Press releases distribution: sharing experience on the example of Wordrive and prMac
As they say, doing business without pr is just the same as winking at girls in total darkness. Whatever the good product, it is right when only those who are looking for this information will learn about it. There are always tools for communication between information seekers and its distributors. And I will tell you today about the experience of using one of them using the example of Wordrive , which I launched in mid-April in the App Store , and the example of prMac , one of the press release distribution services.
About another service, iSpreadNews, has already been written in detail on Habré, and I mentioned the experience with them in the last article - “ How to promote the game in the AppStore: sharing experience using the example of Wordrive ”.
So, what I wanted to tell people through the mailing list. Somewhere about three weeks ago, I launched Wordrive in the AppStore. This is a cross between puzzles and funny phrases and quotes in six languages. Before they can be read, it is necessary to assemble phrases according to the “puzzle” principle. Examples of such phrases can be “Learning to cook soup with meatballs. First you need to clear the dumplings from the peel ... "or" If you really love, then such a woman so that she would not be ashamed to appear in the eyes of his wife "," Reality is not due, etc. ... In a press release I needed to focus not only on the entertainment, but also on the learning aspect of the game: after all, collecting a phrase in a foreign language is also useful: you understand the untranslatable wordplay, remember the rules of grammar, which items are put before what, what is the order of words in the sentence and so on Other, that in the form of a game is very, very good to learn sya But learning is of course the very last goal.
')
I invented a press release for the game and translated it into English, after which I sent it to prMac. And immediately paid. Extended Distribution they cost $ 19.75 - quite lifting money, even if you especially do not count on the result. The site asked me to register, and I, of course, pretended to be with a boot - drove pseudonyms and anonymous e-mails, remembering the conclusions from past experience that different sites are more willing to work with Europeans than with Russian developers. The address in California, the telephone in New York - everything works, transfers calls, sends mail, correspondence, but has nothing to do with Russia.
A couple of days later I receive a letter from prMac: “ Uh oh! Did you not read our TOS? We require your legal first and last name. Bangus phone number will result in the termination of your account. (!!) ”. It turned out that it is extremely important for them that the contacts in the press release correspond to the contacts during registration so that it is a real person to whom to call. Threatened to take money and not give service.
Further correspondence concerned the press release itself. PrMac has a Writing Service, for some “miserable” $ 80 they will write three paragraphs correctly. But the guys did a great job: I didn’t “pull” these services, and they edited my text for free to make it significantly better . Probably have pity. After all, to make it immediately as they consider acceptable, I did not succeed.
In this form, the press release was sold online. Here are the results:
* In fact, it is not clear how prMac views scans. The numbers are rather big, and the counting method is muddy. The fact is that the published press release is a plain text, the number of views of which prMac doesn’t seem to count.
To recoup $ 19 for an app price of $ 2 (minus Apple's commission - $ 1.4), you only need to make about 13 sales. For 0.99 - 27 sales.
It is also necessary to take into account that my experience belongs to the category of “Games”, where the monstrous competition is compared to any educational applications.
Findings:
By the way, it is interesting that extremely rarely go to the Wordrive.com website from the App Store. There are no links and no one really copies them from the announcement text to the browser. The special button “Developer’s Website” is also infrequently pressed, as there’s usually nothing interesting there. But this does not mean that the site does not need to do, it really helps to establish communication with European webmasters. Screenshots, videos, descriptions of the game, ideally, even in their language works with a bang.
Besides
The latter six are much less known than the rest, plus they may be less related to mobile games for Apple. But it seems that this is a complete list of services that are somehow used for these purposes.
If Habra’s audience supports this material, I’ll be happy to share the details of WORDRIVE promotion and beyond. Right now, for example, I am closely following the first results of sales - for several days I reduced the price for an application twice. And soon we are going to release two “clones” of the game, which will be independent products on the one hand and have their own audience, on the other hand, they will coincide with Wordrive by 99% in terms of functionality and software code. More on this next time :)
About another service, iSpreadNews, has already been written in detail on Habré, and I mentioned the experience with them in the last article - “ How to promote the game in the AppStore: sharing experience using the example of Wordrive ”.
So, what I wanted to tell people through the mailing list. Somewhere about three weeks ago, I launched Wordrive in the AppStore. This is a cross between puzzles and funny phrases and quotes in six languages. Before they can be read, it is necessary to assemble phrases according to the “puzzle” principle. Examples of such phrases can be “Learning to cook soup with meatballs. First you need to clear the dumplings from the peel ... "or" If you really love, then such a woman so that she would not be ashamed to appear in the eyes of his wife "," Reality is not due, etc. ... In a press release I needed to focus not only on the entertainment, but also on the learning aspect of the game: after all, collecting a phrase in a foreign language is also useful: you understand the untranslatable wordplay, remember the rules of grammar, which items are put before what, what is the order of words in the sentence and so on Other, that in the form of a game is very, very good to learn sya But learning is of course the very last goal.
')
I invented a press release for the game and translated it into English, after which I sent it to prMac. And immediately paid. Extended Distribution they cost $ 19.75 - quite lifting money, even if you especially do not count on the result. The site asked me to register, and I, of course, pretended to be with a boot - drove pseudonyms and anonymous e-mails, remembering the conclusions from past experience that different sites are more willing to work with Europeans than with Russian developers. The address in California, the telephone in New York - everything works, transfers calls, sends mail, correspondence, but has nothing to do with Russia.
A couple of days later I receive a letter from prMac: “ Uh oh! Did you not read our TOS? We require your legal first and last name. Bangus phone number will result in the termination of your account. (!!) ”. It turned out that it is extremely important for them that the contacts in the press release correspond to the contacts during registration so that it is a real person to whom to call. Threatened to take money and not give service.
Further correspondence concerned the press release itself. PrMac has a Writing Service, for some “miserable” $ 80 they will write three paragraphs correctly. But the guys did a great job: I didn’t “pull” these services, and they edited my text for free to make it significantly better . Probably have pity. After all, to make it immediately as they consider acceptable, I did not succeed.
In this form, the press release was sold online. Here are the results:
- The newsletter of April 18, 2011 brought:
- “Spam” in 604 media agencies ;
- 13354 views according to prMac *;
- 34 trackback according to prMac. This is their own spider, bypassing the sites and looking for a certain code among them;
- 76 press releases published according to prMac and Google (numbers converge);
- 73 retweet with appmodo. For example, on one of the resources, AppModo , a press release shut down 73 people and eight "zaykali." There all new press releases go to the main page. Someone clicks on him;
- 118 retweets in total. According to Topsy, a total of 118 people were shut up. But the real situation has to be better, all these search services on tweets are slightly off, because they don’t manage to bypass all twitter;
- 417 people (= clicks) left for detailed information on prMac, 307 for purchase & download, 164 for screenshots, 120 people for app icon.
- Repeated free newsletter on a much smaller base of April 26, 2011 brought
- 7,626 views *;
- 6 retweets;
- almost nowhere passed.
* In fact, it is not clear how prMac views scans. The numbers are rather big, and the counting method is muddy. The fact is that the published press release is a plain text, the number of views of which prMac doesn’t seem to count.
To recoup $ 19 for an app price of $ 2 (minus Apple's commission - $ 1.4), you only need to make about 13 sales. For 0.99 - 27 sales.
It is also necessary to take into account that my experience belongs to the category of “Games”, where the monstrous competition is compared to any educational applications.
Findings:
- use prMac services is definitely worth it, for $ 19 Google and Twitter is filled with links that will bring no less than 13-27 people, which pays for investments. And for good games and programs it pays off even more;
- use free prMac services to no purpose - will be the same as for re-sending in the case of paid - nothing
- The campaign is best carried out with the launch of the product, so that the effect is superimposed on the default promotion of Apple. Ideally, iSpreadNews should also be used here;
- The iSpreadNews mailing list brought live webmasters interested in the game review, and prMac did not cite any. But on the basis of the iSpreadNews mailing no one published the text of the mailing without changes, and in the case of prMac we have almost 80 sites, but not a single live webmaster. That is, these are different services that should be used simultaneously.
By the way, it is interesting that extremely rarely go to the Wordrive.com website from the App Store. There are no links and no one really copies them from the announcement text to the browser. The special button “Developer’s Website” is also infrequently pressed, as there’s usually nothing interesting there. But this does not mean that the site does not need to do, it really helps to establish communication with European webmasters. Screenshots, videos, descriptions of the game, ideally, even in their language works with a bang.
Besides
- iSpreadNews.com and
- prMac.com is worth mentioning also
- GamesPress.com , as well as a number of lesser-known services
- SoftPressRelease is a pretty good service, it is praised and cheaper than prMac.
- GameRelease.net is a service from GameProducer.net, for a fixed annual fee of 150-180 bucks they give one press release per month.
- BusinessWire.com ,
- PRNewswire.com ,
- NewsWire.net ,
- GlobeNewsWire.com and
- PRWeb.com
- VGSMart.com
The latter six are much less known than the rest, plus they may be less related to mobile games for Apple. But it seems that this is a complete list of services that are somehow used for these purposes.
If Habra’s audience supports this material, I’ll be happy to share the details of WORDRIVE promotion and beyond. Right now, for example, I am closely following the first results of sales - for several days I reduced the price for an application twice. And soon we are going to release two “clones” of the game, which will be independent products on the one hand and have their own audience, on the other hand, they will coincide with Wordrive by 99% in terms of functionality and software code. More on this next time :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/118781/
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