

What killed my iPhone app sales? - jljacques

Hello HN,<p>I am an iPhone developer with two apps in the App Store and the question I had is what did I do wrong? My apps Wedding Songs Planner - First Dance and Weddings Songs Planner - Professional are a free and paid version of the same application. This app will help brides and grooms create the perfect playlist for the songs during their wedding.<p>Originally, I had only put out the paid version of the app. After one marketing campaign and few wedding blogs posting about the app I had sales at about 5-10 apps per day. Which is not great by any means, but it was at least fairly consistent. In an attempt to get more downloads and sales, I decided to put out a BIG update to improve the user interface and the overall functionality of the app. Along with this update, I put out a free version of the app with reduced functionality in the hopes of converting some users to buy the paid version.<p>After some issues with Apple accepting the updates, the app was finally updated and released. The problem was that the sales DROPPED
to levels that I hadn't seen since before any blogs had picked it up and some days I was seeing 0 sales. The main points that I could see that might have caused this were:<p>- A name change: Wedding Songs Planner to Wedding Songs - Professional<p>- An icon change: What I had thought was a much improved looking icon but may have blended into App Store more.<p>- Overall look: The overall look was much improved but maybe the audience did not agree.<p>Once the free version was approved I released it in the App Store, sales did not go up. I tried reducing the price to $0.99, sales did not go up. I tried changing the border to red, sales did not go up. I changed the name back to Wedding Songs Planner - Professional which may have helped.<p>The price is back up since the sale did not help increase downloads. I'm hoping the name change was main problem but now that my app has dropped in the App Store it will be hard to bring it back up to where it can be noticed.<p>This is a cautionary story, sometimes when you think something is an improvement, the market doesn't agree. Test things before putting them out!<p>If you have time, please check out the free version of my app 
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wedding-songs-planner-first/id497832316?ls=1&#38;mt=8 and if you have comments good or bad leave them for me!<p>If you want to contact me directly please send me an email at appstractart@gmail.com<p>Thanks,<p>Jeremy Jacques
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esteth
I think Wedding Songs Planner[ - Professional] is a much better name than
Wedding Songs - Professional. It much better says what the app does, as the
second name sounds like it's just a list of wedding songs.

It's hard to comment on the icon and look, since we haven't got access to the
old app listing.

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jljacques
heres a link of what the previous version looked like

[http://ruffledmedia.ruffled.netdna-cdn.com/vintage-
wedding-b...](http://ruffledmedia.ruffled.netdna-cdn.com/vintage-wedding-
blog/iphone-wedding-apps.jpg?b03aa7)

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coryl
When you first release, you get a boost of exposure by being on the new
releases list. Now that your off, you need to find a way of either being
visible on the app store or getting attention outside of it. Both are very
hard, million dollar questions.

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jljacques
good point but we had already been in the App Store for 4 months, sales were
actually increasing right before the update. The update came and the sales
bottomed out.

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jljacques
good point, I'll add a link to the old icon and screenshots

