iCombat

I came across an interesting post on “How to use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to market your mobile games” and it reinforced what I have noticed since readying to launch iCombat – there are too many channels to manage when it comes to reaching the end user!  This may sound like a high class problem to all of the game and content developers that have faced the gatekeepers of distribution over the years but the sudden blossoming of dozens of channels to reach users has created its own set of problems.  Now the burden of brand management and marketing has fallen into the lap of the developers, where they must become “marketers” of their product if they hope to get noticed.

The rise of the fractured, multichannel market has created dozens of sites that developers now need to visit to build goodwill and help gain exposure, something that is fundamentally different from what they probably want to be doing. In my case this translates into 18-20 hours a day since launch to manage the marketing effort and frankly it is still more than I can handle. While I have enlisted friends and an intern to help, most developers don’t have the luxury of dedicating all of their own time to managing their launch.

I have compiled a list of some of the tools and sites I think necessary to use today:

Top Down channels – kissing the ring

1. Bloggers – what some refer to as the “digital influencers” – sites with major traffic like Gizmodo, Techcrunch, GigaOM
2. Targeted review sites – Touch Arcade, 148Apps, Pocket Gamer, etc. – I have counted 60+ serious ones in all

Bottom Up channels – connecting with your users

1. Facebook – both personal status and group page
2. Twitter
3. MySpace
4. App/ Development/ Gaming Forums - Touch Arcade, maybe iPhonedevSDK, etc.
5. Product website & blog – here you need to have a demo, maybe a news section and your blog
6. YouTube – a great way to communicate with avid gamers
7. iTunes App store summary

Analytics Tools – monitoring usage, downloads, buzz

1. User downloads – iTunes Connect – Heartbeat App or AppViz (super easy to use but less flexible than Heartbeat)
2. Usage behavior – Pinch Media – gives you uniques, geo data, version & device stats, as well as unique data by action in your App (very cool)
3. App ranking – AppRanking by Michael Dorn or Mobclix
4. Web traffic - Google Analytics or Wordpress Stats
5. Affiliate data – Linkshare – here if you are an Apple affiliate you can earn back 5% of your 30% cut that goes to Apple – and monitor clickthrough conversion data from your site
6. Brand management – ScoutLabs or Google Alerts – Scout doesn’t really seem to work for small apps or early on in a campaign as it is, for these smaller apps Google Alerts is a great basic filter

While this list is not comprehensive this is basically everything I am using for the marketing of iCombat. I didn’t realize just how many channels and tools this involved until trying to post an urgent piece of news.  When iCombat was reviewed in Gizmodo’s weekly roundup of iPhone apps I quickly wanted to update every channel I was using.

Spreading the word for that first update went something like this: first update Twitter, then my Facebook status, then the Facebook “Fans of iCombat” group news section, then the iCombat website news page, then the Touch Arcade forum thread discussing iCombat, then I finally shot some e-mails to friends (funny I actually just realized in writing this that I forgot to update my App description in iTunes for the good review – add that to the list).

Once I had finished with the news updates, 2 hours later, I started to comb the anaytics tools: first Pinch media, then user reviews in iTunes, then Mobclix to see if rankings had hit, then Wordpress stats to see website hits, then Linkshare to see the conversion rates, then Scout Labs to check for buzz.

What I experienced was the effects of the new multichannel model where the developer has had to become a social media explorer, pushing into every nook and cranny of the social web.  From gamer forums to niche blogs by 12 year old app reviewers (they do exist), developers risk ignoring these communities at their own expense.  With users fatigued by so much new product noise, it is easy for an unmonitored launch to go unnoticed by these users.

Not all products are good enough to sell themselves, and even if they are amazing, the system isn’t efficient yet at rewarding quality (more on this later).  So while I concede part of the problem is that most developers don’t have the time, especially amateur ones, to dedicate to marketing, I do think we all still need to shift our attention to just how important app marketing is.  Traditionally, developers seem to look at rising to the top in the App store as primarily a question of the product.  I would argue that in most cases it is equal parts product and packaging (dare I say it may be even more about packaging).  This new balance should be weighed when estimating the time, cost and energy it will take to execute your idea – i.e. when laying out a development time line, product features and depth of marketing focus should be weighed as equally relevant factors (as each is a drain on your resources, be it time, money or energy).

I don’t know the reason developers ignore marketing as much as they do.  While it is undeniably a question of bandwidth, it must also have to do with the underlying personality traits of developers as a group.  The desire to code, to focus on the hard part leads to a natural urge to ignore the boring marketing and a disdain for the whoring out that is pushing a product.  In the case of iCombat, we too struggled to stay engaged once we launched the app, but had to remember that we were only half the way there.  In our case, I was planning and handling marketing all along, so like a relay, my work began as the coding ended.

As a lone developer, the combination of fatigue at the end of a project and the lack of desire to get into “marketing” mode is what leads to developers choosing to focus on the wrong thing.  Here is where most developers launch, email their friends and family and a few review blogs, and then return to working on updates for their app.  This decision to immediately turn back to updating is precisely where most developers doom their apps (I am not talking about gimmicky apps or super early launch and iterate strategies like Pocket God).  In my mind this is just like carrying a child around for nine months, giving birth and then deciding to not feed the baby.

The reason that post partum neglect is such a travesty (I will leave that horrible metaphor alone from here out I promise) is that the App store is the PERFECT place to get into marketing mode.  Content discovery is inefficient and the market is young so you can make an impact and experiment without knowing the landscape.  It’s like Junior Prom, in the App store; it’s basically everybody’s first time.

To understand the opportunity it helps to look to the music industry where content discovery dynamics are similar.  Here, the highly subjective nature of determining “quality” and the huge breadth of options makes ranking what is good difficult.  And it is precisely in this type of inefficient discovery marketplace – where success is not necessarily deserved that a system of patronage becomes key.  Since the music industry is a highly evolved market (although getting rocked by technology shifts), an elaborate web of connections has developed where bribes, quid pro quos, image consulting, content engineering and the like, all thrive.  The app market will eventually trend toward this, as do all markets, where market leaders seek to protect and enhance their competitive advantage, but for now it is still young.

In the App store the definition of what is “good” is all over the place, open to interpretation across the huge breadth of gaming, niche, utility, gimmicky and entertainment apps as well as age and demographic groups – so the opportunity to define what is good is wide open for anyone willing to get down into the dirt and push.  While it is fantastic that there is no system of patronage or well laid tracks in the app store in terms of rankings and exposure (as occurs in music), it is a bit like the Wild West in that everyone is in a land grab racing for market position (whether it be in App reviews, app analytics, brand management, or the apps themselves).  What’s clear is that the ones who will triumph aren’t those sitting waiting for the meritocracy to kick in, but rather those who act aggressively and start thinking creatively about how they can get noticed.

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