The App Store is a cut-throat environment. Be prepared for it.
The sheer number of iPhone Games being released each week is nothing short of eye watering. The amount of games we actually hear about at AppGamer.net is not. Only the bigger publishers are making use of marketing and PR channels and even then we suspect many are not doing so optimally. This article is written with industry insiders in mind however it is my hope that consumers will also find it interesting.
Firstly, what gives me any authority on this topic? Well, nobody has given me a certificate, but I have spent years working in marketing and more specifically games marketing: Firstly as a media buyer for Activision in the UK and secondly managing advertising campaigns across a major online games publication. While my specialism is in the commercial side of things my time working on AppGamer.net has given me an insight into the public relations aspect of game promotion as well. I believe I can offer some insight.
Kicking things off lets look at the most common practice among indie developers struggling to cut through the noise of the App Store. Their process looks something like this.
1) Develop game
2) Submit for approval
3) Game gets approved, release it onto the App Store
4) Email a couple of relevant websites announcing the games release and hope it gets written up.
With the exception of a select few incredibly lucky case studies this results in an anticlimactic release. Gamers shrug it off (if they’re even aware of it) and sales trail from day one. Is there any wonder this is the case? You cannot follow this process and expect success, with all of the noise in the App Store this is like opening a McDonald’s restaurant in the middle of the desert: Your McNuggets may be delicious but nobody knows to rent a camel and walk through the doors. Before your game is even finished you should be constructing a timeline, potentially two if you intend on using advertising as a tool in your arsenal as well as PR activity.
iShoot is an example of a developer that struck it lucky with minimal marketing and PR. Don't rely on this.
Lets deconstruct PR first as this is an incredibly cost efficient way to expose your game to a large and targeted audience. While you have many techniques at your disposal the main one is to try and establish a relationship with the relevant publications and journalists. Since you probably don’t have a PR team you’ll be doing this yourself. This means emailing the editors of sites such as this one and creating a dialogue, doing this as early as possible is your best course of action. Send a blind email to all the sites you know to announce the project, even if you don’t get a reply you can email again to reveal the trailer and then again to announce the release. You can also increase your chances of getting column inches by offering exclusive assets (screenshots, trailers, interviews etc) as exclusive content is currency in the journalism world.
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