Hell, that was quite a pretentious title for a post… But I’m serious: there’s a way to increase your game/application sales in the App Store that does not require more budget on advertising, more press releases or a parade down Main Street with elephants and clowns. Although that would be funny…
And I am not selling anything here, just giving a good piece of advice: you want to sell more apps? Then work harder. That’s all. That’s the trick, which works for everything else in this life.
So stop whining, roll up your sleeves and create new Apps.
I’m talking about visibility. Many App customers consume just what they see, what the App store reveals on the New Apps and Top lists of each category. If your application is not there, it’s more than probably dying out soon. But the good news are that it will remain in the App Store, waiting for someone else to re-discover it!
And that’s when a new App comes to the rescue. Your new App, when published, will appear in the New Apps list. With a little bit of luck it may even be featured in the ‘New and Noteworthy’ section in iTunes, or someone in a forum may write a post about it… If your applications include a link to your website where your previous products are shown, you have a powerful advertising mechanism that creates a feedback loop with one application bringing potential customers to every other application.
Here are some numbers, nothing really conclusive, but they support this ‘theory’. We released our first title, Sound Juggler, six months ago. During its first days it was sold a few times, but after some weeks numbers dropped to one or none sales per week. Meh.
This past weekend we released our second title, Oddy Smog’s Misadventure, which was featured by Apple in the ‘New and Noteworthy’ section. And guess what? Sound Juggler also increased its sales! Now it’s in the Top-100 charts of Games-Music in a few countries, including Japan, USA and Canada.
These charts were build, by the way, using MajikRank:
- Oddy says: “Thank you, Italy!”
- Sound Juggler was certainly not there last week!
So the feedback loop seems to be working, even with just two games in the App Store. Of course, you will still have to send press releases and show your App wherever you can. But clearly, the best way to be found in the App Store seems to be… being in the App Store.
Now go, produce!
*Note that we said ‘for free’, not ‘without effort’ : )