I’ve noticed these services online which claim to provide you a long list of mostly active android (or ios, or whatever) email addresses. I’m wondering if anyone has ever tried these services for marketing purposes, and went ahead and sent out massive email blasts to whoever you target, and what was the outcome? Did it just get mostly ignored? Did you notice an increase in downloads/revenue? Did it piss everybody off and end up with a wall of angry responses?
I was considering it, but it occurred to me that is a little spammy, and might not be received to well, and perhaps not really all that effective in converting new users… most downloads my apps get are organic play store search result kinda deals, but I thought it might boost the non organic kind of conversions (like any other type of advertising would) and in turn make more money if it is successful.
Thoughts? Experiences trying this? Anybody? Should I just not spam a marketing email to potential users about an app at all, as to prevent sort of making it seem invasive and whatnot? Has this ever actually worked (or something similar) with anybody here?
This is spamming of the most evil sort. It might net you a few sales. But its a pretty low strategy.
It is likely to net you less savvy users without a spam filter. These users may be more likely to spend money they don’t have on IAP. But again, we are talking a pretty scum bag strategy.
I agree with all the above statements, but I was expecting to read about some alternative suggestions.
Whatdup guys?
Three I can think of on the spot - coming from an introverted artist dude with ZERO marketing experience.
Look around for a rabid nostalgic asteroid community to infiltrate and advertise in.
Hit up some small time youtubers - ones with 500 or less subs. They would probably be happy to step out from the shadows of the top tubers for a couple days, stop parroting what all the top tubers are talking about and review a game others are not reviewing.
Write a postmortem on design decisions, why you choose the genre/game you choose to create, some detail on development, time spent, difficulties overcome, and successes, choices on publishing and maybe stats on downloads and reactions from customers. What went right/wrong and why.
Look around for several places to publish - maybe outside the common gaming communities/sites, but related to productivity, or mobile, or creativity, or things loosely related to our world.
I recently read a postmortem on a site called medium. Making Grimsfield — A murky journey from animation to game design | by Adam Wells | Medium
The site is kinda ‘different’ from the normal stuff I frequent, but I found some quality, interesting articles on production and other creative related topics.
Maybe there’s a better way you guys could suggest for doing mobile app advertising? Obviously I mean outside normal advertising methods like using admob banners or website banners…
Well, you could make some video ads for it on Youtube. You could also just post about it in places where people post about their games like the WIP forum on this forum, or other forums and reddit and such.
You could also just do it the old fashioned way and tell your friends and family about it.
This is the part of the process that I will admit is my weak point. All I know is, the idea of buying peoples emails is scummy right on the face of it, and sounds EXTREMELY ineffective in a post spam filter world.
Smaller Youtubers often have niche communities behind them. Find those that related to your game. Once a hand full of Youtubers have posted videos, you’ll find other small Youtubers begin to mimic them.
Have guidelines- anyone who gets free review keys must link to XXXXX, and mention that it’s XXXX, etc. Don’t go overboard, but make sure that Youtuber’s production to pointing people back towards something of yours. Don’t give out keys without them giving proof of a real channel(with more than 50 subs, etc)
How about trying the traditional method? Make a great game. Take it to conventions to catch the eye of a publisher. Build a press kit and approach the various game press about it. Take it to YouTubers who are likely to enjoy your game.
You could use the money you were gonna use the buy those emails to see if you can get a billboard or hire someone with one of those skywriter planes…
Again, I’m terrible at advertising ideas…
Seriously though, Youtube is awesome for this stuff, most of the games I know about these days I learned about from either word of mouth from other people, or Youtube. And I’m betting the people I heard about the game from probably themselves saw it on Youtube or Twitch.
Knights mentioned twitch which I have little experience with, though Ive heard mention several times recently - its a good place to gain traction with communities who enjoy watching game play throughs and live development sessions.
