App marketing advice FREE

onlun99 · January 13, 2015, 12:33am

My advice.

Your logo sucks, change it
screenshots is also horrible, do something. Remember they are more important than aso

SocioSoft · January 13, 2015, 11:02am

You really shouldn’t take Unity’s tutorials and publish them…

BaksaiApps · January 13, 2015, 11:43am

usman farhat:

Hello, I have developed an app called “Here I Am”, it texts your location to your chosen contact in a human readable language, without “difficult nerdy data”.
Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsbyusman.hereiam
I don’t have a team, I had put effort in making the UI a bit unique and beautiful. I also did the description myself but I think it looks too big. What do you think?
After reading one of your replies, I have just changed the title from “Here I Am” to “Here I Am - Text your location”, doesn’t look clever but I put the keywords in 30 characters.
I cannot spend on marketing, and I didn’t implement ads in the app because I want loyal user base and money will make its way later. (and ads would make my app look ugly).

The only marketing I did was to make a facebook page called “Apps By Usman” (my developer name), posted screens of my app there and then shared that post on many pages with a personal statement appealing them to download it. I also used the century-old sentence “A Pakistani developer has made a great android app”, but nothing worked. The only downloads I have got came from my family.

I had made a political app and that got purely organic downloads going upto 800. (now the politics is over, so are my current downloads)
I have also made an app Simple Color Wallpaper (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsbyusman.simplecolorwallpaper) and it is getting downloads from random countries like USA, Japan, Taiwan etc and I didn’t even promote it!

EDIT: I am planning to make a video review of my app myself, but as I am not fluent in English, I am thinking to make the video without audio then add a text-to-speech based audio on it. What do you think? Those free app review sites don’t do anything for free.

I see 2 problems:

I don’t see a major advantage over Whatsapp´s “share your location” feature.
Requesting the SMS permission is quite a drawback, one of the most “dangerous” permissions… i understand it is absolutely necessary given the nature of your app though

usman-farhat · January 13, 2015, 7:11pm

WhatsApp’s location sharing is manual, my app is automatic and periodic. WhatsApp is telling where you are and here I am is about continuous location reporting, something like Google places (i don’t know if it exists now or not but it was useful), but through sms and without a map. and WhatsApp needs the receiver to have internet too
yes the sms permission may bother people but who is installing my app must have already known what this app does prior to clicking install button.

usman-farhat · January 15, 2015, 5:56am

Can you tell more about facebook ads?
I tried to create an ad for testing purposes and I had set the audience and set the limit to 1$ and facebook said it will show impressions to around 2000 people. How many impressions did you get for 1$? And how many clicks and converts did you get?

Mopa · January 15, 2015, 2:23pm

Hi,

I would like to hear your tips for my app.
Except that it has almost no downloads since I didn’t make lot of forum posts etc. because I was changing the screens and updating the video. So any comment would be nice.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mopa.rote

jhu · January 15, 2015, 11:49pm

Any comments regarding my game?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.monkeyworks.slingpin

Yawway · January 16, 2015, 1:17pm

Sorry it’s not my thread but well… hope you don’t mind BaksaiApps!

You should definitely try to reduce the weight of your application! It’s also unfortunate that you have so few reviews… tell your friends to add some nice comments lol

Seems like you have spent some time in your video and screenshots, it could be better but nice work!

(sorry again And I’m not a pro so it’s just my own opinion!)

Mopa · January 18, 2015, 3:35pm

Yeah thanks for the size tip. I have managed to lower it from 30~ to 23~ … a bit better.
Still don’t know how to promote it :s should I buy some instals or better idea is to create an ad? Or maybe pay one of the bigger sites for a review?

ucefapps · January 21, 2015, 10:30am

Hi Bronsoner,
I published my app 1 month ago.
It takes a picture and analyzes the face and gives the flirting percentage.
It uses simple image processing techniques.(I am a PhD student in image processing field)
It doesn’t give exact values as you can assume but I think its fun and unique.
I didnt spent any money on advertisement and just used some review/download exchange systems.
Currently I have 460 downloads and getting like 4-5 organic installs daily+ 15 exchange installs.
Can you please check my app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=free.ucefapps.flirtanalyzers

I am at rank 40 for flirt keyword.
I don’t know if I am doing something wrong.
Can you please give me your opinions about this app.

Thank you so much.

Yawway · January 21, 2015, 12:14pm

Sorry I’m very bad at marketing, almost all my apps have less than 100 downloads lol
I’ll let someone else advise you for that

allagainstyou · January 23, 2015, 7:54am

Its not my app, its just something that got posted on forum today (http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/android-apps/19416-neon-speed-racing.html#post105725)):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gexmob.NeonSpeedRacing
Its at least 11 days old, 10 - 50 downloads, 18 reviews that are all obviously from his friends or his own devices. So he must get around… 0 generic downloads per day. The icon and the screenshots look good… The description is not the best when you read it, although it focuses on keywords. I thought most people download the app basing on screenshots and icon? Why is it not working here? The gameplay does not matter when nobody downloads the game (I didn’t download the game so I don’t know if its good or bad, but looking at screenshots, even if the game happens to be totally worthless, it should have at least like 20 - 50 downloads a day cause it looks interesting on app store, right?)… When I search “Neon racing” its 41. in my country, 50. for “Futuristic racing”, 61. for “Neon race” and 22. for “Neon Speed Racing”. Its APK size is very small. It does not require too many permissions. Then, why this game gets no downloads? What did he do wrong so we could avoid his mistakes?

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:13pm

Ok, so the icon content doesn’t relate in any way to app name or content - in my experience that hurts downloads A LOT. It has nice colors though.
Use proper english in description - ask someone with good english to check your description.
Don’t inform there are crashes in ‘what’s new’
Get more reviews.

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:16pm

usman farhat:

Hello, I have developed an app called “Here I Am”, it texts your location to your chosen contact in a human readable language, without “difficult nerdy data”.
Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsbyusman.hereiam
I don’t have a team, I had put effort in making the UI a bit unique and beautiful. I also did the description myself but I think it looks too big. What do you think?
After reading one of your replies, I have just changed the title from “Here I Am” to “Here I Am - Text your location”, doesn’t look clever but I put the keywords in 30 characters.
I cannot spend on marketing, and I didn’t implement ads in the app because I want loyal user base and money will make its way later. (and ads would make my app look ugly).

The only marketing I did was to make a facebook page called “Apps By Usman” (my developer name), posted screens of my app there and then shared that post on many pages with a personal statement appealing them to download it. I also used the century-old sentence “A Pakistani developer has made a great android app”, but nothing worked. The only downloads I have got came from my family.

I had made a political app and that got purely organic downloads going upto 800. (now the politics is over, so are my current downloads)
I have also made an app Simple Color Wallpaper (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsbyusman.simplecolorwallpaper) and it is getting downloads from random countries like USA, Japan, Taiwan etc and I didn’t even promote it!

EDIT: I am planning to make a video review of my app myself, but as I am not fluent in English, I am thinking to make the video without audio then add a text-to-speech based audio on it. What do you think? Those free app review sites don’t do anything for free.

Your app could look better, the screens are bland, there is no flare. If you think it’s beatifull it’s your right, but it’s not how other people think.
No reviews - thats asking for 0 downloads
I’m not convinced as to whether I need an app like this. What’s the WIFFM for the user? How is this better, safer, easier than just texting?

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:20pm

Why the mascots are black? Black toys = depression. Sure I get the idea, but still - it will scare 95% of kids off your game.
Game and screens looks nice, good job.
Icon is ok, but a bit too cluttered, focus on showing one thing - either the santa or the mascot and no assault rifle - it blends with the background.
Movie in this case would add a lot as your game could show some nice effects in action.

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:23pm

How does the icon relate to game content? Haven’t seen that face on any of the screens.
All the gameplay screens look the same to me. Can you add more variety?
From video I only got confused about game mechanics … how do you play this game? whats the aim?
Size is huge for a casual game, any way to reduce it?

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:25pm

Graphics are bad for 2015 standards. Also you made tiles smaller to leave space for grass … thats not a good idea on mobile.
Icon doesn’t relate to game content and name (elements) in any way - it’s a hole in the ground ffs.
No reviews = no downalods.
Expand description. Do ASO.
Movie is fine.

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:27pm

Nice looks, too few screens tho.
Too few reviews.
Not bad description, but could use more keywords in it.
Generally promote and it should do just fine. Add movie for extra flare.

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:30pm

This icon will absolutely ruin your app - it does damage that can’t be helped in any way. Change it completely.
Other than that the description could be longer and more aso-firendly.

Bronsoner · January 23, 2015, 4:34pm

allagainstyou:

Its not my app, its just something that got posted on forum today (Neon Speed Racing - Android Apps - Making Money with Android)):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gexmob.NeonSpeedRacing
Its at least 11 days old, 10 - 50 downloads, 18 reviews that are all obviously from his friends or his own devices. So he must get around… 0 generic downloads per day. The icon and the screenshots look good… The description is not the best when you read it, although it focuses on keywords. I thought most people download the app basing on screenshots and icon? Why is it not working here? The gameplay does not matter when nobody downloads the game (I didn’t download the game so I don’t know if its good or bad, but looking at screenshots, even if the game happens to be totally worthless, it should have at least like 20 - 50 downloads a day cause it looks interesting on app store, right?)… When I search “Neon racing” its 41. in my country, 50. for “Futuristic racing”, 61. for “Neon race” and 22. for “Neon Speed Racing”. Its APK size is very small. It does not require too many permissions. Then, why this game gets no downloads? What did he do wrong so we could avoid his mistakes?

Mistake here is the description and small amout of reviews, other than that it’s fine. The problem is racing is very competitive and high-quality in general, so you need to spill some $$$ to get through even with good game.