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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20 comments
Martin Chamrad / 4th Sep 2009
Great article indeed. But I don't think that web banner is worth it. People just ignore them I think... Sometimes there are such a crap games in top 10 in Appstore that you've never seen anywhere on the web. I think good word of mouth is the best marketing.
Douglas Sjoquist / 4th Sep 2009
I'm just moving into iPhone game development and I am still in the prototyping stage of my first non-toy app. I'm hoping to move into regular development fairly soon, and your article is a great outline for marketing efforts. Thanks for a nice, concise list -- it will be on my short list of references as I move forward. Doug
Geoff@appular (dot) com / 4th Sep 2009
Great tips Chris, it's amazing how valuable a well thought out time line can be. This template is excellent. Another quick tip is to make sure you figure out your killer feature. What is it that makes your app so great? After all, you invested your time and effort into your baby. What separates it from the other 40,000+ apps out there? You need to know exactly what makes it a “must have” app, even if it’s for a very small segment of the general audience. For professional marketing and PR expertise you can also hire a specialized company like Appular to create and manage your campaign. Drop me an email if you are interested! -Geoff
Ricky Vuckovic / 21st Sep 2009
I'm torn on one aspect of this - delaying release even after Apple has approved it would normally make perfect sense so that you can have a properly planned and managed launch... except something is majorly broken with the App Store submission/approval process where: if Apple approves an app on September 3, but I choose to release it on September 10 as part of my marketing campaign... the app does not appear until the 10th as planned, but is still indexed on the store as being out on Sept 3, and so debuts around position #200 (or page 8) on the listing for that category.. and I don't really imagine anybody ever looking that far down for a new release (and the sort by Release Date option is really the only way to find stuff that isn't Top 50). ..then again, I released Pogg a few days ago and unfortunately it happened to be approved during a weekend that I was out of town, so I was sending my press release stuff from a laptop in my car on free Maccas wifi.. luckilly I had took my marketing materials with me on the trip, but only have 33 sales so far (in 3 days) so maybe capturing that casual traffic isn't as important as I think it is? In any case, the game is already out and yes due to me being away when it launched, I'm playing the catchup game now with trying to contact review sites (about to write to you AppGamer!) and hope that they have some time and an interest to review my app before it disappears into oblivion.
Babak Bagheri / 1st Oct 2009
The marketing points made in this article are very timely. I think the current period will be remembered as a watershed period for the apple app store. On one day, Friday September 19th, over 1300 apps (with over 300 games) where approved by Apple and (presumably) appeared at the app store. The simple rules about "recently released" lists don't really apply at these volumes. Marketing is becoming just as important for the app store as it has been for other parts of the software market. The app store game market will most likely now follow the same rules as the PC game market in general except with lower distribution costs...
Babak Bagheri / 1st Oct 2009
Meant Friday the 18th of course.
Kris Jones / 16th Oct 2009
As the founder of Pocket Monkey Games, I can tell you with conviction that Chris Thomans hits on so many important points of marketing on the AppStore. We were one of the companies hit by the onslaught of released titles on Sept. 18th. Our game, Champion Archer, debuted with 300 - 400 other games. Our marketing was good enough to be recognized by Apple and get on the "Hot New Games" list, but many other companies struggle with the very essence of marketing. It is becoming more and more critical for marketing to be the driving force for games on the AppStore. Long gone are the days that a fart app can pull in hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's even difficult for great games to make it out there. I see a big market brewing for AppStore PR/Marketing Agencies...
Owen Hunte / 2nd Nov 2009
Yes this is a great article with solid advice. I've so far released one App: ITGO - interval Trainer GO and am nearing completion of my first game so it'a great timing. I had some of these ideas down but not in such a structured format. One thing though, shouldn't there be a 15.5 - Do another press release or is implied but not stated?
Emmanuel Carraud / 4th Nov 2009
Chris, I totally agree with your point of view. Marketing is essential but tough for small companies like ours, MagicSolver.com. It is time consuming and not so obvious in an international market. Our first app Sudoku Magic, although one of the best Sudoku game available at the moment on the App Store with very good reviews and a unique photo technology to capture Sudoku in any newspapers, has difficulties to really take off in the market. I really hope that our second app release today, FaceShift, a photo app which detect faces and can automatically swap your face with your friends’ faces, will find the success it deserves :-). We released a Lite version to allow everyone to try it for free. If you have any innovative ideas for our small company to promote our apps Sudoku Magic & FaceShift, just drop me an email, I would be delighted to have your feedback
Martin Romañuk / 8th Dec 2009
Really good advice. We are releasing our 1st game soon and we are trying to implement this kind of techniques. Personally I had red a couple of PR books recently and this looks really important to succeed on the App Store this days.
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Drunk Girlfriend Cum / 4th Mar 2010
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J. Labrie / 15th May 2010
I wish I had found this article before Ware-Wolf Games released their latest game, KartToon Rally. Although the results are encouraging, they could be so much better with proper and timely marketing. As others have said, it is now a catch up game to maximize exposure. One subject I would like to see more about is the use and timng of free/trial versions of apps/games to encourage customers to buy the full game.
Online Meds / 20th May 2010
Pretty insightful post. Never thought that it was this simple after all. I had spent a good deal of my time looking for someone to explain this subject clearly and you’re the only one that ever did that. Kudos to you! Keep it up
Legend Apps / 30th May 2010
Great post.
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Mn8Multimedia / 27th Jul 2010
Thanks for the great advice. We will be releasing our first iphone game soon, and I was looking for information like this.
UnrealPHD / 27th Jul 2010
Thanks for the great post. We design games for the PC and iPhone, and we also create video tutorials to teach game design to people.
RadiantSol / 27th Jul 2010
This is very useful, thanks!
Nathan89 / 4th Sep 2009
Great article mate, really useful stuff here!