Mobile Developers: Have a Business and Marketing Plan to Make Money

App stores are frustrating, cluttered places. Even with Apple’s prescreening process of every app that passes through its iOS gates, the App Store, it is often hard to find what you may want or need. This is a problem for consumers – but an even bigger problem for developers that often rely on these apps to make a living. For every successful app that makes millions for its publisher, there are thousands of apps that will not rise above the mess.

So, you are an app developer and you have figured out your next big idea. Dollar signs and millions of downloads float through your head, like so many sugar plum fairies. If you build it, users will come… or so the thought goes. But there is really a lot more to it than that.

“People still believe that if you build an app, they will come. They see the app stores as being the answer, and feel all they need to do is publish and watch the money roll in,” said Tom Emrich, principal at Toronto-based App Promo. “There is a lot of disillusion from the big winners that get the most press; this belief often causes them to focus on the idea, UI and code, so they forget that they need a plan and a strategy to be successful.”

There are plenty of apps that have succeeded by building a great service and spreading it through grassroots and word-of-mouth methods. For example, RunKeeper has never had much of a marketing presence, yet it is one of the most successful apps over the last four years. Granted, it also had a first-mover advantage in the App Store, but the company has been able to build a lasting business and platform well after its initial rush of popularity.