App Marketing Idea
cmasterenko
Member Posts: 52
Hey everyone,
I am not a frequent contributor to the site but I am a very frequent reader of the forum and blogs. I have published several games both for iPhone-iTouch and now the iPad. In doing a lot of reading here I have noticed one ongoing issue, MARKETING, getting your app out there for people to see. I have seen some success with sites that cater to the app store and I am sure others of you have as well with varying degrees of success, usually at pretty expensive prices. So, after tons of research and my experience with websites and online gaming I came up with an idea that would benefit all who decide to join. After all, my app helps your apps, your apps help my apps and they all help each other. I came up with a website not unlike many of the existing app promotion sites with a few exceptions. They are as follows:
Everyone can join the site to display your apps, games, etc. for just $10.00 a month. For that $10 a month, here is what you get, ALL your apps and/or games posted with your icon that becomes a roll over which will display 2 screen shots and a brief description of your app and/or game as well as a link to it in the app store to buy your app. This applies to iPhone-iTouch and iPad. Everything will be hosted by godaddy and use their site promotion tools to get the site ranked. Once a month I will also send out and e-mail blast to an approved list of 10 million e-mail addresses. You will be able to watch this website grow on alexa.com.
Secondly, we will have a featured spot at the top of the page which you can utilize by simply sending me an e-mail that you want the featured spot. I will select one app randomly from the e-mails and e-mail you back if you are selected. You will then need to send 25 promo codes for the app and the artwork for me to upload that night for the next day. The app will remain featured for the next 24 hours or so. I will then replace it with a new one for the next day. The banner at the top will also be up for grabs each day. Just e-mail me your standard size banner and I will select one banner everyday to display at the top of the page and the bottom of the page for the day.
Thirdly, your apps will be placed on the website. The left side of the page will be for iPhone-iTouch and the right side will be for iPad. All the apps will land in random order on the page with no preference to location.
Finally, I am sure all of us have been taken by ads or promotional offers at one time or another. This includes ME, I could speak for hours on the hundreds of thousand of dollars I wasted on billboards, freeway signs, national ads, local ads, and yes, even cable ads for various companies I have owned.
So whats in it for me, right? NOTHING, read again, Nothing! The 10.00 dollars a month is just to cover cost
How can you the subscriber help? You the subscriber can do just three simple things:
One, put a link to the site at the bottom of every post you do on a blog, forum, or the like.
Two, put a link at the bottom of every email you send out.
Three, talk, talk, talk, don't be fooled, word of mouth pays, period!
I have already purchased 10 web sites for this venture, 9 will forward to the main site for a greater presence on the internet.
So, now if you're interested, leave your e-mail on this thread or e-mail me directly at chris.masterenko@manmentertainments.com and lets get this started!
I am not a frequent contributor to the site but I am a very frequent reader of the forum and blogs. I have published several games both for iPhone-iTouch and now the iPad. In doing a lot of reading here I have noticed one ongoing issue, MARKETING, getting your app out there for people to see. I have seen some success with sites that cater to the app store and I am sure others of you have as well with varying degrees of success, usually at pretty expensive prices. So, after tons of research and my experience with websites and online gaming I came up with an idea that would benefit all who decide to join. After all, my app helps your apps, your apps help my apps and they all help each other. I came up with a website not unlike many of the existing app promotion sites with a few exceptions. They are as follows:
Everyone can join the site to display your apps, games, etc. for just $10.00 a month. For that $10 a month, here is what you get, ALL your apps and/or games posted with your icon that becomes a roll over which will display 2 screen shots and a brief description of your app and/or game as well as a link to it in the app store to buy your app. This applies to iPhone-iTouch and iPad. Everything will be hosted by godaddy and use their site promotion tools to get the site ranked. Once a month I will also send out and e-mail blast to an approved list of 10 million e-mail addresses. You will be able to watch this website grow on alexa.com.
Secondly, we will have a featured spot at the top of the page which you can utilize by simply sending me an e-mail that you want the featured spot. I will select one app randomly from the e-mails and e-mail you back if you are selected. You will then need to send 25 promo codes for the app and the artwork for me to upload that night for the next day. The app will remain featured for the next 24 hours or so. I will then replace it with a new one for the next day. The banner at the top will also be up for grabs each day. Just e-mail me your standard size banner and I will select one banner everyday to display at the top of the page and the bottom of the page for the day.
Thirdly, your apps will be placed on the website. The left side of the page will be for iPhone-iTouch and the right side will be for iPad. All the apps will land in random order on the page with no preference to location.
Finally, I am sure all of us have been taken by ads or promotional offers at one time or another. This includes ME, I could speak for hours on the hundreds of thousand of dollars I wasted on billboards, freeway signs, national ads, local ads, and yes, even cable ads for various companies I have owned.
So whats in it for me, right? NOTHING, read again, Nothing! The 10.00 dollars a month is just to cover cost
How can you the subscriber help? You the subscriber can do just three simple things:
One, put a link to the site at the bottom of every post you do on a blog, forum, or the like.
Two, put a link at the bottom of every email you send out.
Three, talk, talk, talk, don't be fooled, word of mouth pays, period!
I have already purchased 10 web sites for this venture, 9 will forward to the main site for a greater presence on the internet.
So, now if you're interested, leave your e-mail on this thread or e-mail me directly at chris.masterenko@manmentertainments.com and lets get this started!
Comments
So for everyone Let me know your interest in posting all your apps on the site for 10 bucks a month we are going live soon!!!
Also idea's are always welcome Should we add customer reviews??? How about list reviews and app store reviews???
If you are firing off a 10million email marketing campaign it cant hurt..
Thats pricey though.... Getting ranked on the various meters is no cheap venture either. I have a feeling you are taking this serious
Sounds like you have some background in marketing. Nice to see that!
I'll email you with some other questions.
One other thing i thought of was have you considered a free app feature. Statically speaking click through ratios go up considerably when the word free is involved.
If you are trying to do a web startup...I recommend you do what all website startup concepts do...make it free. The only way you can successfully charge money for online services is if you have a SIGNIFICANT amount of web user traffic already established.
Plus...most website promotion services have a free version and a premium version. Most times, the premium version provides elite access to added features and/or benefits. The free version keeps the content fresh and deep...while the pay version provides income. To try to get a new website up and running from scratch with no users and no traffic and expect to charge anything is near impossible. Facebook is completely free yet Google paid $2,000,000,000 USD for it...why?...USER TRAFFIC!!! Same was true for YouTube.
Plus...do you have all the charge processing elements in place? All the legal and banking issues with charging subscription services internationally? What are the user protections?
To me this sounds a little speculative...and I would not put $1 into any marketing services that did not have a proven track record...or a significant amount of proven traffic counts. What does my $10/mo buy? A "hope" that someone sees it? Or can you tell me I will get 50,000 impression per day?
I'll pass and I hope other consider passing to...
TO ALL THOSE GAMESALDERS:
and to the newbies and others not knowing how to best market their apps....
I understand that we all want more exposure...but make sure you put your money where you have the ABSOLUTE BEST chance to gain that exposure...not a "hope" for exposure. Plus...I would not put $1 of marketing into a game (or any app) until it has had at least $1000 of sales on its own. Marketing will not "seed" or "germinate" your app in the market...it will only "fertilize" and "water" it and help it grow. USE PROFITS TO FUND ITS GROWTH. Try to NEVER go into the hole on a title. Good games WILL catch on...just give them time to spread and mature. "NEVER THROW GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD" the old philosophy goes.
First thank you for your interest, but let me you clarify some of your points. One, I totally agree with the idea of a free site to users ie. visitors have full access to the site with zero cost to them. Members "developers" have an extremely small fee per month not to post one app but all their apps. I would also like to mention that I have several games in the app store and I have noticed quite often that a new app or even an older app can be dragged up in ranking by game from the same author. I have actually had a buyer purchase an app only to come right back 5 or 10 minutes later and buy 2 other games from me all because they enjoyed the 1st game. So never discount investing a little in yourself. After all you bought Game Salad and you did make an investment hoping for a return. You might have heard it takes money to make money and I am putting up this site NOT for profit unlike most app sites out there and this kind of investment is clearly a minor risk. You might want to check my corp. site www.manmentertainments.com and look at the level of professionalism displayed. I currently have more the a twelve sites in the casual gaming field and I have been doing this for years now with good success.
Now lets put this to an end because I agree with you. The proof is in the putting so for everyone that mentions this thread back to me I will host any and all app's for the 1st month for free and let the traffic prove itself. Can be tracked after going live on alexa.com
So to everyone that are reading this it's FREE for the 1st month from launch. Those of you can email me and I will be forwarding the specifics back to you shortly. I will be announcing here when we go live. Good luck to all.