Developer house Checkmate Mobile--run by brothers Robert and Dean Rositano--recently revealed some of the company's strategies for getting consumers to discover and download its apps.
The company has three separate divisions devoted to app development. The CMI Mobile Incubator works with clients to take apps from concept to reality and acts as an equity partner to develop an app. The AppBuilder 360 uses CheckMate Mobile's existing developer talent to make and manage apps for outside firms. And the Drop Social division manages the social media aspect of the incubator.
According to Robert Rositano, CEO of CheckMate, the company makes both iOS and Android apps, and it studies both the Apple App Store and Google Play storefronts to figure out how to keep its apps in front of consumers and high in the app store ranking lists. For example, Rositano said that the company often switches its apps from paid to free and back to paid to keep them high in the new app ranking list. "When you switch an app from free to paid at intervals that brings in spikes in downloads and builds reviews and rank," Rositano said.
Another trick is to release an update to an app every 30 days. Rositano said that after 30 days, an app is no longer considered a "New App," and will be removed from the New App list in Apple's App Store. But if the app receives an update, it goes into circulation in the App Store as a "New App" again.
Rositano advises app developers to have a cohesive marketing plan and implement different tests to see what strategy works best. "Unless you are constantly changing and watching the numbers, it's not going to work," he said. "And you won't find the formula that works for your app."