What services to use for app promotion?

General (non-technical) Marketing and Monetization
#1

Hi all,

I’m thinking of the ways to promote my app and looking for different effective services that can help me. Could you please give me some advice and share your experience?

What services did you use? What were the most effective and what were just a waste of money?

I’ve heard a lot about PRWeb and PR.com for press release distribution, but they seem to just send it to some news feeds, not to real journalists.

Recently I’ve come across another service (SoftPressRelease) that seems to have a more personal approach to apps promotion (see their case study http://www.softpressrelease.com/articles/show.php?did=4). I wonder what the price of such promotion is.

I’ve also heard of iSpreadNews that sends review requests to mobile review websites. Saves time, I suppose, but I cannot say anything about its effectiveness.

Have you ever used any of these services? Can you advise any other good ones?

Your comments are appreciated!

Alex

#2

Re: review sites, you might be interested in this article.   

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/KyleKulyk/20130610/194039/Mobile_game_review_sites_are_a_waste_of_time.php

I followed the guides. I carefully crafted my press package, I personalized, I included media and gameplay videos. I researched sites and people, attempted to establish a rapport with reviewers and even when a dialogue was established, in the end all the work I put in didn’t help move a single copy of either of our titles.

Now while I’m sure a piece by a well known game site certainly wouldn’t hurt app exposure, the reality is these sites are inundated with requests for reviews and most likely if you don’t know (or aren’t willing or able to pay) you’re just one of thousands of voices crying for attention. The sites that don’t exist to simply take a desperate indie’s money and throw up a couple of paragraphs for their few hundred readers are most likely so backlogged with review requests that even the most well meaning among them probably hasn’t a prayer of reviewing even a tenth of the requests they receive. So far, based on my experiences, I’d recommend you not waste your time if you find yourself in the same situation. Again, I’m not saying that you might not get lucky with review sites. You might win the lottery. What I am saying is there’s probably more productive ways you could spend your time promoting your game.

#3

Re: review sites, you might be interested in this article.   

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/KyleKulyk/20130610/194039/Mobile_game_review_sites_are_a_waste_of_time.php

I followed the guides. I carefully crafted my press package, I personalized, I included media and gameplay videos. I researched sites and people, attempted to establish a rapport with reviewers and even when a dialogue was established, in the end all the work I put in didn’t help move a single copy of either of our titles.

Now while I’m sure a piece by a well known game site certainly wouldn’t hurt app exposure, the reality is these sites are inundated with requests for reviews and most likely if you don’t know (or aren’t willing or able to pay) you’re just one of thousands of voices crying for attention. The sites that don’t exist to simply take a desperate indie’s money and throw up a couple of paragraphs for their few hundred readers are most likely so backlogged with review requests that even the most well meaning among them probably hasn’t a prayer of reviewing even a tenth of the requests they receive. So far, based on my experiences, I’d recommend you not waste your time if you find yourself in the same situation. Again, I’m not saying that you might not get lucky with review sites. You might win the lottery. What I am saying is there’s probably more productive ways you could spend your time promoting your game.