Hey Everyone! I am new to the forum and new to the app development game. I recently began a development of an iphone app game which is going to take 3-4 months to complete before launch. I was wondering if you guys can give me some tips and advice on a marketing strategy to increase my chances of success once the game launches. Is there a need for a marketing/PR agency or can all the marketing be done without hiring an outside firm? I would greatly appreciate all the advice you can provide! Thanks very much in advance Yury
Hey KingY, welcome to the forums! You'll get a lot of useful advice by browsing old threads in this forum. If you can post some in-progress screenshots or videos of your game, I'm sure you'll get lots more advice from TA regulars.
The marketing and promotion can definitely be done without hiring external firms but all of this depends on how you want to spend your time. If you'd prefer to spend the time on other things, you can look for marketing firms to take some of the load off your shoulders. Just be careful with which marketing firm you go with though, Apple's starting to crack down on some of the shadier marketing firms out there. You can take a look at prMac if ur not looking at spending too much. iSpreadnews is a another option.
I've posted about this before but I'd really recommend watching Brian Baglow's talk here: http://vimeo.com/28846726 He gives out some really useful advice. (small note: I'm not affiliated with Brian in anyway but I've met him a few times and he really does know what he is talking about!). Generally my advice would be: 1. Talk about your game as early as you can (we haven't done great with this ourselves on our first time round). 2. Don't worry about people stealing your ideas, seriously. 3. Get on Twitter, Facebook and write a blog. 4. Keep a regular contact with your players in the marketing. For example, post a new screenshot or video about once a week. Always give something new to keep people's interest. 5. Show people why your passionate about your game. Get them excited about it. 6. Practice and perfect describing your game in 1 - 2 sentences. This is really important to get the message across to players as quickly as possible. Try describing the game to other people, you'll be surprised how much you learn just from talking about it. I'd also really recommend getting this book How to Publish a Game by Nicholas Lovell. It has got some excellent advice on marketing and particular how to write a good description for your game and things like that. It really is worth the cost IMHO. Literally the more you talk about your game the more people you will reach. The more people that know about your game, the better your chances are that you can get them to go buy or download it when you launch.
The issue is visibility... because who cares how you present your game if no-one sees it? Honestly, the best thing you can do KingY is think about how to work up a PR storm,... and only after you have done that should you consider how you want to portray your game. Because then eyes will actually be focused on you and it'll count. For example, whilst Nimble Bit's Tiny Towers was a huge game, their open letter to Zynga probably had more people looking 'at them' (rather than solely at their game) than they ever had before. That was marketing gold! People learned about the nature of their organisation and the plight they had against the big corp. Be prepared to take a few swings then KingY; it's the best way to get people talking about you. Once they are talking and are interested in you, pitch them your game.
The only thing I would add to that is, be careful not to slag anyone off just to try and get some attention. It will most likely come back to haunt you in later times
Absolutely, there are plenty of ways to get people listening to you without you having to slag people off. I was just pointing out that it is a useless exercise to learn how to 'pitch' a game when no-one is listening to you in the first place. Get people listening, then pitch.
Post in the Toucharcade forums! Facebook! Twitter! Blogs! Public relations! Trailers! Screenshots! Late night infomercials! Shamwow guy! Billy Mays attitude! Exclamaton markssss!!! xD As a user, I was instantly hooked to this site upon finding out that we could get direct contact with game developers as well as news about their current and upcoming works. And to talk with them when we find bugs and glitches or just give them feedback and praise for their app. This site is my top site for iOS gaming. I visit it daily. I find it much easier and comfortable to get excited, create buzz and eventually purchase a game from someone I have interacted with prior to an apps release rather than a no face company that doesn't even answer my emails when I ask them a question.
