These comments are very useful, thanks for posting. Well, apart from posting in games/iphone forums, you might also want to consider getting established at communities, where your target audience gathers.
heres a link to a google doc I use. It has a bunch of sites listed in order of who gets the most traffic. Also has email addresses you can contact or weblinks to the appropriate site to share your app
I think you need to focus on your targeted users and do some activites at the same time, like social media, trustworthy review sites, forums and probably SEO. Otherwise, your app won't become really visible and you might only lose time running from one "piece" of promotion to another.
You can market your app with some activities like,
1) Write & Distribute Press Release for your app.
2) Create a blog for your app.
3) Submit your app to the app directories.
4) Submit your app to the app review sites.
Nowadays in App store large amount of App has been submitted. It is so difficult to find yours visible. Social Networks are the good way instead they covers half of the media. Social media contains large number of features. You can able to share your YouTube videos, slide shares of your particular App. You can also drag these social media links in your website too.
Social media, ASO, press releases, approach bloggers, run your own blog with valuable content, exchange ads with developers from the same niche, create a video... Quite a lot of ways how to promote
Don't use PRWeb. I used them today and paid them a lot of money to get a press release out for my app, and it went nowhere. Hundreds of sites reposted the press release, but they were obscure sites that posted it in sections that have zero visibility. Also, it was drowned out by the thousands of other press releases that came out from PRWeb today. They're a scam.
I'm curious to try prmac as suggested above, but I'm not so sure now after how badly I got burned by PRWeb.
My app is called ProShot. It's really popular on WP, but the news of its release today didn't get picked up by anyone.
Very interesting thread, I think every starting developer have these problems.
As my first time doing this, all I have is what I read from forums, so I can't be sure of what works and what doesn't, but it makes some sense and it's worth a try.
- As some people said, social network, post updates and interact with your customers.
- Contact reviews sites and ask for a review. Although most of the time you won't get an anwser if you ask for a free review.
- Frequent updates
And I read about a crazy idea from a guy who just made a bunch of cards of his app and started distributing it all over the city, leave on restaurant's tables, giving to waitress when he paid the bill, leave a stack on coffee shop's counter and bus stops.
Comparatively writing the app was easy. Marketing and selling the app is a huge task. As a developer you focus all your ability and time on learning how to program and making the best app you can and then once it's ready you suddenly have to acquire whole new set of tasks your introverted lifestyle hasn't prepared you for. It's like concentrating on grades up until the last year of high school and then trying to win Mr. Popularity at the prom.
hahaha Mr. Popularity at the prom is a good one.
Yeah, after releasing my first game I realised how difficult it is to advertise if you don't want to spend too much.
I'm in the same boat.
Anyone ever tried those PR services (submission to 100+ reviews sites, and other stuff)? They're quite expensive (500$++), I wonder if they get any result.
I'm in the same boat.
Anyone ever tried those PR services (submission to 100+ reviews sites, and other stuff)? They're quite expensive (500$++), I wonder if they get any result.
I think you are better off doing it yourself.
For one, you don't know who they have contacted, if anyone at all.
Also I think it is better to try and form a relationship in the long term and some sites probably be more open to indie-developers contacting them directly. You'll get a better picture overall based on responses / feedback of certain sites. There is a list of published given earlier up the thread.
Post a press release via prmac.com, it's a great press release service and it will make your news available to the media.
Another site worth sending press release from is Games Press: The resource for games journalists but it is best to do one of these not both otherwise it may come across as spamming as both sites probably use same channels to do the same thing.
The only way I have found that works well is to get lucky and have it reviewed on a site like this. That seems to get a large spike in downloads and then even afterward there is a consistent drip because its then 'out there' and gets re-posted etc.
Advertising is the hardest part of producing an app. They tend to get lost in the vast sea of apps :-)