I recently asked the person from the marketing firm i hired to promote my game Word Champion about how long after proper marketing and promotion efforts were done would there be any increase in paid downloads. She replied that in their experience, it was around 4-6 weeks after sending out press releases and contacting the reviewers that there was any noticeable change, because reviewers take about 3-4 weeks to download and review the app. She mentioned too that E3 took all the attention from reviewers and that could be something to consider. Has that been the experience with your games' marketing efforts? As a fellow developer, I would like to know.
Personally, I have yet to see a tangible spike in sales from anything we've done except for what you would naturally expect from the initial release, getting featured by apple, and price drops. That's it. We have not seen any noticeable impact in our sales from removing/putting back in a lite version, advertising, translating the game description for other countries, or getting reviews on some of the more well known iPhone websites. Now I'm not saying this stuff doesn't matter, because for some I'm sure they've seen an impact, and we certainly plan to go through all the same steps for our next game as well -- I'm just saying you shouldn't be surprised if you don't see any tangible results... ever.
Ah alright, but I think in my app's case it hasnt yet found it's right audience. I think that's the key part. I read here a posting about one developer team's app only generating sales four months after it was released, so that got me thinking, maybe there is more to this app, and it's not done with yet.
there's always things you can do. An update, change the logo, change your marketing, release something else, find a creative way to promote, get some notice on some big website down the road somehow (if you are lucky). I'm of the mind that getting featured by Apple is really your best bet, as most will agree, but unless you have some way to get in there then you can't really expect that to happen. Get creative with trying to milk your app, but move onto other things if you have the ability rather than sticking on one project for too long. There's way too much competition on the app store. I'm on the "followup promotion" of my app following it's release a couple of months ago, and doing what I can to support it in that light, but I realize the longer it's been out, the less likely it is to get a big burst of attention (as a steady stream of new, quality things are coming out all the time). You can't fight new!!!
It is harder to create a buzz for a game that is a few months old, which is why it's important to try and make as big a splash as you can at launch. There are a limited number of sites that write actual reviews of games, and the number of those sites with a large enough readership to make a difference is even smaller. If you're a couple of months into the project and still aren't seeing any attention, then you might consider one of the Free App programs where you make the game free for a day or two, but it extends your user base and can get attention for your game that you wouldn't have got otherwise. You can also "go free" and include in-app content (if that's right for the game, don't shoehorn something in for the sake of it) or go free and include advertising. In both cases, you'll benefit from working with one of the Free App offer sites, as they already have a regular userbase. Other possibilities include a contest - something that gets people downloading and playing your game - as it's a word game - maybe giveaway iTunes Gift Cards for the best word of the month, or something like that. Hope some of this helps.
Thing is, this game is about 2 months old, but it's new to the most part of the people who haven't seen it yet. But youre right, I need to find ways to make it known to others who may want it.
"new" is buzzworthy to people when it's "new to everyone." People generally will get excited for something that no one has seen yet, as opposed to something that has already been out for awhile - that's how the perception of it goes, anyway.