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Ask HN: How do you promote your iOS apps?

21 points by prassarkar ↗ HN
The strategy for increasing users for iOS apps seems to be divided in to two main challenges:

1) traffic -- getting more users to find your app and visit the description page

2) conversion -- getting a large percentage of users to install your app once they're on the description page

There are lots of helpful articles out there for #2 -- smart content writing, influential language, etc. However, there seems to be a lack of options for #1.

These are some options (in increasing order of steps required to install):

1. Top 20 ranked, In-app advertising, App Store SEO, Pay per installs (Tapjoy, Flurry, w3i)

2. Product website, iTunes recommendations, App Store Featured app, In-app promotions

3. Display ads, Search marketing, Blog reviews, App listing websites

4. Press Releases, Competitions

5. Physical advertising (Billboards, Magazines, etc.)

My question is - for indie developers, how do you compete with the large companies that always seem to rank in the top 20? How do you break in there? And once you're in there, how do you stay in there if the big companies are using their brand + huge marketing budgets to out-install you?

(Btw, if anyone is interested, I can do a blog post covering some of the options I've tried and their results)

8 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 25.1 ms ] thread
duiker101
I usually do ask for many blog reviews and, competitions. This helped me a lot. Also i found usefull giving free redeem codes to smaller blogs, small blogs will more likely write an article about your app than some huge dedicated sites.

Other good advise might be: Get people to tweet about your app. Ask any kind of people(male,female,kid,old) to try your app. Improve design.

jbrennan
I've struggled greatly with this as an indie trying to sell my own software. I've yet to have any success (ie make non-trivial money) on my own.

I've never been able to get attention from any kind of blogs (although when I attempted, the list of blogs I contacted was small, and the blogs themselves were big).

I also didn't send out any press releases.

I got my followers on Twitter to retweet my app, and despite having maybe 40 or so retweets, only 1 seemed to convert to a sale.

The biggest and most common weakness through all of these has been either not having a website, or having a very basic and crummy website. That has been my lesson so far.

I don't consider myself to have failed. I consider myself now knowing 3 or 4 ways how to not get promotion. As I said, the biggest problem, I feel, has been a weak website presence. The apps themselves, while not stellar, I would certainly put them in the "Good" category.

Though unfortunately all of them are currently quite out-dated.

metafour
I looked at your profile, followed the "link" to your website and then found at the very bottom of the site a link to the "Software" section of the site. The website for your Tonight app is throwing a Passenger error and I can't find it on the app store otherwise it would have been something I might have purchased, depending on the price.

Your other app is priced too high for something I don't really need.

Was trying to help a brother out...

imcqueen
you should focus on building relationships with users and potential users. a good portion of apps permeate organically. think angry birds, you see it on a friend's phone, maybe play it. by the time youre in the app store youve alrady made up your mind.

its hard to do the selling in the app store. so do the selling through more traditional methods (email, social, etc) and consider the app store simply as the delivery mechanism.

michaelpinto
My only two good insights are:

1. Pick your niche with the greatest of care! The App Store is flooded with apps for everything — so if you do an app in a niche where the big dogs are it's an uphill battle (big dogs can also include anyone with a well known brand). Something to keep in mind is that people search for apps by terms, so even naming your product is a bit of an SEO exercise. Also aim to please the Otaku in any category!

2. Once you pick your niche try to build the very best app within that niche. By the way it's not just the functionality but the content surrounding the app. Make sure your app can win over the Otaku — if you can't do that there isn't any point in trying. Also give away as many free copies to the leading Otaku to try and build word of mouth.

pw
If I remember correctly, maxklein has had success cross-app promotion (promoting your other, related apps within one of your apps).

Would love to see you do a blog post about what you've tried.

kgutteridge
Would be interested in your blog post

I have tried pretty much the same as you along with cross promotion of apps with other iOS developers and this seems to lead to the most success thus far

nicholasreed
For anyone in the SF area and interested in this kind of discussion, there is an event this Wed and early May:

How our free iOS app went viral and generated $50k in 6 months

http://judgemeapp.eventbrite.com/

One point they will be discussing: - How did we generate publicity and buzz upon launch

(note: I'm not affiliated with the event at all, just attending)