So I’m nearing the home-stretch with the development of Grades, slowly but surely inching toward the finish line. I pushed my internal release date from late 2009 to January to early February and now, well, mid-March is the plan—soon after Spring Break ends for most major universities. Grades would have been a good app if I had released it a month ago but it wouldn’t have been too remarkable and there are still a few details I am working on to add that extra bit of awesomeness.

For the sake of mutual learning, I’ll be very transparent about my launch plan. Here goes:

Background

This is important. Taking the steps that follow would not be nearly as profitable were it not for my previous marketing activity, here’s a summary:

• Set up Tapity.com with a custom template and began posting observations and insights regarding iPhone development, design, and marketing.
• Built my Twitter brand by posting quality links and thoughts relating to iPhone apps.
• Used Twitter and Tapity.com to connect with thought leaders in the community.

I did other stuff too, like maintaining a Facebook page, designing a nice promo website with a mailing list, making a video for the App Star awards, gained a nice community of beta testers etc. etc. but I think the value of those efforts pale in comparison to the value I have gained from my social media efforts. Its not mainly the number of people who follow me or subscribe to my blog but the quality of people I’ve been able to talk to and connect with—people who I’ve always admired and who are influencers in the community. I feel gaining respect in the community may turn out to be the most profitable “marketing” I will ever do. Its hard, but I think its worth it.

So from there, lets take a look at my plan for the next few weeks:

1. Finish the previewable version

I’ve prioritized my development tasks so that I finish design/polish tasks first and the other less obvious tasks later (i.e. localization, obscure bug fixes, and feature requests that don’t have a huge impact on the bottom line). This will allow me to have a very polished pre-release copy to show influential friends, press, and review websites.

2. Blogging and guest blogging

With a full school/work schedule I haven’t had much time to blog recently. I do have some really interesting posts in the pipeline, some of which may garner some extra interest. For example, one of my upcoming posts contains some great insights from some correspondence I had with a developer you have probably heard of.

I have also been invited to guest blog for a website where my writing would be featured alongside articles by some of my favorite and most respected thinkers. If the first article goes over well it could really help build my personal brand, which always helps in getting press coverage and making connections. I also think I’ll learn a lot from the experience.

3. Press previews

Once the “preview-able” version is ready, I’ll connect with some of the fine folks who run prominent blogs and app review sites and invite them to take my app for a spin with the hope that they would either preview the app to generate pre-launch buzz or post a review of the app the day it launches (giving them at least a week to write the review before launching so that all the reviews can come out at once). I’ll prepare for this by coming up with a great video, description, and press package. I’ll also try to engage these individuals on Twitter as much as possible before sending them an email. Cold calling can be fruitful but warm doors are much better.

It is crucial, especially for the big sites, to find out the individuals who would be most likely to find your app interesting and pitch them specifically (hint: it probably won’t be the top dog). I’ll also offer some of the bigger blogs some promo codes in case they would like to hold contests.

List of sites I plan to pitch to (please, let me know if I’m missing any crucial ones):

• 148Apps
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog
• The Apple Blog
• Macworld
• iPhone Atlas
• AppVee
• Apptism
• Ars Technica
• Just Another iPhone Blog
• The Daily App Show
• App.itize.us
• Touch My Apps
• Gizmodo
• ReadWriteWeb
• TechCrunch (hey, one can dream can’t he?)

Update: some more (thanks Chris, Marco, and Fares!)

• MacStories
• Smoking Apples
• App Advice
• Mashable
• Appolicious
• AppBoy
• AppStorm
• SlapApp
• What’s on iPhone

4. Local blitz

I’ve got some great connections with local press, which I hope to take full advantage of come launch time. I also plan to get buzz going at my campus. I started a few weeks ago with an email to all students in the Computer Science and SIS departments announcing the Grades beta (which was quite fruitful). I’m going to see if I can get another email out to the broader student population and I’m also going to post posters all over campus come launch day.

5. Launch

When the app gets approved, I’ll send an email to all the people who have written reviews letting them know its publish time. I’ll also push the news to Tapity.com, Twitter, and the mailing list (right now 65 people have asked to be notified but I hope to grow that significantly before launch). The key is to get as much buzz as possible in a 1-4 day window—enough buzz to put you on the charts or get noticed by Apple, starting the snowball effect.

And thats it. I had planned to do a extravagant contest/Facebook deal but I no longer have the time to follow up on that; gotta know my limits. I’ll be sure to post progress reports as I go—would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

You only have one chance to launch your app so it better be big. For this you need to build pre-launch buzz and a following who will buy the app on day one. That is the purpose of gradesapp.com.

I tried to make it very simple so that anybody who is slightly interested in the app will not hesitate to do what I want: give me their email. The results have been quite good so far.

Now the trick will be to drive lots of traffic to this page. I have some ideas.

One quick note: I designed this for the most part but I hired Matthew Miller, a very talented web developer still in highschool, to implement it. He also ended up helping designing some of the details that I was too lazy to do myself. It has been a great experience for both of us and he is currently working on implementing the second stage of the website. I’ll get to that later.

Speaking of marketing, if you like Grades I would sure appreciate your comments on my AppStar Awards entry (its a finalist).

After hours of testing and figuring out Apple’s ad-hoc distribution system, I can finally take a sigh of relief.

It is 10:21pm and the Grades beta has officially been sent to my eager beta testers (with whom I expect to become quite acquainted before too long). Its not up to my standard of remarkable. Yet. I have a few months to change that, with the help of my friends and beta testers.

Every time I’ve shown the actual app to students, almost without exception they have said “wow, I need that!” Hopefully this beta will get the buzz ball rolling with students. It is the first (and weakest) item on my marketing strategy. I will discuss the others at length. Not now though. Good night.