Any good paid marketing services?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Spardian, Mar 22, 2011.

  1. Spardian

    Spardian Member

    Dec 28, 2010
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    I'm not even sure if people have tried them, but is there any good iOS specific marketing services that generally do things right to get your app visibility?

    I'm thinking $800~ maybe more if people have good feedback on these type of services.
     
  2. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    Not really in a position to suggest anything, but just keep in mind you get what you pay for, like anything in life. It seems like there's an immense amount of "PR" people who are willing to promote your game for a couple hundred bucks (or less) that have basically no qualifications other than knowing how to spam TouchArcade.
     
  3. helioxfilm

    helioxfilm Well-Known Member

    Nov 25, 2008
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    game designer
    Budapest, Hungary
    Hodapp,

    from the reviewer point of view, what do you expect from a good (paid) marketing service? Or in other words, what do you consider as a good service? For me it seems spamming TA is not a good service :)

    Best,
    Gyula
     
  4. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    Honestly I think most of what these low-dollar PR services do could be accomplished by the developer just posting a thread that they pay attention to on the TA forums. If a game can't generate interest here amongst our community, all the press releases in the world won't make people interested.

    TriplePoint, Spark PR, and other "real" PR consultants can do some real good, but you'll also pay some real money for their services.
     
  5. helioxfilm

    helioxfilm Well-Known Member

    Nov 25, 2008
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    game designer
    Budapest, Hungary
    I am (was) thinking to use PRWeb twice. Once a pre-launch campaign (USD 80), and when the game is ready, to pay once more, but that time for the biggest package... But I will check your suggestion as well..., thanks...
     
  6. helioxfilm

    helioxfilm Well-Known Member

    Nov 25, 2008
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    16
    game designer
    Budapest, Hungary
    However, the question rise: which service to choose? If I understand correctly Spardian question, let's say we have 800 bucks to spend on marketing – but whom we trust? If I compare how many twitter followers have PRWeb, TriplePointPR and Spark PR, or compare them at Compete.com, PRWEB has a much higher follower base or page visits than the other two. At the same time, the other two advertise themself especially as expert in our field of interest, tech, social media etc, they like to work with indies (as TriplePoint sais).

    So how to chose among these three? I apologize to hijack the thread from Spardian, but I'm in the same shoes...
     
  7. Voley

    Voley Well-Known Member

    Aug 23, 2010
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    ispreadnews.com is pretty good and cheap
     
  8. yemi

    yemi Well-Known Member

    Feb 3, 2011
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    Honestly I dont think you should spend money on the marketing. I hope you come back to this thread and see this. I tell you what does really work though . Before you launch follow these directions and you will be way better off and have money in your pocket.
    1) Hit all major forums that have heavy lurker traffic , before you launch your game
    www.148apps.com
    www.freshapps.com
    www.iphone4forum.net
    www.ipodtouchfans.com
    www.nodpad.com
    Also go to the social sites like www.Mocospace.com and facebook.
    On mocospace go to the gamer and teen rooms 1st and promote then hit the other rooms.
    2) Go on google type " list of 30 iphone bloggers"
    a link should come up with list email addresses of 30 iphone bloggers. Pick maybe 20 of them and send them promo codes for them to review your game.
    3) When your game is release go back to all those websites and open a new topic saying you game is released . Also go to PRmac.com and do a $20 press release.
    Basically you just did $500 worth of marketing without spending $800 dollars they just charged you. Yes it takes about total of 8-10 hours to do the steps I showed you but its worth it and you only spent $20 bucks. How this helps you and everyone else.
     
  9. helioxfilm

    helioxfilm Well-Known Member

    Nov 25, 2008
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    16
    game designer
    Budapest, Hungary
    Sounds as a good plan :) Thanks...
     
  10. tofusoup

    tofusoup Well-Known Member

    Aug 23, 2010
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    Game Designer
    San Francisco
    #10 tofusoup, Mar 23, 2011
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2011
    Nice info. I'm gonna follow your list and spend that $500 on iPad 2
     
  11. Razoric

    Razoric Well-Known Member

    #11 Razoric, Mar 23, 2011
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2011
    I agree with this.

    Honestly the best way forward is to join communities, post your game (don't spam), and really listen to customer feedback. Also, individually email review / blog sites with a link to itunes, screenshots, a web landing page and a trailer from youtube. Be brief and informative.

    Also remember that marketing is tough and very time consuming. I've put as much time into researching marketing and listening to feedback as I did learning objective c and programming the game. So know that only half the battle is over when you submit to Apple (unless you get lucky).

    For low-cost solutions I would recommend PRmac.com and iSpreadNews.com. iSpreadNews was actually a lot more useful than I had planned due to the fact that they put me in touch with a lot of international iPhone bloggers I would've never known about. I met some really cool people that way. :)
     
  12. SuperFunApps

    SuperFunApps Well-Known Member

    yemi - thank you very much for compiling that list!

    You hit the nail on the head, methinks, and told me of a few forums I'd left out! Thank yeeee!!!
     
  13. joseph Mauke

    joseph Mauke Member

    Feb 25, 2011
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    Tech Designer (console)
    San Diego, CA
    I have to disagree with the advice of just choosing top reviewers and then blindly sending them review codes. This Month on the App Store there were 2,442 games released, thats about 111 per day. With an average of 111 games released each day, I don't see the sites giving you any reviews, they wouldnt have the staff to handle that many reviews per day. And yes, you would think with thousands upon thousands of review sites that they wouldn't all be talking about the same apps, but yep they do. And heres why.

    A lot of sites know you are frustrated that your apps aren't getting reviewed. Most of the big review sites wait to see where your app falls on or after release day and if you don't make new and noteworthy they don't even give you a second look.

    If you did this cold, you just sent out a bunch of review codes for nothing. You cant blame them though, websites make money from page views, and those are driven by search engines, and having reviews to already popular titles boost those revenue streams. This is why even weak or seemingly useless news about popular apps gets posted above a review of a new title because it gets them more page views to mention an already popular title....aka, more dough for them. Check some of the review sites and count how many times Angry Birds is mentioned by name, or stories of angry birds is in their main blog somewhere. They are trying to make money.

    There are exceptions to this, if someone thinks they see potential for a breakout hit, but even then its not as likely as you think. (why do you think so many are just interested in gameplay movies) And a lot of these review sites are parrots of other sites that really don't do their own reviews, they just repost someone else's reviews. Because reviewing a game is work, I know I was a reviewer once upon a time.

    You are best served by getting to know some of the reviewers, or try and generate some interest before release with sneak peeks, but cold posts to review sites wont garner the response you hope it will for the majority of games out there. You have to stand out somehow.

    Take heart though, you aren't alone. In fact there are a myriad of books that have cropped up in the last year dedicated to just this topic....the real money makers are going to be people that take advantage of developers desperate to monetize.
     
  14. yemi

    yemi Well-Known Member

    Feb 3, 2011
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    Yes Sir joseph did you read my entire post. I said 1st step was to build pre-hype for the game going to the forums and posting it as an upcomming game. That let all the sites get a chance to be famailar with your game. Als you have to take risks ,so the 20 promo codes you probaly will get 3-4 reviews at most in the beggining but if the game gets hot , the other bloggers will pick up your game later and boost your sales with reviews further down the line.
     
  15. joseph Mauke

    joseph Mauke Member

    Feb 25, 2011
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    Tech Designer (console)
    San Diego, CA
    sorry, for the lack of clarification.....cold posts, aka posts to someone that hasn't posted anything about your game previously from sneak peeks, etc. If a review site has posted a preview then by all means, but if they haven't, your chances of getting any airtime are about zero to none.
     
  16. yemi

    yemi Well-Known Member

    Feb 3, 2011
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    Ok since this topic seems to come up very often. So what I need is for developers to post what forums besides the ones I listed that they go to promote thier game. Then I will open a new topic with all the information combined and maybe we have a sticky thread that developers can go to , to learn how to market thier game and where to market thier game. 1st I need more info to make my tutorial on marketing.
     
  17. Ant's Studio

    Ant's Studio Active Member

    May 21, 2010
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    #17 Ant's Studio, Apr 2, 2011
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2011
    Ok! But how to promote interactive book for Ipad? How i understand TA don't make review of books?

     
  18. artcue

    artcue Well-Known Member

    Mar 30, 2011
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    Gamedeveloper, Co-Founder of Artcue
    Vienna, Austria
    #18 artcue, Apr 12, 2011
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2011
    marketing

    Just make sure, that if you pay for e.g. "Engaging at least xx profiled independent reviewers..." that they do not mean just reviews of customers on iTunes....I read in another forum, that somebody paid top dollars to Apalon and just got reviews from customers not from reviewsites......

    @Yemi: A list would be great: here one more: http://www.moddb.com
     
  19. deserialized

    deserialized New Member

    Sep 29, 2012
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    xappio

    I would recommend xappio.com for marketing and promotion. I have used their services for a number of releases. I outsource development and have no time at all for marketing. Using xappio has been a real time saver and provided good results,

    br

    Mike
     
  20. PixelPower

    PixelPower Well-Known Member

    Jun 23, 2012
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    Nice shill for your new company that just popped up. What games or apps did you sell and what rank or sales number did you reach?
    None your company is fake and you should be banned , you provide marketing services but you only have 20-30 twitter followers? Wow you can reach 10's of people with your service.
    Xapio Twitter: https://twitter.com/xappio
    Check his twitter out and get this guy out of here. Sorry for being so rough , but this is what I call an Epic Fail . And I hate using those words.
     

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