App Store Sales Tips and Tricks

#1 Updates no longer put you back in "Recent updates".

One thing I've seen in some games is a reference to all games by a developer in their lite versions. A weblink to your product pages couldn't hurt in the full version.

Hand out those promo codes one at a time, so you can see if there are boosts in sales around the days those sites post a review of your game. Maybe you'll find one site to be particularly effective and ignore the rest.

Use AppRanking to watch your rank from day to day. If there's a drop, find more ways to spread the word. Maybe those review sites you ignored till now :)

#2 App ranker looks handy!

I thought I read that if you're using your phone, any update still puts you in the update list. But in iTunes, it does not. I can certainly attest that the latest releases on my phone are anything but...

Update: Here's a nice free app ranking site: www.topappcharts.com

#3 It might be that the AppStore app on the device still works the old way, but there have been at least three phases of changes to how the store works just this year. See the complaint threads on the Apple developer forums for information :)

#4 Nice! I've stickied this thread, as I can see its usefulness in the long-term.

#5 After some research, here's what I've found. A price change or app update won't automatically put you up higher in the release list in the App Store any more. But you *can* change your release date if you've uploaded an update to your app, thus artificially putting you up as a new release. This is an abuse that I've seen many folks use... and have used myself when I update my apps. so use it yourself until Apple makes a sane policy. :)

#6 Thanks, I'll keep that exploit in mind :)

#7 I thought I'd start adding in sites that will actually review your games for free:

www.weplayiphone.com
www.touchmyapps.com

I'll add more as I discover them.

Update: Here's a far better list:

www.travisdunn.com/30-review-sites-to-promote-your-iphone-applications-games

#8 When I uploaded my first app Strummer for approval, I selected the date of my upload (october 11th) as the release date, because I didn't know exactly how long apple's approval period would last. It took 18 days and my app is now on the store (october 29th).

Unfortunately, the actual release date that is shown on my page on iTunes itunes.com/apps/strummer is october 11th and not october 29th...

So Strummer won't show up on iTunes on the front page of the Music category when I sort by Release Date. There you can only see the newest apps of approximately today and yesterday, and not the ones - like mine - with a release date almost 3 weeks ago...

I found similar complaints about this issue on the apple forums.
Any approved ideas to avoid this?

#9 I think this should do the trick:
devforums.apple.com/message/110589#110589

#10 That's a good point. It definitely hurts to launch and not be in the latest releases list.

Another one I should point out is the use of promo codes -- use 'em! They affect your rank. Give them away in the Touch Arcade forums, for example. They'll get snatched up quickly and you can push up your rank within your specific category (say games->racing->paid). I think there are enough potential buyers that you won't lose sales by giving away those 50 copies. In my experience, I sell more on days that I give copies away.

#11 I'm not going to sweat over giving away 50 free copies to anybody. Even if I gave them all away that's only $100 of potentially lost revenue for a $2.99 application, that's a wash in the grand scheme of things.

#12 App Store release date chaos?

Today (November 9) I found an an app on the music page that is (will be?) released on November 16!




My own app Strummer was released on October 29



You can find it on the App Store (also when you search for "strummer", "instrument" or "guitar" etc.) but it won't show up on October 29 when I browse the music category (sorted by release date...)


What's wrong?

#13 Nice! I've stickied this thread, as I can see its usefulness in the long-term.


regards,
rochelle
Simulation prêt

#14 I am not alone...
devforums.apple.com/thread/32526?start=0&tstart=0

#15 Here's a very cool little java app that downloads your reviews from all countries: www.massycat.co.uk/iphonedev/AppReviewsFinder

#16 Just thought I'd add a few things to the thread to help everyone out a little more:

1) As many of you know, the size limit for downloading apps over 3G is now 20MB, not 10.
2) I found an article with tips for creating your pitch to review sites that I found helpful: www.mobileorchard.com/five-tips-for-getting-iphone-reviews/

#17 Chris

I am new at the code thing and was hoping you could clarify the promo codes, on what you recommend.

We have access to 50 of them and do they expire after 1 use or do they have multi uses. Meaning 1 code can be used for 100 people.

Do we pick 50 review sites to approach and send them 50 codes.

#18 Hi Dean, I can help you here. One code is for one person and they must have a US iTunes store account. You get 50 codes per version - so a small version update will net you another 50 codes. A code once downloaded will expire after four weeks if the person who has been assigned the code doesn't use it. A code for a previous version is still valid evan if you have uploaded a new version.

You can send a code to each review site (some require 2/3) or you can send some codes to review sites and give away codes on sites like Touch Arcade (get them to PM you, then you have their details) - these people can then leave a review on iTunes. I can honestly say that I have sent out about 40 codes to review sites and NOT one of them has written a review - some come back and then ask for money for an expedited review, saying that your review will be at the back of the queue if you don't pay. We have paid for three reviews and an ad spot on a review site - spent far more than we have earned in sales.

The cheapest form of marketing for us was the press release ($17.95 from prmac.com). We have about 70,000 hits on Google for "invaders world tour" and that was mostly as a result of the press release. It meant we ended up on sites like macnn.com. How many sales were attributed to this, well we don't know.

#19 But did you get a decent number of sales around the time the press release was out?

#20 Ronny, we got some (10s) but I wouldn't call it decent - we also are currently in the what's hot section in 19 countries (not USA) and that really hasn't done much either. Not sure what we have to do to sell a 1000 copies! We have an update out soon with OpenFeint so I am going to try some stuff with them. We are also probably going to sell through a publisher if they accept us. Still lots of options to explore.