Best Uses for a $150 marketing budget

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by poisenden, Nov 13, 2012.

  1. poisenden

    poisenden Well-Known Member

    Jan 26, 2012
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    How would you use $150 for an entertainment app with broad appeal?
     
  2. MrLeQuack

    MrLeQuack Well-Known Member

    buy coffee
     
  3. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    seriously... $150 will do nothing to get you any marketing of real worth. Probably even the case for adding an extra zero to that. Spend it on booze instead to forget the misery that is game development (am I being to heavy-handed here?)

    In all honesty, the only real use I could suggest is to buy a ton of extra gift codes with it (beyond the 50 promos you are given) and spam them out to several media sources, but even that is very likely not going to guarantee any ROI at this point.

    "Real" useful marketing will cost you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per day on the level you'd need to do it to generally have useful impact.
     
  4. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    It is pretty bad. I've been there. I've talked to countless other devs who've been through the same routine likewise. Marketing is really the biggest hurdle in indie development at this point (if visibility/making money is your goal) and simply blindly throwing money in the general direction of marketing requires a huge amount of it (unless you have some wonderful connections). My advice is to seek out other methods that don't require a lot of money, as far as being more creative and hope that helps your project stand out (concoct some interesting/crazy story, a youtube video that could go viral, etc) Of course none of these are guaranteed to work either, but such approaches can be done fairly cheaply and won't necessarily waste a lot of time/money compared to the alternative. Hey, it worked for Fruit Ninja...
     
  5. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    Berlin, Germany
    150$ hmm... lets say your app costs a dollar.. make a raffle... once you hit a million paid customers one of the lucky ones gets the 150$ ??? sounds good?

    not? comeone.. hmm.. how about 3 winners 50$ each? or maybe send the money into headcase's ios&mac hardware fund.. he'll probably promote your app on his blog.. maybee..

    hmm.. damn.. how about you print couple thousand flyers with it and litter the streets of your local town with it?

    go to one of thoose crowdsourcing website where people do crazy stuff for you for a few dollars

    or add 50$ buy an nexus7 and start porting over to android to reach a bigger market?



    honestly.. 150$ is not a budget and most likely there will be no ROI

    prolly keep the money for the developer program renewal ?

    tricky tricky..
     
  6. $150 = 75 lottery tickets

    or on a more realistic note:

    Why not buy $150 worth of gift cards for itunes and then offer them up as prizes for higher score on GC etc
     
  7. wearepinata

    wearepinata Well-Known Member

    Apr 25, 2012
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    iOS Game development
    Adelaide
    I would recommend using £11 of it to submit your app to The FWA Mobile of the Day Awards here. Originally a website awards website it now has a mobile awards section. We submitted our game and we won. They will showcase your game for 24 hours and get it in front of a bunch more people. And plus, winning the award will help boost your prestige when you go to apply for grants to develop games, etc. in the future.
     
  8. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    aww, someone still reads my blog! blush
     
  9. gambitph

    gambitph Well-Known Member

    Aug 22, 2012
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    Game Developer
    Philippines
    I too am on a shoestring budget. I'd go PRMAC just to get out there, then a few iTunes Gift Card contests (I just posted one just a few minutes ago in this forum), then FWA (just found out about FWA, will be submitting soon).

    @Mr. Ugly, I want to know your ideas on how you can get people to learn about the GC high score contest for $150.
     
  10. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    I ran a high score contest, it was pretty much a huge and costly failure which will make a hilarious footnote someday. Long story short, you should only give out very cheap prizes if anything :p
     
  11. Rainier

    Rainier Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2012
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    Hmm.. I'd say press releases on PRMac will give you the most bang for the buck. Instead of a tree falling with nobody around to hear it, it will bring some ears to the outer edge of the forest so you'll be heard slightly. Do one before your app is released to give people a heads up, and then do another right as it is released so they remember you.

    As for the excess cash, pay someone $5 to download your app and play with it and give an HONEST review (so your app better not suck), so it's basically a mini paid review, but at least it's honest. Nothing turns me off more than going to the app store and seeing no reviews on an app. It's the Social Proof theory: if a restaurant is empty, the food is probably bad, so I'm not going in. If it's full, I'll give it a try.
     
  12. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    agree, PRMac is pretty useful. I think if you gave them enough lead time, wasn't it cheaper (or free?) I forget..

    I second the notion that you need to have a certain amount of reviews on your app ASAP, although I dunno how high the number needs to be, to make a difference. Ideally I'd guess it would be nice to have at least 25 on there bare minimum (which is a pretty tall order, I'll admit). But significantly less than that probably doesn't look too great.

    We had about 12 reviews on our paid game when it featured prominently on the Android market, and that definitely affected our sales negatively.
     
  13. EPX

    EPX Well-Known Member

    Oct 27, 2012
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    Game Developer @ EPX Games
    Canada
    Hi,

    Honestly put it towards ads. Remeber 1 ad is better then no ads.
    1
    $150 is a good start. Place the ad on some sites for monthly, don't go with impressions as it will cost you more.

    2. Start with one site then the next week add the next.

    3. Paying for reviews is not a good thing.

    By the way what is your app??
     
  14. MarkFromBitmenStudios

    MarkFromBitmenStudios Well-Known Member

    Apr 4, 2011
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    IT Architecture, Development Project Manager
    Austria, Europe
    Buy some cheap localization for your iTunes description.
     
  15. Hercule

    Hercule Well-Known Member

    Dec 16, 2010
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    I've never seen one developper saying that ad banner has worked with a small budget.
    With this kind of advertising, it only works if you put your banner everywhere.
    Ad banner didn't get sales directly (bad ROI). It only prints your game in people minds. And people after seing your banner several times on different website, will remember your product.
    If they see their friend talking about it or a good review on toucharcade, the will be more incline to buy it.
    This is really induced buy. And for that you need to have a big budget and be everywhere.
    It's like with tv advertising. Advertiser say that It only work only if people see it at least 7 times. So you need to have a massive budget if you want to make a tv commercial efficient.

    My opinion. you better put this 150$ in:
    - Your next game update.
    - A contest.
    - In your pocket.
     
  16. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    Berlin, Germany
    well when you pop back to the forum once in a while i do click your signature to see how its going.

    @epx: ads for 150$ with an ROI ? please show me where.

    if poisende has a fixed budget that budget prolly does not replenish itself for another ad to add.

    even on such high traffic sites like ta, the smaller cheaper banners are mostly useless , based on prior feedback.

    so poisend prolly needs a few zeros more to make a dent this way..

    ..

    maybe buy a mobile marketing book, or two.. and attend a sew course so youll be able to make your own merchandise.
     
  17. Jez Hammond

    Jez Hammond Well-Known Member

    Oct 20, 2012
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    PRmac writing service etc.
     
  18. FlowStudioGames

    FlowStudioGames Well-Known Member

    Dec 14, 2011
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    Co-Founder
    Europe
    If your game is really good and you are confident about it, then
    1) invest $ 100 to paid reviews so you have at least few positive mentions which you can put on the beginning of the app description on the day 1
    2) make a contest for 5 iTunes gift card here on TA forum and your twitter/
    facebook and you will probably get few user reviews in the App store.

    Good luck!
     
  19. JasonS

    JasonS Well-Known Member

    Mar 4, 2010
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    Game Dev @ Fun Mob Games
    Australia
    You can run an admob campaign for very cheap. But how good your ROI is a variable. I think it's a lot harder for paid games and apps get a good ROI with banner ads. Free/mium apps are different, but that'll depend on your iap/revenue model.

    If you use that $150 and put it towards a prize and hold a clever contest that could become viral, then that would probably see a better result. $150 to a individual is alot more valuable than it is as a budget for a marketing company.

    I've had sites tell me $400+ for the "expedited" review, so using that $150 on reviews I think is a waste of time.
     
  20. Silverous

    Silverous Well-Known Member

    Oct 21, 2011
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    $150.

    I recommend staying away from Ads.

    In my opinion, you are literally going against big boys with lotsa $$ to burn in advertising. And i believe it's because of them.. Pay per click costs varies in different countries and at different period of the day.

    Based on my previous experience, my ads have not visibility when I was bidding at $0.50 per click in USA. I had to raise it to approx $1.00 before the Ads gain visibility.

    Of course if you choose some other country, it may have been cheaper. but assuming its USA... $150.. $1 per click.. thats going to be 150 clicks. And maybe a click rate of 10%.. thats 15 people clicking and landing on your app description page. (and no guaranteed downloads....)

    Totally not worth it.

    Like some of recommended... I would suggest save the $150, and instead spend more time to build your own audience community through forums, social media etc. Slow but steady growth.

    just my 2cents worth. :cool:
     

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