I have been reading a great deal about app marketing and I was wondering if any of you have had any success with unconventional marketing tactics or have heard of any successful guerilla marketing tactics, publicity stunts, etc. used by indie app creators. Also, how much of an impact does a mention in media that has nothing to do with app review sites, bloggers, etc. have on propelling an app up the charts. In the early days of the app store the mainstream media jumped on almost anything released, that is definitely not the case now. What would attract the attention of the main stream media now? Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to post.
greetings fellow Hollywood developer - We should get a beer sometime I spend a lot of time trying the guerilla stuff. It's very hard to measure it's success, but for the most part I'll assume it's largely useless at this point (unless you've got some fancy ace up your sleeve or something) The higher up you go (greater visibility) I'd expect that it could help things more; I've been experimenting with things like QR codes and such and I still feel that there's something to it. Any mention you can get in the "non-app" media is always a good thing, because you never know how things will cross over. Is guerilla marketing worth spending much money on? It depends. If you truly have the hookups/savvy to try and get something to go viral, well then that is worth it's weight in gold. But of course if that was something that could be "easily planned" than I think it would just be a different story.
Hello Thanks for your response. I went to your website and I like iFist, I'm going to get a copy. 180 looks great but I usually don't play those types of games. Good luck with all your apps.
Guerilla Marketing Its a term created by marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson where you use creative and sometimes unorthodox methods to get the attention of the media. Like Houdini in a straight jacket upside down in New York. Its creative and highly imaginative marketing methods that aren't very expensive but could go viral. I just want to see if anyone has tried anything out of the box that worked or if anyone has any ideas for something like this. As an example: I'm making a zombie app. So, I was going to try to win the Guiness World Record for the biggest machete to promote my app. Stuff like that gets some press but Guinness wouldn't allow this record. They said I had to try and beat the worlds biggest axe which has nothing to do with killing zombies in my app and the axe is 75 feet long. My machete would have been easy at 13 feet which would have beaten the worlds record for biggest pocket knife. Thanks for responding.
when the iphone 4 launched some developer paid $1000 to be 1st in line at the times square Apple store and it got him mentioned in the new york times. I don't remember who he was or his apps, but at the time it got me to look at his apps. I don't think i bought it though so i don't know if it payed off. also CBC Radio made a 8min audio documentary about me, it aired at 7:20 am prime transit time, supposedly their peak listeners time. It didn't have any effect on sales though. i don't think apps or websites translate well to radio.
Secondary benefit Congrats on the 8 minute radio segment. The goal is to sell apps but a secondary benefit of getting your name out there - other than picking up chicks cause you are a semi celebrity - is building gravitas as a developer. These mentions look good on your resume and builds you up as an expert in this field. That is a platform to springboard into consulting, lecturing, and other opportunities. Thanks for the info.
here's a marketing thread I made a long time ago, I've since done a lot of other stuff but still useful to see some ideas (what "worked" and what didn't)
@headcasegames I read ur link, what do u think was the most effective? Ive tried most of the free marketing on ur list I have also tried paid marketing such as admob, iAD for developers, buysellads.com They all had almost zero conversion rates But by the most successful paid ad was igiveaway.us ppc campaign. But it was only good for my free lite version. I can sell free apps like a mother... I dont really want to get in to the freemium game maybe it's old school thinking but I think people tend to value ur app more if they pay for it. And rate it better and remain fans longer If we can't find a good paid ad system Should we resort to alternative forms of publicity Or is it just a distraction to good game making?
clearly there's a lot to say on all of this stuff the long and short of it is, unless you are a big studio (Gameloft EA, etc) with a real foothold in this industry, it's past the point where a little guy is going to make anything more than a negligible amount of $$ with app development. You'll always see little devs here and there do alright, but by and large most won't cut it following the traditional models. Where we can have the upper hand is by doing risky things that the bigger guys can't/won't do, and that means R&D for development, and unusual campaigning/business dealings for actually marketing and promotion. If you want to go the traditional route, it's simply too exhorbitantly expensive. (this is why it does make sense for a lot of smaller devs to simply sign on with a publisher, especially if they have good bargaining skills) Anyway, for me I would say the days of "charging and making money" off apps are over. Advertising, freemium, etc is the way of the future, but even those markets are getting glutted now as well (hell I think I make about $1.50 a day off of in-game ads, while it does "add up" over time it just feels pretty.. stupid)
like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYXmJLshtZw imo, this was pretty cool. got me interested at least. at least earned the dev some respect.
like I said - it will happen here and there, but you can't really plan for it. Some games just have that magic formula, the perfect timing
Ah that sounds interesting, makes a change from desparately attemping to get people to follow you on twitter and care about an app they haven't seen yet
One thing, try to avoid weeks where giant studios (GL,EA....etc) release their games or else you'll be left in the shadow,and probably never be known(Angry Birds is an exception, they released the game with no success and then after some time,it became popular), try to find an "empty week".
