Today, Smashing Magazine published a great article on marketing your iphone apps in the App Store.

But you might be a real estate agent, a spa or a blogger. You might be a lawyer or an insurance agent. A musician. You don’t make apps so why bother reading this?

The App Store is interesting because it’s a place where you need an edge to sell. What Smashing says about selling apps applies to you, Mr or Mrs Service Provider in a Saturated Market.

Blogs Are Like Kids in a Schoolyard

While they may not want to hear this, blogs are a bit like kids in a schoolyard. If you can get the cool kids to talk about you, chances are that other blogs will pick up the story and throw you on their front page. Getting on review and media websites is vital to your marketing success, because they are less transient than tweets. Reviews stay there and bring in traffic for months.
Give out promo codes to blogs without hesitation.
Have an extensive and easily accessible press package.
Don’t be afraid to ask individuals to endorse your app.
Try to crack category-specific blogs. If you’re making a wine app, contact wine blogs.

How many blogs have you contacted with promotions for their readers?

Do you have a press package? Easily downloadable?

Do you visit or read a blog regularly? Contact the owner and ask them to promote you, all they can do is say no. Crack category-specific blogs. Have a Louisville business? Start looking for Louisville blogs.

See how this taking-strategy-from-other-industries works?

Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Be extraordinary.

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Inbound Marketing means that you develop great content either with a blog, videos, whitepapers, webinars, etc. When you put this content out there, it gets indexed making you more likely to be found on searches. You talk about your information products and content in your various social media channels.

But that gets you clicks. How do you get LEADS?

One way to do to that is to keep the meaty, truly helpful content free, but ask for contact information with a simple form before you allow access to the information. Now once you have the information, you’re not going to do a hard sell. You’re going to establish a relationship. You can follow up with useful tips or promotional information via email (do not spam), follow them on social media if they provide you with that, or send out an old fashioned mailing campaign. By fostering relationships, you build your brand. You build your opportunities.

You keep putting great information out there and people keep looking to you for it, eventually they – will – refer you or purchase directly.

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What do people want? or need? How do you say something relevant? In order to make content that makes people want to engage with you, you need to meet their needs.

So you have to start by listening.

Say your industry is skin care, or maybe real estate. Look in your email inbox for questions you have been asked, you might have answers there already. Do not assume you know what people need. Make sure you look for what people are actually asking or looking for.

No idea where to start?
Go to http://search.twitter.com/

Click “Advanced Search”

If you’re a real estate agent you might put in the words “moving” with your city’s name under any of these words and then you might make sure the language is English if you are in the USA. Under places you can put in your city, and last of all, you might want to only see questions people are asking. So check that box marked question.

Hit search. Then you can see what people really want to know, what people are asking. Sometimes you can see conversations.

Maybe your industry doesn’t have great Twitter search results? Go to Google and search on your industry with the word “forum.” Say your industry is “skin care” then you’ll search for “skin care forum” and come up with “http://www.skincaretalk.com/” Browse there and see the questions people are asking. (Better yet, join the community and start interacting. ) Once you have a list of topics, you’re ready to go.

You can do this for any topic, any industry. When you see something many people are discussing or asking about? Time to answer their question.

Open a text editor. Note pad, Word. Write the question at the top. Answer it. Then go put it on your blog. Rinse. Repeat.

Twitter searches and other community searches are also good ways to find people with similar interests and needs that you can fill, just be sure to be genuine if you reach out to someone. Meet a real need, don’t spam folks or use people. Be a person of excellence and integrity, offer people answers they truly need, and you will see results.

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