Sometimes an app or a game just doesn’t go up the ratings: it seems to be cool, and the testing team and the closest mates have already said their words of approval, but the big audience is just not there for the product. What’s going on and how can you fix that? Is the problem in the product itself or is it in the way that you promote it? You might have already guessed that most of the time the problem lies in the second thing: developers aren’t always great at promotion, the sphere of the professional skills is very far from selling things to people.
As today most of the products and services are being effectively promoted and sold through social media, people often (by mistake) think that they can organize their promo themselves without even learning much about promotion. That’s a misunderstanding that we’re going to talk about in this article: further you’re going to find several common mistakes that people are making while trying to advertise their product – and the ways to easily fix them.
- Include several social networks into the process – for example, you could use Youtube as a platform where you’re going to upload the demos and reviews of your product. Each social network is good for something in particular: for example, Instagram was built to sell and stay in touch with the audience, Youtube can offer a possibility to upload long videos and form community, Twitter is great for quickly showing up and saying something that’s going to blow up a lengthy conversation thread, and so on. Use all of those options to make sure that your product is being promoted from all possible sides – if you’d sit down for a little bit and think of the ideas that you might use for posting on all of those platforms, we’re sure that you’d be able to create a content plan for 3-4 social platforms just like that. But if you feel like you don’t have time, there’s always a chance to hire a professional to help you out.
- If Instagram is your primary platform, you might not have organized the clear highlights or the publications out of which people will understand what and where they can download or buy. Most of the time people are sure that they have put forward all the needed information, while at the same time their potential clients are coming to their page and cannot figure out where to click to go to the page with the main info. It applies to social media as well: people who are good at developing apps and games aren’t always pros in promotion. So if you see that your posts and stories don’t get much feedback, although the product that you have created seems to be very helpful and interesting, turn for help from professional promoters. They can analyze your page and tell what and where should be fixed to make people understand what your product is about and how they can download or buy it.
- You don’t use the paid promo methods which are essential in case you want quick and tangible results. Often enough this step becomes very much underestimated: mostly because everyone has heard about the negative cases when people go and buy real Instagram followers and then they stay with nothing (or destroyed reputation) on their hands. However, things are a little bit different: you should definitely purchase subs for your product’s page, but you should make sure that you’re buying real followers who will bring benefits to your profile and do it sneakily and smoothly without anyone knowing. It completely depends on the quality of the services that a promo company shows, so you should be very careful with your choice.
- You are trying to do everything yourself, while it would be smarter and more efficient to delegate it to professionals. It goes to everything at all: to using a chance to buy Instagram followers that we’ve talked about in the previous paragraph, to communicating with the audience that you have on social media and with the people who were the first ones to download your app or game. Sometimes individual indie developers aren’t paying enough attention to all of that – and that’s why we know not so many popular indie apps. Success lays in details and attention to people who are going to use the product: and even if you’ve made some mistakes while creating the app, you can always correct them after hearing about those mistakes from people who are using the app.
- You are not in touch with your audience. This is the biggest point, the success of any game or app depends on the feedback that developers get from the audience and the testing group. Usually, testing goes well and all the notes that professionals give are taken into the consideration, but we cannot say the same about the step where an app is already uploaded to an app market and first users are starting to give the feedback. It’s not less important than the one that you get from the testers: maybe even more important. That’s the step where all the minor moments and specialties about a certain app or game are being figured out, and those are very important to correct and to answer people who are pointing at them. If you don’t have time to stay in touch with your audience, make sure that you hire a person for that; or maybe create a whole small department that would handle all the notes that are coming from the first users.
Summing up: what are the main steps you should take if you see that your products don’t get enough attention? Analyze (or ask for help for that) your social media pages and make sure that all the main info about the product is there and that it is easily accessible; delegate things that you don’t specialize in and don’t be afraid to rely on paid promo services if you see that you’re lacking subscribers, likes, comments, etc – it will save you lots of time and nerves; stay in touch with your audience. The last one is the most important one – if you’re taking in consideration all the feedback that you’re getting and answering all the questions and notes that you get on app markets, your product just can not stay unpopular.
Although we need to accentuate that you have to be very careful with where and what you’re buying for your profile’s promotion: before giving anybody your money, make sure to read reviews (seriously!) and ask for advice from your friends who might have gone through the same process of promotion. Plus, you can use a free trial package of subs or likes – decent companies usually offer such service to ensure their new clients that buying from them is safe and very beneficial. While you’re getting your first delivery, check whether you’re getting real subs or not, and it will help you with drawing further conclusions about whether you should cooperate with that company or not. Be smart and thoughtful with what you’re doing and try to plan everything ahead – this way success is inevitable!