Ask HN: Best App marketing bang for your buck?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5381076

by curiousphil • 13 years ago

2 3 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Since launching our app a few weeks ago, it has seen moderate success mostly thanks to it being featured in a few categories on the iTunes App Store. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for further marketing at this point. I've gotten great reviews on most of the top mommy blogs (our app is for young children). I've tried some search marketing and Facebook Ads but found that its hard to justify the cost per click when our app is only $1.99. Our numbers have been declining since peaking a couple days after launch when we were on the New and Noteworthy section. We made it to #20 in Top Paid Books for iPad for about a day but have since fallen to the high 60's. Within this category, that equals very little sales. Essentially, we are a production company, not a marketing company, but I'm trying my best to learn the ropes. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. You can see our app here: www.jubitron.com

argonaut2• 13 years ago

This isn't really marketing spend, and I haven't looked at your app, but things to spend time on:

1. Social integration (Facebook is a huge distribution channel). It might be a little spammy, but you could consider auto-posting stories to people's walls. 99% of the time people don't care (people on Hacker News form part of that 1%). I'm not sure how the social loop of your app works, but you can incorporate a "share with your friends" button that tells user's friends about the book.

2. Keyword optimization. Optimizing your keywords can net you up to a 2x boost in search rankings and downloads coming from app store search. There's no secret sauce to this: you just have to use trial and error (and carefully find a way to measure your search rankings) - there are a variety of tools to help you with keeping track of search rankings.

curiousphil• 13 years ago

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely do a bit more research on keyword optimization and try changing things around a bit and see what results it has.

We have share functionality in the app, but its not until the end along with the credits. We've actually already had a complaint that it's too accessible for kids that are using their parents iPad, iPhone etc.

I should also mention that the app is available on both iOS and Android marketplaces. So far we've gotten NO traction in the Android marketplace, so thats an even bigger mystery.

argonaut2• 13 years ago

That's not a mystery (to me). I've worked at a company that made iOS apps, and it seemed to be common knowledge among all the other people we knew at other app/game companies that Android users do not pay for apps. It supposedly has something to do with the fact that your average Android user has much lower income, and that in many countries where Android is dominant, people just are not willing to pay for apps.