ROI (Return on Investment) has never had such a major importance, especially in these economic crisis days. In many ways a well delivered ROI analysis is the most effective part of the whole pitching art, whether you are pitching for a web development, desktop application or the increasing popular mobile iPhone / iPod Touch projects.

Since I am very involved in mobile solutions, in this case iPhone / iPod Touch Applications, we are always trying to create something that will make it, an offer that cannot be refused. We all know, that ROI is a very important aspect on any kind of project, although here I would like to point out, that, these days we need to be even more flexible and scalable, so that the client has a clear way of looking at the whole solution with complete confidence about its success.

With an iPhone App’s, it is slightly easier because of the App Store and the revenue splitting aspect. Though to me, it is not the only part of the ROI analysis. I look at a project as a whole solution; take a picture of everything, find out who is the target audience of a project result, whether it’s a web, app, mobile service or social app. Then from there, we can look at other aspects of the project that the client maybe not aware of.

Basically it is all about investigating the whole brand, the whole company etc. That enables you to look at the business more carefully without losing sight of the most important bits and pieces. Clients these days expect you, to, not only deliver, but also have a real understanding of the current market. That changes our perspective and enables us to deliver a scalable solution that suits not only the target audience and the client needs, but also the market situation.
That brings us to something called, proper positioning. If you are able to position yourselves in a way where you get a better understanding of the client needs, expectations, business etc. It will not only be a big benefit for any large organisation but also for the small agencies and individual, independent developers, designers and the creative people directly involved in meetings with the clients.

I will try now, to provide a couple of examples, which in my view were crucial in a successful pitch.

First example is an iPhone Application for a recognisable brand, that uses a booking system. Right now it exists as an online desktop version with a number of very useful facilities. They have a good traffic on the web site and are willing to have a reflection of their services on the iPhone and other smart phones. Apart from a very clear revenue stream, as App Store Paid App’s, we looked, at their current business module and managed to adapt few more scenarios.
So what we have done is simply reflect the exact same revenue model along with splitting the final project into even more revenue models, including Ad’s etc. By doing that we’ve managed to impress the client, give them a better understanding of what we can do, which finally makes everyone happy as that places you much closer to winning the pitch.

Another example would be again an iPhone Application this time for a very famous UK Chef.
They have all kind of facilities on their current web site with multiple revenue streams. We gave them an ROI depending on the iTunes App Store but also with an integration with their API on the web, we could then forecast revenue figures coming from users that would purchase items from the client’s online store and if the application was released for free then we could adapt the Ad’s revenue model. This was only possible, by optimising the whole concept, by looking at the client’s real needs and by investigating very deeply the business itself and its competition.

At the end of the day, all businesses work in the same way. And expect an ROI for every outlay. These days, when money really matters, we all should analyse the clients business model, which not only increase the chances of winning the job but will also give a positive impression to the client.

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