Saturday, September 25, 2010

How to market your iPhone app

This is a question I've been wondering about a lot lately.  It goes without saying that if you just leave your iPhone app alone and don't try and market it, you aren't going to get anywhere with it.  Like any business, iPhone Apps require you work your butt off to get your product out there.  Of course, being so new, there isn't much experience when it comes to iPhone App marketing.  How, exactly, do you do it?

I'm not the most experienced person in the world, but here are my thoughts so far:

Free
1)  Review sites:  They may be new, but there are PLENTY of review sites out there.  Find them and submit your app.  Many just have submission buttons so you can submit info about your company and app.  If you have a paid app, you should generate free codes so reviewers can download them for free.  This is common courtesy and makes sense...no one will review your app if you make them pay for it!!

2)  Press releases - to digital & local media:  Press releases still work.  Find app reviews sites that don't have a "submit" button and send them information about your game.  In addition, target your local media.  Most media (at least print) has "business players" or "new venture" sections where they will cover new business ventures like this.  iPhone Apps and Mobile Gaming is a hot topic right now, so don't forget the "old fashioned" ways of media outreach!
 
3)  Social Media:  People who download apps have above-average usage on Social Media.  Based on that, it only makes sense that someone who has an iPhone app set up a presence on Facebook, Twitter or a blog.  This takes some effort to maintain (trust me), and you always make sure that you aren't too self-promotional and providing value-added content, but it is a great way that you can confirm that you are actively reaching out to an audience that is willing to listen.

Paid
4)  Pay Per Click options:  Google and Facebook both have extremely robust, effective and targeted advertising options.  You can set a budget and pay per every time someone clicks on your add.  Once I have the money, I'm going to look at Facebook ads.  You can target based on demographic and interests - so I'll be targeting iPhone users who like U.S. History.  This will, hopefully, be effective!!

5)  iPhone Ad Services:  There are services out there that specifically target iPhone users with in game ads.  I know there are many, but the only one I really know anything about is admob. which claims over 280,000,000,000 impressions (damn). 

So, that's what I've got.  How about you?  What else am I missing?

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for publishing us the marketing tips for iphone app. These are very useful plus informative....
    event application

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  2. Thanks for your tips. On the last one you mentioned admob. Not sure if you aware about it, but recently was released globalhop sdk which can work together with admob. You can monetize your app with two softwares at the same time.
    Again thanks for your tips!

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