I’ve been asked a little about my thoughts on marketing in the App Store lately. Back in the early days I felt qualified to say a lot, and did, but not so much anymore. However, I am very aware of just how difficult it is to get any kind of traction these days.
Word of mouth is king on the app store, but how do you get enough people using your app to start with so your good app can turn into a recommendation dirty snowball?
There is one important thing I feel developers can do but often fail at. So I’ll share this little tidbit of opinion, you can take it for what it’s worth.
Quite simply, it is: Do all your marketing at once, the very best you can.
That might seem obvious, or might not, I’m not really sure. But I often see developers launch an app with not a lot of fanfare, then when it doesn’t do very well, they try every different marketing method under the sun, one by one.
This is bad.
People are far more likely to notice a launch with an explosion of press than one with a puff here and there, and the press itself is more likely to notice the explosion too.
Basically it’s like a game of Crash Lander where instead of landing, you have to get off the moon. Earth is a far better place anyway. But on your earlier journey to the moon, Bubbles kept accidentally strapping the wrong tanks of gas to the side of the rocket, so now you have a dozen tanks of rocket fuel lying around, but you don’t know how full they are.
Do you:
A) Try them all one after the other, to see which one runs long enough to escape the moon’s gravitational field, or
B) Strap em all on and light em at once.
It’s simple physics. Do everything you can to get your app noticed on day one. If your launch fails, you’re going to have a hard time finding an alternate escape plan.
Good stuff dude, and I definitely agree!
Thanks for the post,
Ryan
Comment by Ryan Wade — November 28, 2009 @ 12:08 am
Good advice, the only problem is that for most developers without a marketing budgets it’s near impossible to create any sort of a huge marketing explosion out the gate. Basically what you’re suggesting is to somehow get all the review sites to review your game at once along with all sorts of other marketing techniques (twitter, facebook, running naked across the Apple campus). I’ve personally had an impossible time getting review sites to even give a rats ass about our game. The only responses I get (if any, after about 60+ review requests) :
- Hey your game is somewhere in our massive review queue, for $$ we’ll expedite your review.
- Hey we don’t have time to review your game but would you like to advertise on our site, we can send you our marketing package (pocketgamer.co.uk)
Your advice to somewhat contradictory. Word of mouth doesn’t happen with some sort of huge marketing effort out the gate. Word of mouth happens for a period of time (could be a short period of time).
Here is what it really takes to get your game into the top 100, either one of these will work or a combination of both:
- Requisite:
- Make an awesome game. Without an amazing game you’ll need to multiply any option you pick by 10x (approx :) ) the amount of money/effort.
- Extreme amount of luck (get noticed by Apple, get noticed by someone important in the media)
- Lots of marketing money (pay for a bunch of reviews, get a PR firm to help)
- Know the right people
Comment by James — December 19, 2009 @ 7:20 pm
[...] Launching on the App Store: It’s simple physics – David Frampton, great advice, short and sweet: “Do it all at once.” [...]
Pingback by We Heart Games » Blog Archive » Marketing Resources for Indie iPhone Developers — December 20, 2009 @ 2:49 am
Thanks David, I’m taking your good advice – there are always ways to push your app, and the big push must work at launch or your going to be fighting an uphill battle.
James, I know that will be paying for ads on iphone review sites, but you could always start an iphone games review site of your own. It’s cheap and really easy if you use wordpress. Just a thought ;)
Comment by Chase iPhone Games — February 17, 2010 @ 12:55 am
Great advice, love it! Not just iPhone apps but any consumer good you want hyped.
Most blockbuster movies are blockbusters on the day of launch. A few achieve cult status on DVD, but it’s rare — and usually a mistake.
Comment by Facebook Indie Games — March 10, 2010 @ 7:55 pm