CaddieOpen in CaddieDownload for Mac

7 Tools to Help You Get Featured by Apple

Shared by Caddie Library · Updated
App Masters12:50Open on YouTube
Chapters show their main points

The bottom line

Getting featured by Apple takes a mix of building on Apple's own priorities, tracked and personal outreach, and long persistence. It stays very hard, with about 15 to 20 percent success even for a team that has had ten clients featured.

Key takeaways

  • Apple features few apps, even when a pro team pitches them. 1:00
    • The agency launches two or three apps a month and gets about 15 to 20 percent featured. 1:06
    • Ten clients have been featured so far, and the speaker says no tool guarantees a feature. 0:46
  • Apple favors apps that use its newest technology. 3:06
    • Watch the announcements around WWDC and build the new features into your app. 3:21
    • Last year many iMessage apps were featured after Apple pushed iMessage. 3:29
  • Meeting Apple's App Store managers in person can lead to a feature. 3:46
    • At WWDC you get about 15 to 20 minutes with managers at workshop tables, and the trip is expensive. 4:09
    • A client game shown there got suggestions and was later featured. 4:14
  • Tracked and personalized outreach gets your pitch seen. 4:54
    • Email tracking showed an open after a new subject line, and Apple asked for artwork days later. 5:23
    • Searching LinkedIn for the right category manager, or one in your own country, and opening with a line about their Instagram shows you did your homework. 6:32
  • Persistence and a well-connected game publisher raise your odds. 8:46
    • The makers of Crossy Road built around 60 games before one hit big. 8:41
    • Two games the agency could not get featured were featured after moving to publishers with Apple ties. 10:49

You want to make that quick little intro, because it makes the person feel warm, like this guy actually did a little bit of research on me.

Steve Young, App Masters

Chapter summaries

0:00 A hard feature and the client who won one

A strong icon and a referral client helped win the latest feature, and no tool makes it certain.

  • A better icon helped the current featured client 1:52
    • The client came through a referral.
    • Their graphics were great, but the old icon did not show them off.
    • The new icon was pulled from a graphic on the app's main screen.
    • Tests, ASO help and the icon change came before the feature.

2:37 Apple's own resources and WWDC

Apple features apps that make it look good, so its developer resources and staff are the first place to look.

  • Apple's developer resources show what it wants to promote 2:45
    • Apple wants to look good and be useful to customers.
    • Steve guesses customers come first for Apple, then Apple itself.
    • New iOS features announced at WWDC signal where Apple is pushing next.
  • Book every App Store session you can at WWDC 3:46
    • Meet anyone from the App Store team, because you never know what can happen.
    • Steve calls this a hack and lined up every workshop with App Store staff.
    • He simply wanted to talk with them.

4:30 Email tracking and LinkedIn

Tracking tells you whether Apple saw your pitch, and LinkedIn can find who to send it to.

  • Email tracking lets you test subject lines 4:36
    • Steve pays for Banana Tag and says he has no tie to the company.
    • Without tracking, you cannot know whether to resend with a new subject line.
    • One subject line was sent to the App Store promotion address at Apple. It was opened, and Apple followed up.
  • LinkedIn outreach works but is aggressive and dated 5:47
    • Steve no longer recommends it, since he shared it in 2016.
    • A reader messaged him that it got two of their apps featured.
    • Search "app store manager" and filter by companies with Apple.
    • You can send a friend request or get their email.

6:25 Find the right manager and build rapport

A short, researched opening line makes a cold pitch to an Apple manager feel personal.

  • Instagram research gives you a warm first line 7:03
    • Apple has different people for different categories, such as one for games.
    • Scroll the target's older posts and reference one in the subject line.
    • Steve can't tell whether a cold email was written for him or blasted to many people.
    • His example: a fan of his Survivor application could open with I hope your application gets accepted and then go straight into the pitch.
    • The same homework has earned him many replies from reporters.

8:40 Persistence

Game developers who keep making games and know their own limits are the ones who eventually break through.

  • Keep building, because the next game may be the hit 8:52
    • A client asked whether to self-publish or find a publisher. Steve said to self-publish, since it won't be his last game.
    • The creators of Color Switch and Crossy Road kept creating because they loved it.
    • David Hall shared the Crossy Road story at the agency's Vegas event.
    • Steve says he loves games but can't make a good one, so he stays self-aware about his talent.

10:03 Game publishers

A publisher with a good Apple relationship can get a game noticed when a solo launch cannot.

  • Publishers whose own apps get featured carry weight with Apple 11:00
    • At submission and launch, Apple simply did not pay attention to some clients' games.
    • Steve has since added strategies that helped a client get featured, but he did not have them for those two games.
    • He says he is not the holy grail of Apple features.
    • His blog post lists the top game publishers with contact details, linked in the show notes.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, an app marketing agency. Seven tools and habits for pitching Apple to get an app featured in the App Store, from email tracking to LinkedIn research to game publishers. The agency has had 10 clients featured, with roughly 15 to 20 percent of the apps it pitches getting a feature.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript348 lines
0:00

coming up you'll discover seven seven of our favorite tools to use when trying to get clients featured by Apple and the day we're recording this one of our clients is featured right now stay tuned what is up at mission it is sleepy young founder of masters Co the place you come and you go when you want action-packed content in the app business because we share the best strategies that you will find anywhere on the interwebs people talk about the 101 we talk about the two of ones I so we've had 10 of our clients featured by Apple this is number 10 fingers crossed for in the works for number 11 and we're extremely proud of this fact we launched about two or three apps a month sometimes five and get credit kind of crazy but about two or three apps a month and we're approaching Apple about this at that particular rate so you can get it understanding of how many apps actually get featured by Apple

1:08

I would say our percentages are probably around 15 to 20 percent and if it's a really good one and I feel in my gut that it has a good chance we would tend to get it featured by Apple but again it's very very hard okay I don't want you thinking that hey I'm going to use these tools and then we're going to get featured it's very very hard and for those who comment whenever I post about how many apps we got featured stop right stop asking me how many app launches look it's hard right so we just are happy that one makes it through now it's ten that made it through so very happy about that fact but again it's hard so I appreciate the comments but look man let me just celebrate the wind you don't like me you don't want to hear about it just unfollow all right cool so let's get started for some of the tools here's the client that's being featured right now actually and we're very proud of this because the client and this is

1:59

what you get when you work with us came to us through a referral and I was super excited to work with them and when I looked at the icon I said hey I think we need to change this icon because your graphics are amazing and unfortunately the iconic currently have doesn't do it justice so we ran a couple of tests I gave some suggestions on what I thought the icon should be this icon that you see is actually pulled from a graphic within the app on the main screen so I'm really proud of that fact and the fact that we were able to modify some things and help them with ASO and obviously with an apple feature as well so super pumped again we got another one hopeful the works - all right let's get into some of the tools the first one that I want to highlight is actually from Apple itself it's a developer resources now Apple is intent is to always make Apple look good and be used useful to the customers so the really key about Apple

2:56

they really care about the customers are the two people probably in the reverse order customers first and then Apple but who knows again what you want to highlight here why I'm putting this out is Apple loves featuring apps that are using its latest and greatest technology so really keep up to date with what's going on in the App Store and try to incorporate some of the technology that they're coming out a new technology that they're coming out with in your app and the time of this recording is around WWDC timeframe so really pay attention to the new features iOS features that they're announcing because that means I'm making a big push for it last year was iMessage and you can see there's a lot of iMessage apps being featured in the App Store and this year who knows what it's going to be along those lines number two is go to WWE it's very expensive all right know that but it was a great experience I met with

3:46

all the different app store managers and the hack that I would provide for you is if you're going just line up all the workshops with apps or managers or anybody from the app store team because you never know what can happen right so I just lined up a whole bunch anybody that had a workshop that worked in the App Store I just wanted to meet with them and just talk I think you get about 15 20 minutes with the app store managers and they're just bunch of tables so it's a really cool experience I actually presented a client app last year and I say hey what do you guys think and they gave me some suggestions that really liked the game and we ended up getting that app featured by Apple likely last year it's a really cool really great experience - the other tool let's get into some of them more the tools that we like to use that's non apple specific is the first one is banana tag I've been raving about this

4:40

tool I'm a paid user just FYI I'm not associated with them but when you're pitching Apple and you're you know I'm sure you've heard some of the strategies that we say we shared but when you're pitching Apple via email you want to make sure you track the emails the one thing is in here's important reason is you want to make sure that they're actually opening it right if you have no idea if they're opening and not to how you're going to know whether you should follow up with a different subject line or not and one of the clients that we're hoping to get featured right now he sent an email and said hey Steve I you know I don't know I didn't get to track it and I really like the guy we hit it off really well so I ended up sending the email on his behalf - with a different subject line tracking it and I saw an open and guess what happened a couple of days later Apple reached out to him and said hey we're

5:28

thinking about featuring your app give us some artwork so that's the key right you want to make sure that they are actually seeing the app and you can try different subject lines and one subject line I use in a particularly light we sent that through app store promotion Apple comm and we got it open an apple followed up - okay the other next tool is LinkedIn now if you want to get aggressive you can do this I actually don't recommend doing this anymore because I feel like that's 2016 does this judge I shared in 2016 I believe but if you still want to get aggressive with it somebody messaged me on Facebook today and said hey that strategy you shared about finding someone on LinkedIn actually works I've had two of my apps featured by Apple so here's the strategy I'm gonna share okay you go into LinkedIn look up app store manager just search for it and then you can filter by companies with Apple and

6:21

you can either friend them if you want to get aggressive or get their email address and email them so you can see there's a bunch of people that handle App Store promotion at Apple calm okay I'm sorry that handled different categories for Apple all right you got mark here sorry mark we handle games just try to find the right person for your particular category and reach out to them and if your international not us then reach out to somebody in your own country I actually prefer to do that because I'm sure the US is bombarded with a ton of email or if you like the other countries are probably not as Mum barded with the emails now on top of this strategy the neck strategy next to like to use is Instagram so you found somebody that you want to pitch to on Apple or even cold with anywhere else when my favorite strategies to really build rapport is use Instagram so look through this is my Instagram account I look through the

7:20

person you're trying to target their Instagram account and what I like to do is go through some of the older ones to show to look through and see what I can do and one things I've done in the past is actually pitched a couple of different people just lit with an email subject line that is referencing an Instagram post so it really builds a rapport and it shows that you've done a little bit of research and you're not just blasting I get a ton of cold emails like frankly if even it was specifically to me I can't tell if it was specifically to me or not so really do a little bit of homework the thing that I would do here so like maybe here know what's a survivor thing and then you know I put in a application submitted I submitted an application to survivor because I want to get on Survivor so if you cold email me you could be like hey Steve you know I'm a big fan of Survivor two or hope you your application gets

8:15

accepted blah blah blah right you want to make that quick little intro so if you're pitching the app store manager you can use that as your first line and then go straight into your pitch because it makes the person feel warm like oh this guy actually did a little bit of research on me and I've been able to get a lot of responses from reporters from anybody that might trying to reach cold by just doing a little bit of research beforehand alright the last couple of tools that I will recommend aren't particularly tools but I think they're very important to mention number one is persistence it's really hard to get an app store featured and one of the things I told a past client of mine is he thought hey should I try to self publish this or should I try to look for a publisher and I said you know what this is not the last game you're going to create so why don't you just self publish it right for games this is not

9:08

the last game you're going to create cute game developers just keep at it alright you're going to figure it out and I recall my interviews with the color switch create David Matthew Hall of Crossy Road they were just talked about you know how they continually just kept creating games because that's just what they love to do and finally you know they hit it big what most people don't don't know is David you share this at our Vegas event he's been creating tons of games right and just had it found one that finally hit it and then when you look at coverage like oh this is like years and multiple games you know like 60 games developed till we finally hit on one so really be persistent about it think it's anything in business like if you're not talented to be a game developer don't be I'm guy I came to terms with it I love games but I can't create a good game so really know yourself be self-aware but

10:02

being persistent too the last thing is publishers I know I've been chin like you can probably self-published yourself but look at mobile game publishers and I'm showing you a blog post I wrote now I'ma link it up into the notes at the bottom - if you're watching this on youtube duh I'm gonna be completely transparent I had a client who I've had a couple of clients actually who will try to publish the game we try to you know get it featured by Apple we hit submit we try to launch the game Apple just was not paying attention I feel like I have a couple more strategies right now it actually worked and that I think helped this client get featured by Apple so some new strategies to have implemented that will help clients get featured by Apple and I have those in place and I wish I had them in place because they were both really good games and we didn't get featured by Apple and they both went to

10:52

different publishers who had relationships with Apple and they both ended up getting featured by Apple so I'm not the holy grail of Apple features if you have a game look reaching out to mobile game publishers and really building that relationship with them and having them publish the game will probably likely get you featured especially if they have a good relationship with Apple and their path apps have been featured by Apple so look at that I do have a few more strategies I feel like are really helping clients get noticed by Apple and subsequently featured but we didn't have it at the time so game publishers really do help with that as well so move that into the show notes as all the top game publishers and the contact information so if you want to reach out to them you can do so using this particular blog post alright that's it we're up to 700 subscribers so after our after my last plea sniffing I said if we

11:47

subscribe I want to look cool for my wife on I hit a thousand soon I think we got a bunch more like 30 or 40 so I'm going to ask you again please subscribe I want to look cool for my wife I mean a thousand subscribers on YouTube I think it's somewhat respectable I don't know it just talk about apps who knows I just been doing this for a while so I'd love to get there she she's digging the new hair but I think a thousand subscribers on YouTube really push her over and be like yeah this guy's a stud I'm glad I married him moving together for a really long time so you know anything helps Billups give you a brush for her alright guys hope that helps if you got featured by Apple using any of these strategies please let me know I know a few people have they just don't tell me and sometimes they do message me on Facebook like fabious did today anything what you just read you get two of my own future

12:35

by Apple so congrats to you if you do I just want to say and then maybe sure you know with my wife alright guys I'll see you on the next video bye