App Promotion
by rennie moffat · in iTorque 2D · 11/28/2010 (3:22 pm) · 7 replies
I am just wondering what some people have done to successfully promote their app. I have tried/doing, Twittering, Facebook page, more Twittering, Forums, price changes etc. It is very early in the game but my sales are lower than I would like. I have the feeling that a game, in order to become successful, with X amount of purchases everyday needs to hit a threshold, once that magic number is reached, more and more people will buy it and as such, take off like wild fire. That is my hope anyway.
So I am just wondering, what are some of your techniques and experiences with selling apps.
So I am just wondering, what are some of your techniques and experiences with selling apps.
About the author
My thanks to Garage Games and the Garage Games Community combined with owned determination I got one game up, Temple Racer and I am looking to build more interesting, fun games for the mass market of the iOS app store.
#2
What kind of numbers do you need to be in the top 20 or featured?
11/28/2010 (5:05 pm)
ok, well I have about 30 sales in a week, so not bad, but not great. I suppose I will just keep on plugging. I am lucky as I have this year to make it work, after that I am on my own. I am going with my own Publishing name and hope to promote under that Title, all games I make. So I have that going for me. What kind of numbers do you need to be in the top 20 or featured?
#3
The only numbers I can give of any use are for Invaders World Tour - we sell on average 4-5 per day, the other apps might sell one a week if we are lucky.
Only Apple know what the formula for being featured is - IWT has now been featured twice (currently in a number of app stores) but never in the USA which is where you need to be featured to get most sales.
Numbers to get you in at number 40 (which is where I believe you can get traction) is probably somewhere around 100 sales per day. After that I think each further increment in the chart requires more and more sales. I suspect that number spot equals a 1000 sales a day, although there is some weird formula that means once you get to top 10 you don't have to sell as many to retain the place.
As you are probably finding out - selling an iPhone game is a touch challenge - we most certainly have NOT got back our investments in development etc etc. I think what Marc says is very true as well.
We tried a little advertising on some sites but didn't see any return. To get a really high profile you need to spend a lot of money with sites like pocket gamer, touch arcade etc, but this will be expensive and is a bit of a gamble.
You can try free game of the day which will certainly get lots of people downloading your game, whether sales follow after that is difficult to determine.
We've gone with a publisher (Appular) for two of our games and we are hoping they will make a difference, although there are no promises or guarantees.
Good luck.
11/28/2010 (9:59 pm)
HI Rennie,The only numbers I can give of any use are for Invaders World Tour - we sell on average 4-5 per day, the other apps might sell one a week if we are lucky.
Only Apple know what the formula for being featured is - IWT has now been featured twice (currently in a number of app stores) but never in the USA which is where you need to be featured to get most sales.
Numbers to get you in at number 40 (which is where I believe you can get traction) is probably somewhere around 100 sales per day. After that I think each further increment in the chart requires more and more sales. I suspect that number spot equals a 1000 sales a day, although there is some weird formula that means once you get to top 10 you don't have to sell as many to retain the place.
As you are probably finding out - selling an iPhone game is a touch challenge - we most certainly have NOT got back our investments in development etc etc. I think what Marc says is very true as well.
We tried a little advertising on some sites but didn't see any return. To get a really high profile you need to spend a lot of money with sites like pocket gamer, touch arcade etc, but this will be expensive and is a bit of a gamble.
You can try free game of the day which will certainly get lots of people downloading your game, whether sales follow after that is difficult to determine.
We've gone with a publisher (Appular) for two of our games and we are hoping they will make a difference, although there are no promises or guarantees.
Good luck.
#4
11/28/2010 (10:09 pm)
Rennie, you app appears to be free at the moment? 
#5
Featured is completely independent of numbers, its at apples sole decision to feature you and basically requires that you use their state of the art technologie to get a chance to be featured. So just "using the minimum" will commonly guarantee that you aren't being featured but having a rather decent game and offering GameCenter integration for example helps quite a bit.
Also with the numbers you have a free + iAd game might do significantly better
11/28/2010 (10:19 pm)
There is no "numbers you need to be in the top XXX", the numbers are a consequence from being there (ie if you aren't in there you stand not the slightest chance to get even to 10% of their numbers in most categories)Featured is completely independent of numbers, its at apples sole decision to feature you and basically requires that you use their state of the art technologie to get a chance to be featured. So just "using the minimum" will commonly guarantee that you aren't being featured but having a rather decent game and offering GameCenter integration for example helps quite a bit.
Also with the numbers you have a free + iAd game might do significantly better
#6
Yes I made it free for today, Sunday in hopes that people will get it, and spread the word. As I said before I hope the more people have it, the more people will want it. So my theory is anyway.
Thanks.
@Marc.
thanks.
11/29/2010 (12:08 am)
@Scott, Yes I made it free for today, Sunday in hopes that people will get it, and spread the word. As I said before I hope the more people have it, the more people will want it. So my theory is anyway.
Thanks.
@Marc.
thanks.
#7
just tried your game, good job.
We found promoting our app very hard and we think that the only way for a developer is publishing via a publisher. For WIP we will stick to our original decision of promoting ourselves but for our next project we are considering finding a publisher.
This week we are offering WIP for free, we got 14000 downloads in 2 days and ranked up in the top free strategy category (20th in US, 3rd in Italy) but we will see what happens next week, we don't have much expectation.
11/30/2010 (10:13 pm)
Hi Rennie,just tried your game, good job.
We found promoting our app very hard and we think that the only way for a developer is publishing via a publisher. For WIP we will stick to our original decision of promoting ourselves but for our next project we are considering finding a publisher.
This week we are offering WIP for free, we got 14000 downloads in 2 days and ranked up in the top free strategy category (20th in US, 3rd in Italy) but we will see what happens next week, we don't have much expectation.
Torque 3D Owner Marc Dreamora Schaerer
Gayasoft
99.99% of all iOS applications don't make back their investments within their active lifetime (which can be from never to a few weeks to a few months if you invest a lot of time on developing it further - only very few survived longer so far), 0-20 sales are standard for this very broad mass actually, advertisement won't help much there (with tendency to 0 not 20) unless you can fork 5 figure+ out, have a publisher or have enough applications for cross advertisement (which is where the publisher benefit normally ends as well)