If your app has been in the App Store for a while and you want to boost your sales, it is easy to freshen up your image.

Customers love new apps, but it is hard to keep updating your app to add new features. It is also tough for your older app to compete with shiny new products in the App Store.

Plus, a makeover is the perfect opportunity to use everything you have learned from your users and this blog. Take the feedback about your app from App Store comments and emails about what your customers love about your app and highlight the strongest parts of your app in this makeover.

The result will be a fresh new face on your existing app – one that will catch the eye of more App Store shoppers and convince more of them to buy your app.

Of course, Apple will need to review and approve the changes you make. Here is how to freshen up your little corner of the App Store:

Icon

You may not want to overhaul your icon if people recognize it, but you can give your iPhone app’s icon a face lift to help it stand out. Make the colors bolder or brighter. If you have an image in your icon, can you make it larger? Can you remove text that is hard to read and focus on a graphical icon?

Price

If your app has been in the App Store for a while, maybe it is time to spark some more interest in it by having a limited-time sale. Lower the price for a short time (announce the sale in your description to let people know) and build some buzz around your app. More people will want to try it and grab the savings before the sale ends.

Description

Are you doing all you can in your App Store description to win over shoppers? To spruce up your text, add a bulleted list of the top benefits of your app. Keep each bullet short and to the point.

Rewrite the first sentence of your description. Because it is visible to shoppers (while the rest of the description is hidden unless they click “More”), it is the most important. Make your opening sentence grab the reader by saying something about your app that is unique, surprising, or intriguing. Encourage your customer to want to read more.

Keep your app looking like new – and selling like when you first launched it in the App Store – with these tips for a quick and effective marketing makeover.

How you describe your app in the App Store can make or break the sale. You don’t have much room to tell your customers what makes your app worth buying right now. Find out what you can learn by looking at the descriptions of top-selling apps and how you can make write your app description easier.

You don’t have to be a copywriter to come up with a compelling description that drives sales. You just have to know the 4 parts of a successful description in the App Store. Use these as building blocks to write your own. Breaking it down and writing each part individually will make the process easier and quicker because you won’t be overwhelmed.

Also, remember that you will not write the perfect description the first time. Put your ideas down on paper (or, more likely, a computer) first and then you can revise and improve as many times as you like.

Here are the 4 parts that every best-selling app description must have:

Headline

The first things many people want to know about an app are “what is it?” and “what does it do?”. You can quickly answer these questions and encourage people to read more with a short but powerful headline. Just like a newspaper article, your headline should sum up the most important aspect of your app and spark someone’s interest so they will read more.

Quotes, awards, and testimonials

Help your app stand out from the crowd by showing what makes it popular and worth people’s time. The best way to do this is with quotes from users and reviews.

A few well-chosen quotes show potential customers that your app is fantastic – not just because you say so, but because other users just like them have tried it and love it. Make sure your testimonial is short and descriptive. Just saying “it’s the best app ever!” does not carry much weight.

Also, make sure to include any awards your app has received. If it has been shown on a popular app website but not reviewed (so you do not have a quote), you could write “Featured on (site name).”

Benefits

When Apple says “There’s an app for that”, your job is say what is the “that”. Is it getting organized? Saving time? Meeting new people? Make it absolutely clear how your app will help your customer by listing the most powerful benefits.

This will likely be the longest part of your description in the App Store. But successful app developers know that it should not be long-winded. Spell out the benefits in a bulleted list rather than long paragraphs so that customers can quickly scan your description to get the information they need. Few people (especially on the smaller screen of an iPhone) will read your entire write-up from start to finish so make the format of what you write easy to scan.

Call to action

End your description by asking your customers to take the next step and download or buy your app. Even though you may think this is obvious, a call to action such as “Purchase this app today” can help you increase sales because it makes it clear what you would like your customer to do. It also asks them to take an action now – if they wait thinking they will buy your app later, they will likely forget about it.

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