As Apple’s App Store reaches its 5th anniversary, it has proven itself to be one of the most solid and lucrative marketplaces that a developer can enter. I read a great post by my former colleague Jussi over on OBE commenting on how to get ahead in rankings in the App Store. In this post he suggested that you could achieve this through advertising. He goes on to say that to really succeed you’d do it in a very short time frame, but what about adding Social to the mix?
The original post and infographic can be found on the Trademob blog. I will focus on the first two sections about calculating the cost of a top 10 rank in the App Store:
- The boost effect
- Organic uplift
- Price overview
- Number of installs required
The Boost Effect
When running a boost campaign, it is and always has been necessary to use several boost partners and traffic sources, such as display ads, CPI and CPC or even TV ad campaigns — thus not relying on a single channel for the required traffic and downloads for a boost.
Only when you find the right media mix will a boost campaign be as cost-efficient and successful as it can possibly be.
Organic Uplift
The idea behind buying your way to the top of app store rankings is that the organic downloads will also increase dramatically.
This makes total sense. The more exposure you get, the greater the chances that people will take interest in your app and download it. The appearance of the app under “Top Downloads” also stimulates the crowd effect, where people download the app just because they see others doing so.
What about Social Media?
To the same degree though, if you get bad reviews and ratings right from the offset, this must surely damage your prospects dramatically? As the quote above suggests, you need the correct media mix to boost your campaign. So why not involve Social Media too?
You can supplement paid advertising with the Voice of the Customer … i.e. your fans. People listen to those inside their close social circles, and in turn their friends listen to them. In fact such is their sway, ambassadors are “the number one influence of purchase decisions“, with over 90% of people trusting recommendations from friends.
Get your ambassadors involved early
So how do you activate your ambassadors? Have you even identified them? Listen to the people that are talking about you already on Social Media and get them involved.
You should know how engaged they are with you and your product or brand. Work with them to work for you. They will help to amplify your message and spread it further than even paid online advertising can.
What about you – have you had good (or bad) experiences with marketing on social media? Are you a game developer? Looking for a boost?