Why our App has a very low market penetration in USA?

Hello, we have released our new drift racing game “Real Drift Free” (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.realdriftportnew.sipon) about one month ago.

Substantially we are satisfied about its trend, but we can’t understand why it has a very low market penetration in USA, as you can see in this image:
stats.jpg

Normally USA is the biggest market for racing games, and our app is localized only in english.
Do you have any hints regarding this or any suggestion on how increase market penetration in USA?
I have read that way to increase market penetration is making a ad campaign on facebook, but i have no idea of its cost (im not very into marketing stuff).
I’m also thinking about contacting some drifting website or facebook page, but i just found page relative to drifting in real life.

Thanks.
Michele

Since your issue is exposure in U.S. and other markets, you need to modify the look to appeal to a U.S. audience.

Though your 1M downloads in a month is not bad still - imagine what you could do if you got similar success in U.S. etc.

Though maybe it could be that Drift is not that popular in U.S. than Japan or something like that ?

Here follows a list of suggestions - which may or may not be great:

The car looks old in the icon - wonder if that puts some folks off ?

The R in your icon is oddly shaped - maybe make it more like a real R ?

Make the border on your icon the same color - i.e. dark all around instead of htat fancy white on the left and on the right.

Also think about changing the app title so it attracts more people who are searching for that - put in keyword you think your potential users maybe searching for already:

Change Real Drift Free to:

Real Drift Free
Real Drift Racing Free
Real Drift Racing Free
Drift Racing Simulation Free
Drift Racing 3D Simulation
Real Drift Racing Simulation
x----30 characters-----------x

First of all thank you for your suggestions!
To tell the truth drift has born in Japan (Drifting (motorsport) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), and one of the biggest drift championship is in USA (Formula D - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). So Japan and USA are actually the biggest market for drift apps.

The car has been chosen carefully cause in dirft sport its the most famous and used (Toyota Corolla AE86 trueno, Toyota AE86 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Anyway we can think about it.

im going to forward these suggestions to my designer. Btw, why do you think that a dark border is better?

Yes this is something i was thinking about! probably the best option is “Real Drift Racing Free”. What do you think?
Im also thinking about “optimizing” the description.
So you dont think its a good idea to make a fb campaign?
I have searched for the biggest drift web site and facebook pages and im thinking a way to gain exposure , which is the best way for you. I was thinking about asking an “expert opinion” regarding the game and then eventually ask for an help promoting the app.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks!

Quote:
im going to forward these suggestions to my designer. Btw, why do you think that a dark border is better?

I just thought the border having different color was not looking good esp. on a Google Play white background - you can test both and see which you like.

Quote:
Yes this is something i was thinking about! probably the best option is “Real Drift Racing Free”. What do you think?
Im also thinking about “optimizing” the description.
So you dont think its a good idea to make a fb campaign?
I have searched for the biggest drift web site and facebook pages and im thinking a way to gain exposure , which is the best way for you. I was thinking about asking an “expert opinion” regarding the game and then eventually ask for an help promoting the app.

I don’t know what the Free part is telling - do people search for free - perhaps better to use that space to cover some more better keywords.

I would guess words like Simulaton or Driving may give you better inflow of users.

Also as others have suggested - perhaps use the same or other keywords in your Description.

Regarding facebook, there are others here who have discussed that - search on the forum, or maybe they will reply on that.

You could consider spending money to buy downloads as well - on AppBrain etc. so that your app appears in AppWall advertisements - others here have done that and you can find info on that via search on this forum.

Basically the greater the number of downloads you get, the higher you move up in ranking - and moving up in ranking gives you even more downloads - so it is a virtuous circle - by that same mechanic, it can also become a vicious circle - if falling downloads make you fall down in rankings.

However, in your case, rankings for the different keywords is also relevant because that is how you will be getting your users - until of course you are so famous that people search for your name explicitly.

This is another thing to consider - the name should be reasonably different from the other apps in your genre - to avoid conflict - and to avoid psychological confusion in the minds of users - about which app is which - so having some distinctive thing in your title also will help.

Here are the earlier suggestions:

Real Drift Free
Real Drift Racing Free
Drift Racing Simulation Free
Drift Racing 3D Simulation
Real Drift Racing Simulation

Here are some more:

Drift Racing Drive Simulation
Drift Racing Car Simulation
x----30 characters-----------x

If you have spent many months making the game - I would say you have a lot invested and you should spend as much time trying to understand what the environment is in your genre - and seeing which keywords are used - perhaps use some of the Google Adsense urls and other keyword search websites - or perhaps even paid services - to get an idea of which keywords are the ones you want to target.

Regarding websites etc. - perhaps you could join some of those websites and forums and interact with them - and put your game info in your signature.

Basically from what I have understood - marketing a game - esp. one which took substantial time to make - is a job in itself. This is why game makers usually spend a significant percentage of their budget on advertising.

I have some methods to increase downloads from USA! Available at http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/advertising-networks/4642-ebook-ultimate-methods-earn-more-money-dont-waste-time-only-x15.html

Im not sure i got what you mean here…

These are the words suggested by Appbrain Apptimizer:

words.jpg

I read something but im not sure about cost per install: it seems that in profitable market like USA its around 0.5$ per install right? so for 10000 install should be 5000$. In order to increase market penetration to a decent value i need at least 50000 installs for a price of 25000$. Thats too much for us (we are a two guys team).

OK.

Well i think that the words “Real Drift” should remain, cause they have been well indexed by google (it comes out in google play search suggestions). For what concern Google adsense keyword tool, im not sure how to search words cause searching is not restricted to mobile apps.

Ok i’l lsearch for some forums.