your direct COMPETITORS.

The desired outcome:

Your icon should meet the following criteria:

  1. The most ATTRACTIVE on the page.
  2. STAND OUT the most on the page (in a good way!).
  3. The icon should match the theme of your app! (i.e. for a game about “Pharaoh” your icon should have related graphics).

There are some tools I’ll also add here in the postscript, which might help you (but again, for me it is best to take a manual snapshot of your competitors and evaluate against them directly):

App Icon Testing Tools

Sending App Reviews to Slack: Comparison of Services

Analyzing and responding to user reviews is a critical when you’re developing an app.  Users provide CRITICAL feedback and it is imperative that as developers we read and react to users.

A very convenient way is to have new app reviews automatically sent to Slack.  There are several services which do this and below is a comparison of the different App Review Monitor offerings.

Appbot

  • $49 per month is the cheapest plan on a monthly payment basis.
  • This allows up to 15 apps to be added.
  • Integrates with Slack and Trello.
  • Tracks reviews from the following stores:  iOS, Mac, Google Play, Amazon, Windows Mobile & Windows PC.
  • Verdict:  Pretty expensive!

Launchkit.io

  • Send reviews to Slack.
  • Price is $0 “Always Free”…
  • Nifty feature on signup that you can opt to track all of your companies app with the click of a button (saves time if you have lots of apps)
  • You can also set up a feature to auto-tweet reviews.
  • Apparently takes up to 1 hour for the account to be activated.
  • Launchkit also has a variety of other services that might be worth exploring:  Screenshot Builder, App Website Builder, Sales Reporter and a variety of other tools in Beta.
  • Verdict: Looks like a cool FREE tool, the major downside seems to be that it is ONLY for the iOS App Store.

Appfollow.io

  • Covers multiple App Stores – iOS App Store, Google Play & Windows Phone Store.
  • Integrates with Slack, Trello and Hipchat.
  • 2 week free trial.
  • Free Plan includes up to 2 apps and reviews from 2 countries.
  • Paid Plans range from $9 per month (5 apps, 3 countries) to $39 per month (30 apps, 10 countries).
  • Verdict:  Relatively cheap, integrates with multiple App Stores, so this is a pretty good option for developers with multiple apps across multiple stores. A good option!

AppStore Review Notification for Slack by Bell Apps

  • 100% Free.
  • Reviews from iOS App Store ONLY.
  • Minimalist functions and UI.
  • Verdict:  Probably better to go with the friendlier UI of Launchkit since they are both Free and iOS only.App Reviews to Slack by Bell Apps

    ReviewBot

  • Slack integration.
  • Covers iOS App Store and Google Play.
  • Free plan includes only 1 app.
  • Top tier plan ($5.99 per month) includes only 4 apps.
  • Verdict:  cheap, covers the 2 major stores.  If you have a big app portfolio, this option is probably less than adequate.

AppFigures

  • App Store Review feature available only for paid users.
  • Costs $4.99 per month plus $1.99 per app (with first 2 free).
  • Free 14 day trial available.
  • Covers a wide range of stores:  iOS App Store, Google Play, Windows Store, Amazon AppStore, Steam, Mac App Store, Apple TV.
  • Other features include Sales & Downloads tracking, Rank Tracking, Ad Monetization (although most of these features are provided by App Annie for free, so not clear what value they are providing here).
  • Verdict:  can get expensive if you have a lot of apps, but good if you only have a few apps and need cross platform support.

ReviewCatz

  • App Store Review monitor for Google Play only.
  • Currently in Beta.
  • I signed up but after 5 minutes still didn’t have dashboard access.
  • Verdict: need to improve their onboarding.  If they offer this service free, could add this Google Play only service to a free iOS only service such as Launchkit and then cover the 2 major stores.

Build your own (IFTTT / Zapier)

  • Services like IFTTT or Zapier let you create connections between existing web apps.
  • Example: IF new review posted in RSS feed of app THEN post this to Slack.
  • There are some “recipes” and “zaps” that already exist that you can potentially use.
  • I’m not so familiar with these services myself but I know of them, you might want to give it a go. I think IFTTT is free at least as far as I could see from a quick internet search.

Create your own App Review Monitor Tool

  • In the end, these review monitors are super simple web apps to create.
  • All the is needed is to track an RSS feed and post to a slack channel.
  • You can probably find a developer on Upwork to create this type of App for about $200 US, which will pay back the cost of most of these services within a few months.
  • Potentially you could even sell the product at a more reasonable price than the competitors and make some money off it (free business idea for you!).
  • The various tools above try and differentiate themselves by adding on a bunch of different features (e.g. Keyword Analysis / ASO tools), but these are not needed for the core feature of posting new app reviews to slack.

Summary

Since we have a large and growing portfolio of apps, the service that makes most sense for us at the moment is AppFollow.io.

However, creating our own tool will be high up on the list, since the price we’ll pay ($39 per month) means that the cost of development will pay itself back in a matter of months.

If you run an App Review Monitor tool I would recommend making it a totally free service and then upsell your other tools and features, since to develop a review monitor is such a simple task.

Know of any other or new app review monitoring tools that can post reviews to Slack?  Add them in the comments below.

 

How to Succeed

Having come back recently from Carter’s Bluecloud Event in Hawaii and hearing some of the amazing stories of the presenters there, its helped crystallise for me the keys to success, whichever field you decide to master.

#1 Have a strong “why”

You need to have a strong reason for doing something that takes you outside of the norms of society and outside of your comfort zone.

My why I guess was the challenge of creating something from nothing, for achieving financial independence.  I’m very competitive so competition is a strong driving “why” for me.

And of course freedom to do whatever the hell I want and pursue any business ideas or interests that take my fancy, without needing to consider financial matters.

I knew that I would have to succeed or die trying – there was no other option.

#2 Be persistent as hell

The mantra that was running in my mind was what I mentioned above – I would succeed or die trying.  Success did NOT seem like a certainty to me but I knew that I would do everything in my power to succeed.

David Reichelt created 40 games that made no money before he created a hit, Color Switch.  He knew he would never quit and he had this dream of travelling around and being able to run his business from his laptop, having complete freedom so that he could pursue all his creative interests.

OMGPop created created 35 games before they had a hit with Draw Something.

Rovio had 51 failed games before Angry Birds.

You WILL fail. That is USUALLY a pretty certain thing.  So you need to be persistent and have enough grit to push through the failures so that eventually you will succeed.

#3 Have an attitude of learning

Adopting an attitude of learning I think is SUPER important to succeeding.

When I started out creating my first app with my business partner, we decided to invest a small amount of money (up to $500) to create an app.

We didn’t care if the app would fail or succeed financially (of course we hoped it would!), the main overt goal was simply to learn the whole process – how do we hire a developer? artist? how do we upload to the App Store? how do we get download?

When I speak to people who are interested to start a business these days, this will be really one of my top tips.  Whichever field you go into invest in your learning initially and DON’T look to making money as the main outcome.

The next step is to make sure that you do get the most out of your experiences, debrief and make course corrections so that on the next iteration hopefully you will see improvement in the right direct.