What promotions have worked best?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Rainier, Sep 18, 2012.

  1. blot-blaqksheep

    blot-blaqksheep Active Member

    Sep 19, 2012
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    Programmer
    Buffalo NY
    Our printKeg.com posters have been proofed and approved. I'll let you all know how our local sales go. We plan on hitting up all the GameStops, Oogie Games (local company) and other game stores and see if they will hang the posters for us.

    I'll also be riding the Halloween wave since Deadstorm is all about zombies... Maybe drop some off at these Fright World and Spooky Haunter House places in the area. Maybe Halloween costume stores too...
     
  2. We are still trying to determine the best way to market our company and app (coming soon). If you go free too soon, then everyone just waits for it again. We think with the new App Store setup is harder than ever to get noticed as indies. Definitely building a social media base is a key role nowadays to promote apps. Maybe some of you can follow and like us to help us out :) we will return the favor. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. Little Rocket Lab
     
  3. blot-blaqksheep

    blot-blaqksheep Active Member

    Sep 19, 2012
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    Programmer
    Buffalo NY
    Ok so I wouldn't waste your time buying ads. Maybe get one for a month. I did reddit gaming ad for three days ($60) and buysellads.com for three sites ($75)
    And have not gotten any ROI to make a profit.

    We just took our game and dropped it from 0.99 to free and downloads haveq skyrocketed. 46 the first day and then over 1,200 the next. We are currently working on adding in iAds into our iPhone 5 iOS6 update and will release that to hopefully earn some coin now that we got some decent numbers for our first game.

    Posters should be arriving today so ill keep you in the loop about that.
     
  4. Rasterman

    Rasterman Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2010
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    Game Monger
    Tampa, FL
    Hard to believe posters would be anything more than a novelty. Also I don't see any reason why anyone would post them? Game stores have their current posters because they sell the game! Wall space must be valuable? I hope it works though as I would love to create some posters, good luck and please let us know what store owners tell you and where you post them.
     
  5. blot-blaqksheep

    blot-blaqksheep Active Member

    Sep 19, 2012
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    Programmer
    Buffalo NY
    Well the posters are to build a local following... We will be putting these in coffee shops, local game stores (not national chains unless they let us) and we're riding the Halloween wagon so we will be putting them up at the Horror Stores, Haunted Hayrides/Haunted Houses, Halloween Costume stores, etc... Our game deals with zombies so we're riding on the Halloween coattails this month.

    We only made 50 of them so it didn't break the bank (thanks RetailMeNot.com) and we'll see how it goes.

    Seriously, though, I cannot get over the traction built from making the game free. Our game is getting pirated like no other so why not just say screw it, offer it for free and just throw in some iAds.

    We're making a more robust version 2 of the game using Unity3D so that will have a story mode and be free with in-app purchases.
     
  6. Rasterman

    Rasterman Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2010
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    Game Monger
    Tampa, FL
    Yeah it sucks. My game was pirated about 90% rate when new, then went up to over 95% as more groups cracked it, now it's 80-90% due to dropping in popularity. Why would in apps make any difference, can't they still be cracked and pirated just the same?
     
  7. blot-blaqksheep

    blot-blaqksheep Active Member

    Sep 19, 2012
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    Programmer
    Buffalo NY
    I'm unaware if in-app purchases can be hacked. I guess anything can if you really want to do it but I would be hoping that the game is FREE to begin with so why pirate it in the first place... If they dig the game then they may pick up some in app purchases.
     
  8. Rasterman

    Rasterman Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2010
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    Game Monger
    Tampa, FL
    They are more easily hacked than a paid app. And why would someone pirate a paid app but not an inapp? It's sad, people will spend $4 on a coke thats gone in 5 minutes, but then try to legitimize stealing a 99c app or song they will play for months.
     
  9. blot-blaqksheep

    blot-blaqksheep Active Member

    Sep 19, 2012
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    Programmer
    Buffalo NY
    Yeah I looked up some hacks and see how easy it is right after I seen your previous post. Stupid hacks.
     
  10. Rainier

    Rainier Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2012
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    What kind of downloads on average are you seeing for developers who do the daily, weekly, and facebook weekly contests?

    Here are the prices according to your website:

    $1,250 cost for $500 facebook weekly prize
    $875 for a $500 weekly prize
    $250 for a $200 daily prize

    I'm curious so I can calculate the return on investment for your product. Also, do you require developers to add some code to their apps?
     
  11. blot-blaqksheep

    blot-blaqksheep Active Member

    Sep 19, 2012
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    Programmer
    Buffalo NY
    Ok so Deadstorm has been out for about 6 months now. All paid advertising had us break even if best. The most success has been with a local following. We did this through posting our posters wherever gamers would hang out... Coffee shops, locally owned video game stores, computer stores, etc...

    That's my suggestion. Start locally and build a strong following to make ends meet for the time being.
     
  12. Rainier

    Rainier Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2012
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    I've found that Facebook giveaways don't work very well. They attract mostly page Likes from fake/duplicate IDs from those who are mostly there just for the giveaway, and then once it's done, there's no engagement. Not the kind of real engagement one looks for. Facebook had a very negative ROI.

    Facebook and Twitter and social media posts haven't done much to attract attention either. I think it's probably more useful for when you've ALREADY got the user base, not for expanding your user base. The effort in this regard also had a very negative ROI.

    Flurry was interesting. Their service allowed people to see our trailer over 25,000 times, and about 1% of those who saw it downloaded the free version of our app. The ROI on that little experiment was negative, but the exposure was helpful.

    I had some flyers posted around college campuses, and that might have had a little effect, but nothing very sustainable.

    What may end up being the most cost effective on a cost per download basis is services like Free App a Day. That's something I'm considering in the future, but I'm not sure which FAAD-like service would be the best one to go with.

    Generally, the more traditional avenues of trying to get attention do not work very well. App discovery is indeed a very tough hill to climb.
     
  13. Stephen Richard

    Stephen Richard Active Member

    Jan 2, 2013
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    USA
    Promote your app successfully

    Make sure whether your iTunes Store App Page is attractive in order to achieve more downloads. You can submit your app to the quality review sites and get huge amount of reviews. Also trailers, previews and sneak-peak videos makes customers excited.
     
  14. djskinner

    djskinner Well-Known Member

    I agree. The focus needs to be on driving organic downloads. Beyond App Store Optimisation and getting plenty of App Store reviews is there anything else we can do?
     
  15. blot-blaqksheep

    blot-blaqksheep Active Member

    Sep 19, 2012
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    Programmer
    Buffalo NY
    At the very least make a splash page for your games and apps. We did it for DeadstormGame.com and SpendifyApp.com. They are nothing above-and-beyond but they are like virtual posters.

    You'll easily get Page likes with Facebook Ads but that doesn't convert well into sales...

    The biggest thing is to have a good game that people want to rave about.
     
  16. This info is helpful given that you are not advertising for the site. Probably I'll check it later. Thanks for sharing.
     
  17. vldstf

    vldstf New Member

    Mar 4, 2013
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    I am also an indie developer, and I could say that I am a newbie one. I only lunched one application called MagicMath. This is the first application launched on the market. The rest of the app I have done were for personal use only.
    I declare myself a newbie because I never thought that is so hard to promote my app. But I can tell what I found effective so far:
    • I have done a Youtube video of the app
    • I share a lot on my facebook profile, and also created a facebook page
    • Shared a lot of tweets - I actually joined IDRTG and it look like it was pretty helpful
    • Joined related group on Facebook and share the app with them

    Right now I am looking for different websites that can review my app. This is what I have done so far.

    If you're interested in my app, you can check it here!!
     
  18. CharredDirt

    CharredDirt Well-Known Member

    Although I still don't have an iOS game out, my original game Charred Dirt did get quite a fierce local following by doing a few anime conventions. We'd set up in the artist alley and sell signed artwork and sell copies of the game. If I was doing it again, I'd bring a mobile hotspot. If people download your game on the spot, they get a free signed print. I had lots of people remember me years later and had a diehard core community which was 90% made up by local fans. Gotta appreciate your local fan base.
     
  19. #39 Mackdavi_Studios, Oct 29, 2013
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2013
    We found some interesting statistics when pursuing a competition that we wanted to run, which included a brand new retina Ipad for 1st, 3 concept art canvas wall pieces for 2nd, and 10 hooded game jumpers for 3rd.
    To enter, all you had to do was subscribe to our site and download our game, and find the four costumes in the game, at which time you would receive a entry code on our website. 1st 14 people would receive the items in the appropriate order.
    What we learnt was, being based in Australia, was that we fell under import/export rules, and that to have any chance of running a 'budget' competition by the rules, we had to run it in Australia alone.
    The next issue was the rules, we would have to hire a solicitor to designate the rules otherwise we may fall victim to having to offer these prizes to all states/territories, which meant 7 iPads, 21 canvas art pieces, and 70 hooded jumpers. Pricing between a solicitor and the prizes was not much difference, which meant we instead will reinvest this money into advertising/marketing and drop the prizes for some promo codes instead.
    This was the legit way. If you plan on running competitions, be careful there are a lot of pitfalls.
    We also found people were more attracted to promo codes and gift cards then large giveaways anyway. who woulda guessed?
     
  20. ryansumo

    ryansumo Well-Known Member

    Feb 1, 2012
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    Freelance artist
    Manila
    Very cool. I'm thinking of doing that at a local convention as well. I didn't think about the wifi hotspot idea. Our game is 20+ mb though and with connections here I'm not sure that would be so feasible.
     

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