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iPhone developers continue to rely on the magical “Top 25″ lists in iTunes to promote their applications and are frustrated that they can’t seem to generate revenue without it.  Of course getting onto the Apple promoted lists will generate additional sales but you cannot build a business model around that expectation. What this new breed of iPhone pioneer hasn’t yet realized is that selling software takes hard work! The early days of the iPhone gold rush are gone. We are now back in a traditional product life cycle model where significant sales and marketing efforts that equal or possibly exceed the development efforts in scope are required. As much as we the geeks want to feel we are the full solution, that’s not the path to revenue.

A recent Mobile Crunch article, Rising to the Top: 5 Ways Indie Developers Succeed on the App Store, misses the mark on how to develop sustainable revenue from iPhone apps, specifically for anything that’s not a game. Companies focusing on cranking out $0.99 apps as fast as they can and blasting them into iTunes in the hopes of an accidental success are reinforcing the price erosion many categories in the app store are facing.  The sooner these developers get frustrated and move on, the better it will be for everyone looking to create real value.

The real secret to app store success:  deliver serious value to your customer and market the application completely outside iTunes.  iTunes is a distribution channel, not a marketing channel.  That’s like a typical software company counting on Best Buy to market their software — the world doesn’t work that way.  Retail distribution is there to put the product in the customer’s hands after you’ve already made them aware of it and driven them to the store. These same rules apply if you’re rolling out a new web based system as well. You have to build connections with your potential user base using all of the tools at your disposal including everything from social media, PR, advertising, word of mouth and *gasp* even that old thing called the telephone.