AppStore and advertising

[Kitty Hello]

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know about my current experience with the app store. I'm very bad at advertising and public relations, thus I tried everything I could to get my apps known.
I bought 2 adds on famous sites. They had 16.000 impressions and 36 clicks - 'nough said I think. It was placed in a pretty good position, though. The other add gave me exactly "4" more buys to Wumbo.

In fact, Wumbo, which I thought would rock, sold 14x totally 
Dr. Shiver, however, which was basically just a test how fast I could archive this and how it might work with the AC3D library, sold over 400x during the last 4 weeks now, still quite constant sales.
It's #95 in AUS, and #150 in US, where most sales come from.

I have no idea where or what to do to get a game published, but I think the only relevant work is to get it out at a good time, and have a very fancy Icon that attracts many to view it. The name should be chosen precisely, too. Wumbo might have been bad choice in the first place.

I found that price drops for a few days might minimally boost download numbers, too. You have to pick a perfect time, though. Like: Over the xmas break, about everyone dropped the price. A few days later there was less apps in price-drop cathegory (I'm using "Pandora App" for that kind of thing).

Long read, short meaning: I have no idea. It's like a lottery.

[Ian Price]

[codegit]

Hi

"It's #95 in AUS, and #150 in US, where most sales come from."

Where did you find these statistics??

[MrTAToad]

Might be worth having a look at this : http://www.onlinemarketingrant.com/free-iphone-app-marketing

And perhaps setup a Facebook, mySpace account and advertise there.

[Kitty Hello]

Hi

"It's #95 in AUS, and #150 in US, where most sales come from."

Where did you find these statistics??

I use http://www.appfigures.com

[codegit]

Hi

"It's #95 in AUS, and #150 in US, where most sales come from."

Where did you find these statistics??

I use http://www.appfigures.com

Thanks. This is VERY useful.

[codegit]

I find when I enter into Twitter and facebook my sales increase. I agree the review sites are basically a BIG waste of time. We were lucky that the actor of the Heroes TV series, Greg Gruneberg (AKA Matt Parkman) announced that he was playing the game in a tweet on twitter ( http://twitter.com/greggrunberg/status/6296106857 ). He has 1.4 million followers.  Sales were very good during December and now it has slowed a bit.

[Kitty Hello]

How did you make him play your game? Too cool.

[codegit]

How did you make him play your game? Too cool.

My partner works with him on the set of Heroes. 

Here is what I have learnt (In no priority order)

1) Have a really good icon (VERY VERY IMPORTANT)
2) Tell everybody about the game weeks before its released (forums, newsletters, facebook, twitter, YouTube .. etc) Dont forget to go back on the day of release and tell everybody its available (important)
3) Twitter, twitter, twitter
4) Facebook, facebook, facebook
5) Announce on all the important iphone forums.
6) In the apple store the name of the app is also included in the search. So longer descriptive names for your app are also a good idea.
7) When you select your key words, first search the apple store to see how much gets returned. Obviously you want keywords that are unique enough to get your game noticed, but you doint want to be listed with 1000's of app, then you will be lost anyway. example - demon versus demons. 
Updates are important, tell people on twitter and facebook they are coming.
9) Youtube, youtube.
11) Dont waste your time with reviewers (unless its a blog - they work better). We had a BAD review from one site and it made no difference to our sales. (Thank goodness)
12) The ratings you get on the app store are THE most important. If you have low ratings your sales drop (This is so noticeable its scary)
13) To get onto the "New and noteworthy" make sure that you follow Apple's design guidelines VERY VERY closely (this gives you a better chance). Even crap appps get into this category. Its alot about the icon and conformance to Apple guide lines
14) If you are able to get yourself "Announced" on a newsletter this will help alot. The game Creators (Darkbasic) send out their newsletter to about 30 -40 thousand people. All their games(even the crap ones) have many many downloads. (Go figure) After you have a 1000 sales/downloads a day Apple take notice of your app. Then its just a numbers game because they advertise your game for you ("What hot", "top 100" etc)
15) Apple will tell you that selection is randomly done by a computer. I do not believe this.
16) Price higher initially so that you can drop and your price and attract bargain hunters.
17) Try and control your release date. Apple take about two weeks for the review. Give a release date into the future, this means you dont get lost in all the crap the first day of your release. Also, you dont want to be released the same day that a big company releases their next BLOCKBUSTER.
18) Setup a blog. Tell people what you are doing. Use twitter and facebook to bring people to the blog.

HOPE some of this helps and Obviously, this is just my opinion. I am still trying to figure all this myself as well.