If you’ve made the decision to go into the business of app reskinning, you’ll likely find it to be a fun, scalable and even profitable venture, if you go about approaching it in the right way.
But, after deciding to embark upon your newfound journey of app reskinning, people may have attempted to stop you dead in your tracks – explaining that app reskinning has “died,” or that the market for reskinning apps has become saturated.
In reality, we can assure you that this is not actually the case. Saturation can actually be a great thing, once you’ve made a slight adjustment to your outlook on the app market (or maybe you even already have)!
The truth is that most aspects of the app market will be saturated in 2015 and beyond. It’s a basic reality that mobile entrepreneurs will have to face. This simply means that there are plenty of appreneurs trying to meet the needs of the hundreds of millions of app consumers worldwide. But, oddly enough, your heavy competition may even indirectly help you with your app business, by forcing you to launch reskinned apps that are more creative, laser-targeted, and generally extremely valuable, in comparison to the apps which may be bloating your niche.
There’s no need to worry about market saturation. App reskinning is alive and well, and will probably continue to flourish for years to come.
So now that we’ve reinforced the idea that you’re going to face significant competition in any niche app market – you won’t even need to worry about competitors for the time being. You’ll just need to focus on the following basic steps to build your OWN portfolio of reskinned apps which could create an excellent source of passive income for yourself for years.
We’re going to quickly provide you with an Introduction to App Reskinning – How to Do It and How to Profit from It to get you started right away.
App reskinning is the efficient means of using an app’s source code (the foundation) to create “new” apps from that same code. By adding new graphics, themes and sometimes sounds to old source codes, you’re effectively “reskinning” old apps and creating new ones. You get to create a brand new app with a new name, by using old code – it can be a great deal.
You can think of app reskinning as buying a house, and then painting over it with a new color. It’s still largely the same house, but with a brand new appeal (and possibly even a higher value).
But, the most important aspect of app reskinning in the modern age is that you’re typically going to be targeting new niche markets with reskinned apps. This is because you don’t want to serve the same submarket with the same exact apps that are simply “dressed up” over and over again. That would likely make your valuable consumers a little bit upset.
So a good starting-strategy would be to reach completely different niche markets with your reskinned apps – as opposed to the targeting the exact market which your source code originally covered. This way, you’re actually providing consumers with “new” apps that they probably wouldn’t recognize. It’s a win-win for both you and your potential users.
In order to actually begin the process of app reskinning, you’ll need to find a good source code/legitimate license from one of the many genuine source code resellers online. A good source code marketplace for you to start with is Chupamobile.
From there, you can find almost any source code that you can think of. From iOS photo editing apps, to social networking or gaming apps and beyond – you can choose from almost any code imaginable.
Children’s educational apps are a great style of app to be reskinned, because the sounds and graphics of these apps can be switched out to teach children a new skill – effectively creating a new niche for your app. For example, instead of teaching children the alphabet (by using the original source code), you could reskin the app into a new children’s educational tool that teaches kids the different planets of the universe, or maybe constellations in the galaxy. The possibilities are truly endless.
Another popular first-time style of app to reskin is the “quiz” app, or the “personality test.” If you have a basic understanding of human psychology, or even if you’ve interacted with enough people before in your lifetime (of course you have) then you should easily be able to create a “quiz” app.
But, you’ll also need to get quite creative to come up with some of the greatest content that you can possibly create for your reskinned quiz app. Make sure to create clear questions and answers for your quiz app, that makes people want to continue using it. This usually involves creating hundreds or even thousands of question-answer combinations, which can definitely be a time-consuming task.
However, for your first app reskin, we usually recommend that you simply do your best to test the waters of app reskinning by using the fundamentals in your reskin (provide real value to a new niche target audience, use quality graphics and sounds). While we’d always encourage you to publish an excellent first reskinned app, you’ll also want to ensure that you’ll be able to at least attract some initial installations, otherwise you’ll only waste your time. And achieving any number of app installs would be considered a big win for your first reskinned app. Remember that this is a scalable process that can be repeated time and time again, to create a full portfolio of reskinned apps.
Once you’ve chosen and purchased a good source code with strong potential, you’ll probably want to get an Apple Developer’s account and a Google Play account as well, so that you can publish your reskinned apps (if you don’t have either of them already). You’ll also probably want to register with a mobile ad network such as RevMob or Chartboost which typically integrates into reskinned apps quite easily. This way, you can simply insert your ad ID into reskinned apps if you’d like for your apps to generate revenue through advertising, rather than using in-app upgrades or virtual currencies for monetization.
So now that you have your source code, Dev accounts, and you’re registered with ad networks – you’re almost home free.
Except that you still need to actually take care of the “reskinning” aspect of your app.
Outsourcing your actual reskinning work to a developer and/or graphic designer will probably work best for the novice reskinner. Of course, you could do this yourself, but you’d have to be a little bit savvy with Xcode and Photoshop in order to exchange an app’s graphics, add new sound bits, create a great app icon, and possibly edit small features of your source code.
However, we do recommend that you eventually learn at least the basics of Xcode and Photoshop as this will definitely help you on your journey towards making small app edits by yourself (for inserting ad ID’s or knowing where the important menu features are).
After you’ve compiled fresh graphics:
- created a new app name
- made small changes to your source code (if necessary)
- designed an app icon
- written your new app’s description
- added new sound (again, if necessary)
- and spiced up your app with new text/content – then you’re just about ready to publish your first app reskin!
So upload everything to iTunes Connect or Google Play. Make sure that you choose good keywords for your app by “spying” on competitors with Searchman (saturation is good, remember?) and through using basic App Store Optimization (ASO) strategies.
After you upload everything, you’ll just have to wait to hear back from iTunes to see if your app was accepted or reject. While everything should go smoothly in theory – if your app is rejected, it’s typically not a big deal. You’ll usually just have to make a few quick fixes and resubmit the next day.
Hopefully, this has given you enough of an overview to help you decide whether you want to delve deeper into the world app reskinning. We believe that app reskinning will continue to play a large part in the future of the mobile marketplace – so why wouldn’t you want to get in on the action? You’ll have a very fair shot at learning, having fun and even profiting while competing in a cutting-edge marketplace that will only continue to grow. Thousands of apps are being downloaded by consumers every single minute. While your first reskinned app may not be a huge hit with the masses, there is great potential for those with persistence.
If you continue to reskin, learn, adapt and grow – you’re bound to come across App Store success in the very near future.
