Once work on Ba-Bomb! was completed, and the game was available on iTunes, I decided that I needed to advertise.
In my eyes, Ba-Bomb! had awesome graphics, original and addicting gameplay, and a variety of game modes that would keep any player entertained for quite a while. With a game this awesome, I needed to get the word out so people could come and play it.
The only problem was that I didn't really have any money to market it.
I quickly learned that to properly advertise a product, you need TONS of money just for advertising.
Failing that, you'd need to be a social marketing genius.
Unfortunately, I was neither rich nor had any idea how to start a proper social marketing campaign.
The only way of getting the word out about your game for free that I could find was to start a thread on the TouchArcade forums.
If you can create a thread and get people interested, you might get some downloads and reviews, and possibly start a multi-page discussion about the game that keeps your thread at the top page for a while. Presto! free advertising, lots of downloads, multiple reviews, and even more exposure on the iTunes app store.
The only problem with this plan is that the TouchArcade forums are populated with teen and preteen boys for the most part. Because of this, the maturity level is low, and unless your game is loaded with boobs, monster trucks, or decapitations, your thread will either be bombarded with replies of "This game sucks!", or be quickly be buried under countless threads about games that do have boobs, monster trucks, or decapitations.
Another cheap option for advertising is to put out a press release.
I studied up on how to write a great press release, and once my press release looked both awesome and professional enough, I sent out a press release through prMac.
prMac is a press release site that focuses only on apple related news. They will post your press release on their site for free, or for about $20, they will distribute it to every media outlet that exists, and then re-distribute it again a week later.
It's a pretty cheap way to get the word out about your app, but I never saw any interest in my press release. I did see it get picked up by a few no-name websites that post every single press release in the universe, but that's not gonna' get you any downloads.
I decided I needed to put some actual money into advertising, but I couldn't really spend much.
Eventually, I decided to take a shot on a video "review" from DailyAppShow. They promised to create a video app review, post it to many different video sites, feature it on their site and advertise it across Facebook and Twitter, and even cover it in their podcast. All for a comparatively low fee of $179.
Doesn't sound too bad does it?
Well, the video review is basically just some guy playing your game poorly and talking about the features for about 5 minutes. No actual review, no positive or negative opinions, just a demo video. They say you can send them an image/banner for their front page, but they ignored the one I sent them and just made one of their own that was pretty half-assed. They never responded to any emails after I sent them money, and in the end, their "featured video review" service made ZERO impact on Ba-Bomb!'s downloads.
In the end, it was a waste of money, but what can you expect from a website that no one visits.
The only other advertising I tried was GreatApps. Never heard of them either? I'm not surprised.
These people actually called me on the phone to convince my to use their service. To their credit, they have good sales people working for them.
The advertising package they offered sounded really good for the money. $600 (which for me is a lot), but my app would be listed on their front page (in rotation) for a full year.
The main problem with this service is that it's just another site that no one visits. Sure, it's a big site that has info about a lot of apps, but that's all it is. You can get the same basic info just by visiting the iTunes store. This site looks good on the surface, but it has zero credibility.
Their service also made zero impact on downloads as well.
I guess in the end, I learned that unless you're paying big dollars for banner ads on popular sites, then you'll get no return on your investment.
Looking back on the experience, the financial failure of Ba-Bomb! is still pretty sad for me. I had such huge hopes for the game, but ended up with pretty much nothing for all the work that I put into the project.
I don't even care so much about the money, I just really wanted to share my game with as many people as I could. I wanted to brighten people's lives with something that I created, but ended up having my creation ignored.
Still, I take this experience as an exercise in learning, and will apply it to future endeavors.
To Be continued...
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