Need some good marketing idea for indie developer.

[dreamerdonkey]

Hello, I am a new iPad game developer. Our game development group is not that big. We recently form this group and most of our group member is also not that experienced. Despite all this fact we are able to develop few game for iPad and they are also available on iTunes store. They are not that good so we put them on apps store for free. But unfortunately none of them make any impact and there number of download is too few. For our previous game we don't launch any kind of marketing campaign or neither we contact any PR agencies. Because PR agencies cost a lot of money and our financial background is not that strong. By luck I find this developer community. So I ask help from the community, please provide your opinion and share your experience with me. I really need a good marketing idea. Thanks in advance.

[comboapp]

Hi,

It is really tough to get spotted on the App Store without any marketing efforts nowadays. They are vital if you want to get satisfying ROI.

Nevertheless, share the link to the game and I will try to share a few valuable ideas.

[dreamerdonkey]

Originally Posted by comboapp

Hi,

It is really tough to get spotted on the App Store without any marketing efforts nowadays. They are vital if you want to get satisfying ROI.

Nevertheless, share the link to the game and I will try to share a few valuable ideas.

Thanks, I can't provide the link now just because I am using my cell phone right now to reply this thread. I will provide it later . But if you can search on iTunes by using keyword "dreamer donkey" of course without quote, you definitely find out most of our work. And thank you again to waste your valuable time for me.

[mobile1up]

they seem to be all free - so, promotion is key to get any revenues from iAd's et al. overall; i think the artwork is a little dark - here is one.

[dreamerdonkey]

Originally Posted by pat3ck

You might want to contact different app review sites. If you think you don't have a great game, the top-tier app review sites may ignore your app. Suggest to pitch your app nicely.

Also, you may want to host a contest and giveaway a few codes.

Originally Posted by mobile1up

they seem to be all free - so, promotion is key to get any revenues from iAd's et al. overall; i think the artwork is a little dark - here is one.

Thank you very very much for share that link. I really appreciate your help. And one question, do you try our other games? If you can please try those game and give me some feedback. I know I am asking a lot from you but if you can please give it a try. Thanks again

[ThreeCubes]

People expect a lot for free. You said your games aren't that good, even good free games struggle to get downloads. In the current appstore world free is still very expensive, you still need to have a great game.

Some advice

A lot of your apps have your company logo as the first screen shot, this is really bad on ios 6, that's the very first image they see.

If its possible I would consider combining most of your apps into one big game pack. You may get more downloads with an app with 10 games.

I would not waste money on marketing apps you don't think are very good. Just do a few forum posts about your app and youtube videos.

Good luck

[comboapp]

1) Considering ASO - you do not need to leave spaces. Just commas will be enough. Google for ASO iOS6 tricks.

2) Description is really short and direct - contact a creative writer for a few paragraphs of engaging text.

3) Your icon is cute, but make screenshots a bit lighter and more colorful.

4) Get your app a few reviews. You can do it yourself, ask friends, etc. The app is free, so it might be easy.

5) Study the most popular relevant forums and post an engaging note about the app. Try to boost the discussion. Even bad comments will be good since you will study your weaknesses to improve + thread will get to the top.

6) Contact app review websites. You might not get to the most popular ones, but if the pitching works well, you will get a few reviews.

I hope you try that and these issues work for you.
If you need help with promotion, contact me via PM.

[Alittletf]

It would certainly help us to help you if you posted a link to your game. There is a ton of marketing tricks you can use to help get your app downloaded. The biggest one is learn some App Store Optimization. Make sure your title and keywords are effective to your game and audience. Its much better to rank for specific long tail or "keyword phrases" that you believe people search and relate to your app. If you need help with this, use the google keyword tool for some suggestions.

[dreamerdonkey]

Originally Posted by Alittletf

It would certainly help us to help you if you posted a link to your game. There is a ton of marketing tricks you can use to help get your app downloaded. The biggest one is learn some App Store Optimization. Make sure your title and keywords are effective to your game and audience. Its much better to rank for specific long tail or "keyword phrases" that you believe people search and relate to your app. If you need help with this, use the google keyword tool for some suggestions.

Thank you for your informative opinion. Our game is not that good. But if you really want to get a look at it on iTunes store search by using this keyword "dreamer donkey" (with out quote). You will able to find all apps that developed by us. And I also give a thought about app store optimization. But I really don't understand how it really going to help me. Because most of the customer search on app store by using name of the apps which are famous in there own way. For example if some one love to play physics base puzzle game they don't put any of the word like Physics or puzzle. Rather they just put a name like "cut the rope" or "angry birds" or anything like that. And I also do a research over the keyword feature that is provided by the apps store. But there systems are too much primitive. I use the word Primitive because any apps of mine only visible if the users requested search input exactly match with our provided keyword. There is also another difficulties and that is we can only put 100 character in our keyword field including space and commas. So optimization for app store may be good thinking but its insanely difficult in my opinion. So any other way can you think about. Let me know. And thanks again for try to help me out I really appreciate it.

[watthisdo]

I'd also suggest hosting giveaways for promo codes or something product-related. I see a lot of devs doing it and they get more exposure... at least trackable on Fb anyways.