App ???marketing???

[canalrun]

Hello,
I wonder if I can ask for "tips and tricks about 'marketing' apps?"

In the early 90s I had a Windows application that might be especially useful to teachers. The application did nothing until I introduced it in a teacher's CompuServe group. The group members all yelled at me saying: "Please don't advertise here." But sales picked up for a while.

I sent requests for product reviews to several reviewers. I just got a reply, "How much advertising would you like to buy?"

I've seen this topic addressed a little bit before. Can anyone offer tips about how they go about introducing or marketing their apps?

Thanks,
Barry.

 

[HotShoe]

I don't think there are any easy answers for marketing your apps. Google doesn't really offer anything that can help you and paid reviews seem like a bad idea to me. I have sent free copies out for review by various sources (online blogs, magazines, etc.) with mixed results. Each time I do an update I get a spike in sales, but it never lasts more than a few days.

I wish there was a resource out there for us, I just don't know of one.

--- Jem

 

[nwhitfield]

If anyone's response to a request for a product review is to ask you how much advertising you want to buy, then my opinion (having worked as an IT journalist for over 20 years) is that the review wouldn't be worth the pixels used to produce it.

Reputable, impartial reviews shouldn't be anything to do with who is advertising; often an editorial team will pass their list of content to the sales team, but it shouldn't be the other way round, and it certainly shouldn't influence a review - we'd never tell people the results before publication (not least because of the UK libel laws).

Any site that's asking you to pay for reviews is, in my opinion, bent. Don't touch it with a bargepole if what you want is a fair review. If you want a puff piece, accept that's what you're paying for, and the consequences for both your reputation and that of the site, if your product doesn't live up to the PR.

I wrote, at length, about problems with reviews, a couple of years back: http://gonedigital.net/2010/07/27/everybody-knows-how-reviews-work/

 

[nwhitfield]

For a perspective on paid reviews from a developer, this is worth a read too: http://www.148apps.com/news/demand-submitting-reviews-ride/

 

[JordiCP]

Just a thought about when it is more effective to promote.

Some days ago, talking with a guy who has a top selling app (and is kind enough to give good advices), he reminded me that, besides the app quality itself (and many other factors, among them, a bit of luck), there is a big mistake which some programmers do quite often, and can decrease the app chances to be discovered.

When we first release our app, it is somehow promoted by Google, appearing more "easily" in the lists. Some of us, after a hard work, and when the app is "technically nearly finished", are in a hurry just to release it as soon as possible, and decide that we will improve it or even fix some already known small bugs later . These small bugs or the sensation of "unfinished product" lead to a higher uninstall rate. After this short period, when the app stops being "promoted for free", slowly dissappears from the lists unless it has had a good start.

So, IMHO, any effort (paid or not) made to promote your app will be more effective if made when it is first released, and if this first release has been polished enough

 

[Douglas Farias]

pay to boots xD
when u have 5.000 - 10.000 stop to pay, your app go to firsth page and u dont need more pay to boots.
later in the first page of googleplay is more easy to get new users*-*

 

[LucaMs]

I'm not sure which is the core of the topic: review or advertising?

But I'm sure that advertising also allows you to sell items of poor quality. Many products of famous brands have inferior quality to other of unknown brands but the first are sold much more.

Here, too, I ask my question that I think I'll never find the right answer, except that I submit it to the involved parties:

how can earn revenue by placing free apps and spending millions of dollars on television commercials (even with international stars as a testimonial!).

 

[canalrun]

Hello,
I used the term "Marketing" in the title. I probably should have used the term "Promotion".

It's all related, but I am trying to think of ways to let people know that my app exists.

The apps I have are probably a little obscure. I can't imagine anybody finding one of my apps through a typical search, unless they are searching for something pretty specific. My apps are usually many hundreds down in the results, if they show at all.

Back in the early 1990s I was making small Windows applications. A friend let me place some of my shrink-wrap packaged applications (remember floppies) in the "impulse buy" area near the checkout in local food stores. I had the best results of anything I've done – I think probably just because the exposure.

Does anybody have ideas about how to promote an app? – get some exposure?

Barry.

 

[LucaMs]

Television commercials!

I'm kidding, but... this is the question. The advertising costs.

You could use Google or Facebook, but I have read that some members have got disappointing results.

With regard to the search of your apps:
I have searched some app of some members (google play search!) using the full name of the app: nothing! I had to look up the name of the author!

(bad english, I know , sorry)