Let's Get To The Point - With $1000 Budget, What Can I Do To Market My Game/Future App

General (non-technical) Marketing and Monetization
#1

ok let’s get to the point directly. in this kind of world and age, it’s very hard to try to make money with no money upfront.I feel like all articles that I read about “promoting your mobile game/app for free” articles are bunch of lies.

i’m finally ready to promote my first game. I just recently launched the game. I have done my keyword optimization part for ASO. I have signed up with mobiledevhq and appannie to track rankings, keywords ,and competition. but then what? I dont see anyone downloading my game except my own friends and family. I dont see my game gets ranked competitively for any keyword except my own game title, which is already a very unique game title (and I’m not even ranked #1 for my own game title!) Then I read that we need downloads and ratings before Google (or Apple) ranked us highly in their app store. Thing is, how can I get downloads and ratings if nobody can find my app in the first place??? I need to advertise, right? I need to increase my app visibility, right?

I dont think free promotion method like exchanging reviews or spamming forums/android groups would work. I dont see any of the app promoted there make decent amount of money. I dont think asking every app review sites out there for free review would work either (i think I will still do this though). I would like to know how I can get to the top of my targeted keywords in ASO and I honestly believe I need to spend “real” money so I can make serious money from my game or whatever kind of app i create in the future!

So let’s get to the point. With $1000 or $2000 marketing budget, what are the best options? Here’s my plan:

  1. Promote it in appbrain. I plan to spend $0.3 for every install

  2. Buy some download counts and play store ratings from either microworkers.com or fiverr.com or ayetstudios.com to inflate my download/ratings counts for ASO purposes

  3. Pay/ask some youtube game reviewers to review my game (i’m not talking about pewdiepie but smaller youtube channels than him)

  4. Promote it in facebook mobile ads as appbrain alternative (I heard they have CPI model too)

  5. when I already have 1000+ download counts, I plan to also buy some review/coverage from more famous app review websites

I know $1000 doesnt sound much but at least it’s an effort to promote my game/app rather than just trying to go “viral” by telling my friends and family to download (i dont have 1000+ friends to download my game) and to be honest I dont think any kind of free promotion method (except telling friends and family) will work. Sure there are viral parts of my game like sharing to facebook to get some virtual coints etc. but then in order for the viral parts to work we still need the “early adopters” of our game, right? And how do I get those early adopters if I dont advertise?

what do you think guys? Do you agree with my opinion that we need to advertise rather than wasting our time trying to promote the app for free? If you agree, do you think all the steps i list above should be enough for my marketing campaign? Thanks!

#2

I’m also very new to the game development industry, but I’ve got a business major and some experience in business. Before investing any cent, I think some careful planning is sure to pay off. Before defining your advertising strategy, we need to understand your business/marketing plan. Is your app free with ads, paid, freemium? Can you provide us a link to your app? Who is your target customer? Is it a game, utility app, etc? If you provide us with a link we can probably help you a lot more. But it’s also very important to know how do you plan to market your game. If it’s currently paid, you could set it to free for a week or two and see what happens, 0 cost. I had a very poor app which had sold a total of $10 in months. It was on the appstore for $0,99. One day I decided to set it to free without any ads, I just wanted some publicity and “see what happens”. The downloads in the first day were over 100. But in a matter of days it fell pretty quickly. Why? Because the app wasn’t very good, in every aspect. Although this should be most basic, if you’re going to spend cash to advertise an app, it has to be a quality app. If it’s not, you’ll get visibility, and then people will very quickly “drop out” and all that cash will be for naught. Do you have a catchy icon?Did you draw your graphics?I’m not saying you shouldn’t invest, many people invest maybe even lower than $1000 and quickly get their money back. But you have to be firm on your plan and that your product is good. Actually, your business/marketing plan and product type will determine how to advertise.

#3

The problem is it’s very hard to make money full-stop. There is a huge market, but everyone in the world is in it and access to it is cheap.

I think you either have to be very good - produce something completely new - or very lucky (a la Flappy Bird) - or find a niche market somewhere.

The impression I have is that virtually all the advertising stuff is pretty much bordering on ‘scam’ ; trying to make money at the next level, support for game apps. I doubt any of it will really work. 

#4

I’ll be frank here: 95 percent of the games I see made with Corona are just not up to the quality standards people expect, and as a consequence will not be making money. Harsh opinion but that’s the way I see it.

Secondly: the money I personally spent on promoting my apps was all wasted money. Period. I saw a brief spike in downloads and sales, but for every 50 dollar I spent, I only saw 5 dollars of sales - talk about a bad investment.

I’m actually curious about your game - is there a link somewhere?

#5

In general i agree. But look at the example “flappy bird”. The first time i saw it in the stores i thought “what a simple game and what a simple graphic”. i myself would have never published such a “simple” game. 

I also published my first (paid) app a few days ago (http://www.app-artist.net). It is now on the play store and amazon store. But for the app store it is still in status “Waiting for review” (since 10 days now). That is very frustrating because i wanted to send some reviewers promotion codes. And as far as i know only on the app store i can request some promotion codes. Or is there also a way to give android reviewers the app for free? 

#6

While there is a lot of truth in this, Corona can produce good games, obviously (not 3D really :slight_smile: ) and one of its big advantages is its accessibility - you can use it for nothing, pretty much, and you can publish an Android game for the one off £25 cost.   Learning Objective C++ / Java is much more difficult and the API is much more complicated.

Corona is a bit of a throwback to the Spectrum days where you did INK 4 : CIRCLE 20,20,10 and it did. You can write OO code in Lua, but you don’t have to, you can write it pretty much like Spectrum BASIC if you want to.

This is probably why a lot of the games are so-so. But a lot of those who do release so so games will learn from them and write better and better code. 

Anyone who plans to become rich from selling phone games almost certainly is setting themselves up for a huge disappointment. But a bit of pin money, and a skill, and a portfolio of stuff to show people for College/Job, yes, why not ?

Unless the OP is very serious I would not put $1000 into any advertising. The problem is the sheer vastness of the market. It’s like standing in the middle of a football crowd and someone selling you a brightly coloured tee shirt. It might get you noticed - maybe - but probably won’t.

#7

Well, there’s the brute force way. Apple seem to be slower than usual at present for some reason. 

This is a good example of a niche, or a smaller niche anyway. It might sell (can you do low cost / site licensing ?), certainly much better chance than the 300th Flappy variant.

#8

To be perfectly clear: Corona can produce incredibly amazing supercool million-selling games. No doubt about that. It is a very good platform for development. The real reason why I find 95 percent of Corona-made games sub-standard is that they are created by hobbyists that don’t have the skills to create greatlooking graphics - and as purchase decisions are made based on what you see in the screenshots, this is a major problem in getting sales.

#9

Also, never pay for reviews.

#10

I’m also very new to the game development industry, but I’ve got a business major and some experience in business. Before investing any cent, I think some careful planning is sure to pay off. Before defining your advertising strategy, we need to understand your business/marketing plan. Is your app free with ads, paid, freemium? Can you provide us a link to your app? Who is your target customer? Is it a game, utility app, etc? If you provide us with a link we can probably help you a lot more. But it’s also very important to know how do you plan to market your game. If it’s currently paid, you could set it to free for a week or two and see what happens, 0 cost. I had a very poor app which had sold a total of $10 in months. It was on the appstore for $0,99. One day I decided to set it to free without any ads, I just wanted some publicity and “see what happens”. The downloads in the first day were over 100. But in a matter of days it fell pretty quickly. Why? Because the app wasn’t very good, in every aspect. Although this should be most basic, if you’re going to spend cash to advertise an app, it has to be a quality app. If it’s not, you’ll get visibility, and then people will very quickly “drop out” and all that cash will be for naught. Do you have a catchy icon?Did you draw your graphics?I’m not saying you shouldn’t invest, many people invest maybe even lower than $1000 and quickly get their money back. But you have to be firm on your plan and that your product is good. Actually, your business/marketing plan and product type will determine how to advertise.

#11

The problem is it’s very hard to make money full-stop. There is a huge market, but everyone in the world is in it and access to it is cheap.

I think you either have to be very good - produce something completely new - or very lucky (a la Flappy Bird) - or find a niche market somewhere.

The impression I have is that virtually all the advertising stuff is pretty much bordering on ‘scam’ ; trying to make money at the next level, support for game apps. I doubt any of it will really work. 

#12

I’ll be frank here: 95 percent of the games I see made with Corona are just not up to the quality standards people expect, and as a consequence will not be making money. Harsh opinion but that’s the way I see it.

Secondly: the money I personally spent on promoting my apps was all wasted money. Period. I saw a brief spike in downloads and sales, but for every 50 dollar I spent, I only saw 5 dollars of sales - talk about a bad investment.

I’m actually curious about your game - is there a link somewhere?

#13

In general i agree. But look at the example “flappy bird”. The first time i saw it in the stores i thought “what a simple game and what a simple graphic”. i myself would have never published such a “simple” game. 

I also published my first (paid) app a few days ago (http://www.app-artist.net). It is now on the play store and amazon store. But for the app store it is still in status “Waiting for review” (since 10 days now). That is very frustrating because i wanted to send some reviewers promotion codes. And as far as i know only on the app store i can request some promotion codes. Or is there also a way to give android reviewers the app for free? 

#14

While there is a lot of truth in this, Corona can produce good games, obviously (not 3D really :slight_smile: ) and one of its big advantages is its accessibility - you can use it for nothing, pretty much, and you can publish an Android game for the one off £25 cost.   Learning Objective C++ / Java is much more difficult and the API is much more complicated.

Corona is a bit of a throwback to the Spectrum days where you did INK 4 : CIRCLE 20,20,10 and it did. You can write OO code in Lua, but you don’t have to, you can write it pretty much like Spectrum BASIC if you want to.

This is probably why a lot of the games are so-so. But a lot of those who do release so so games will learn from them and write better and better code. 

Anyone who plans to become rich from selling phone games almost certainly is setting themselves up for a huge disappointment. But a bit of pin money, and a skill, and a portfolio of stuff to show people for College/Job, yes, why not ?

Unless the OP is very serious I would not put $1000 into any advertising. The problem is the sheer vastness of the market. It’s like standing in the middle of a football crowd and someone selling you a brightly coloured tee shirt. It might get you noticed - maybe - but probably won’t.

#15

Well, there’s the brute force way. Apple seem to be slower than usual at present for some reason. 

This is a good example of a niche, or a smaller niche anyway. It might sell (can you do low cost / site licensing ?), certainly much better chance than the 300th Flappy variant.

#16

To be perfectly clear: Corona can produce incredibly amazing supercool million-selling games. No doubt about that. It is a very good platform for development. The real reason why I find 95 percent of Corona-made games sub-standard is that they are created by hobbyists that don’t have the skills to create greatlooking graphics - and as purchase decisions are made based on what you see in the screenshots, this is a major problem in getting sales.

#17

Also, never pay for reviews.

#18

I have done a lot of research on this and tried to get a clear ROI from CPI and other types of app promotion services. So far only one of the services had some info and the others either didn’t know or are unwilling to give ROI for their services. I suspect that they won’t give ROI because it is in the negative.

I recently had someone from one the CPI services tell me that to get a game into the top 50 would cost $20K to $40K and that once you stop paying for installs it may fall from the charts so fast that you don’t get positive ROI. With so many people paying for rankings it is almost impossible to stay highly ranked. The curve of have and have nots has always been extreme.

The last article I found from 2012 said user acquisition costs were $0.51 per user on Android and $0.92 on iPhone. So I am sure that number has gone up since 2012 which means the average cost of user acquisition is more than the average cost of an app. Not a good sign for app developer much less indie app developers.

In short it is a very difficult business to make money at!

#19

I have done a lot of research on this and tried to get a clear ROI from CPI and other types of app promotion services. So far only one of the services had some info and the others either didn’t know or are unwilling to give ROI for their services. I suspect that they won’t give ROI because it is in the negative.

I recently had someone from one the CPI services tell me that to get a game into the top 50 would cost $20K to $40K and that once you stop paying for installs it may fall from the charts so fast that you don’t get positive ROI. With so many people paying for rankings it is almost impossible to stay highly ranked. The curve of have and have nots has always been extreme.

The last article I found from 2012 said user acquisition costs were $0.51 per user on Android and $0.92 on iPhone. So I am sure that number has gone up since 2012 which means the average cost of user acquisition is more than the average cost of an app. Not a good sign for app developer much less indie app developers.

In short it is a very difficult business to make money at!