So my app is slightly niche, for values of slightly. It's an app you keep on your phone for dealing with the unlikely situation of possibly finding yourself stranded in the past. It's a locally stored world history database, gives temporal weather reports (what's coming up), has useful documents for how to invent technologies/medicines/etc and get rich, etc. It also has lists of winners for various sport championships around the world for the last century or so.
So this super practical application is part novelty, part "scratch that nerd itch" niche that I figured might be different enough to get some sales.
My sales haven't been that great, however, about $100 total.
Things that I've done:
Made a Facebook page recently, haven't pushed my friends to 'Like' it yet because I don't want to be a jerk.
Did a brief ad run on Reddit.com (testing the waters, $20 got me 50k-60k impressions, a handful of clickthroughs, and no real upswing in sales that I could attribute to the ad).
Put together a quick support site, haven't advertised it at all except via the iTunes link.
When I released it, a bunch of my friends shared it out on their FB walls, and that probably helped a lot in the beginning, but still no big 'catch'.
Does anyone have any ideas on next steps? I've got it in 'Entertainment' with a secondary of Education. Should I swap these around? Or put it elsewhere? Any thoughts on how I could improve the wording in my description? I don't really have a big ad budget, and I'm a little shy on dropping a few hundred bucks on it because I'm concerned it might not have the appeal to others that it does to me. It's Universal, btw.
Wow, cool app! I love the concept. Being caught in the past and not being able to survive and prosper as a result worries me a lot. If I'd heard about this app before seeing your post, I would have bought it
Have you tried posting about it on Reddit? Get it some tech and iPhone blogs, maybe create some a YouTube video... I think it'll take off once enough people hear about it and spread the word Nice work!
Thanks for the ideas! I'll check out innovatty's twitter. Re: Reddit, I'm not sure how to make a post about it that isn't spammy. I did a paid advertisement and also gave away some promocodes (which were all snapped up), but I haven't seen any real increase in sales from that either.
My sales haven't been that great, however, about $100 total.
Things that I've done:
I like your concept; like you say it's a novelty app with an educational twist and that should have some appeal. I wouldn't expect it to be a major seller, but I would expect it to do OK. I like your website - not elaborate, but clean and nicely laid out.
The only thing that gets my immediate attention is the price. I'd drop it to $0.99 for sure. In fact, if i were you, I'd take the app Free for a few days and then put it back to $0.99.
Fair enough, I'll give that a shot if you think it'll help!
Edit: I'm going to modify that just a little bit, I just cut it to Tier 1 for a few days to see if I can generate any sales off the 'price spotter' sites that folks use to monitor sales, then I'll go back to Tier 2 for a little before trying a 'Free' promotion. I will report back on how well that works.
WOW! Very nice idea!
I am a timetravel-junkie and I like the idea.
Although I don't like the execution of the app.
First of all, the icon is bad. It never ever would catch my attention, because I would think, it's an app having something common with modern art.
I would rather want to see an old picture of Big Ben or another clock being hit by a lightning or a knight with a machine gun, or something what would actually suggest time travel for me.
The app itself looks boring.
I would want to browse it sometimes out of fun, but it looks on the screenshots, like an encyclopedy. Like wikipedia offline.
A much nicer design would be cool.
I get eye cancer from the splash screen. The white text on that colored background hurts.
What I wanted to see:
1. time travelers trivia referencing movies and books ("what would you do if you had to defeat Merlin in King Arthur's Castle?")
2. "Actual" problems listed (searchable by terms) with links to solutions, like "you are stranded in world war I, who is on the winning side to become friends with?" Something like that... your job to find cool situations to explain
3. Some mini games with cross referencing, hidden objects or the like.
EDIT:
I bought it.
Shared on Facebook.
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Last edited by Promo Dispenser; 07-09-2011 at 07:05 AM.
The problem I see with that it's your implementation. It looks like more of a shopping list than something as cool as the idea itself.
I would completely revamp the presentation, all of it. And make it like a bit of a gaming thingie.
To promote it I would try to use some viral fake sites that would appear to be "plausible", IE: time traveller discovered using iPhone apps predicting the result of the superbowl... A bit like the "John Titor"[1] urban legend that went crazy, real crazy. People need to talk about it!
Maybe you can say, that John Titor came back with a Delorean (he says, his time machine is mounted on a truck) and he is the one in the chaplin movie
You can totally combine these things.
Maybe start posting as John Titor again on various forums, and tell that you came back again, with a better machine, built into a delorean, just to get this app for your time travels, because in 2035 there is no Apple anymore, but you can find iPhones all over the dumps :-P
I would totally do that.
Once I started a twitter for one of our action heroes, like he were a real person and a real mercenary. I wanted to build up his real life, but then I had no time to do it :-(
PS: if you manage to start a new meme and you get rich, I want a share :-P
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Last edited by Promo Dispenser; 07-11-2011 at 05:14 AM.
Google "time travel forum". Sign up on the forums and start posting. I wouldn't spam them, just get you banned. Maybe you can put your app in your sig. or advertise on the forum. Maybe pm a mod with a promo code to look at your app.
The term "time travel" has over 2 million searches per month on google. If your app web page was on the first page of the search results you would have plenty of downloads.
Getting on the first page of google organic search results for a generic term like "time travel" requires expert seo talent.
You guys are awesome, these are great ideas. Let me see what I can do, and again as always, I'll post results here so anything that works gets documented!
Contact people who already have an interest in your app's material. Find blogs, with some traffic, groups online, and whatever else exists in these internets to help do your work for you. I'm sure people who are obsessed with your idea would be enamored with the idea.
Chances are if it really does satisfy a niche market, those people are having as hard of a time finding stuff that suits them as you are finding them.
Looking for ideas on promoting a very, very niche app
Nice work!
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