I decided to do a bit of an unnanounced experiment last weekend and put the sciOmeter up for Free for two days! I assume that some sites automatically track price drops and free deals so that's probably why it worked out fairly well!
Overall there were about 500+ downloads and even a rating! What a marvellous rating too, of 2 out of 5 stars! But at least there was an explanation, it's just a shame that they didn't check out the "How It Works" part of the website before posting.
It's back up to .59p now and I'm not certain how many sales it will generate after being free for that time, probably none now!
Anyway, the point of the exercise was to try and spread the app around a bit and to show people how much fun it can be. That's certainly worked to a degree and in hindsight is how I probably should have started with a free weekend to kickstart it...
Monday 29 March 2010
Wednesday 24 March 2010
Main site getting better
After a few friends saying "what's up with your site? It's just a logo!" I've decided to put something temporary and functional up here!
I've still got to put the sciOmeter banner together and the formatting of this column is a bit rubbish, but that shouldn't take too long to sort out!
I've still got to put the sciOmeter banner together and the formatting of this column is a bit rubbish, but that shouldn't take too long to sort out!
Rejected!
Wow, a rejection email from CrazyMikesApps - wasn't expecting that but I can understand that people who love iPhone apps might not want to encourage more like the sciOmeter! I'm starting to think I got into this too late?
Anyway, no need to be disheartened! This was an experiment for us anyway and I've been thinking hard about the next app I'm going to work on while Richey is still grafting "The Machine".
Again it will be something small but experimental, but definitely more involved than the sciOmeter!
One idea is to expand upon a PC game I wrote a few weeks ago for a 48hr competition. The game was called "Let Me Pass" and involved moving barriers with gaps in to let little arrows pass by. Any that passed gave you a point. I reckon it would work well with the iPhone.
I think I may have also noticed a gap in the market, a game type that's not been cloned yet! I've always wanted to give my own take on the idea and this seems like an ideal opportunity...
Anyway, no need to be disheartened! This was an experiment for us anyway and I've been thinking hard about the next app I'm going to work on while Richey is still grafting "The Machine".
Again it will be something small but experimental, but definitely more involved than the sciOmeter!
One idea is to expand upon a PC game I wrote a few weeks ago for a 48hr competition. The game was called "Let Me Pass" and involved moving barriers with gaps in to let little arrows pass by. Any that passed gave you a point. I reckon it would work well with the iPhone.
I think I may have also noticed a gap in the market, a game type that's not been cloned yet! I've always wanted to give my own take on the idea and this seems like an ideal opportunity...
Sunday 21 March 2010
As usual...
I did hardly anything I'd planned to!
But not without reason. The press release I started to write, and then I thought: Hmm, this isn't a game! Gamerelease.net may not be happy if I missuse the press release system.
But that's not to say I didn't keep myself busy. I've been searching for places to review/advertise the sciOmeter and after a previous experience with google-ads (not that they were bad, just a waste of time!) I did a bit of research on which site(s) would be best.
Okay I know this is going to cost me cash, and that's fine. You don't get anything for nothing...well that's not true I guess with free iphone apps but you know what I mean. So I've given myself an *unspecified* budget, but it's not much! After all, I'm getting married this year and that's expensive! Rather than trust random sites about their popularity I made use of http://www.alexa.com/ which is a web statistics site and is a fairly good (although not perfect) indicator of how popular and visited a website is.
According to this, one of the most popular iphone site on the net is http://www.iphoneapplicationlist.com/ now there's no public information about their advertising rates. I've send details of the sciOmeter for their perusal and also sent a separate email regarding their advertising costs - that'll wake em up a bit.
I'm not impressed by that site itself though, it looks unorganised and I wouldn't want to click on anything there. Plus apps get added to the forums at a frightening rate at certain times of day. I don't believe (and this is just my personal opinion) that this is a good place to get the sciOmeter noticed!
Moving on I was being eagle eyed and watching the number of youtube watches of the video go up from 21 to 22 (heh) when I noticed that our channel has a subscriber! And infact that subscriber is an iphone app reviewer called CrazyMikesApps! So I did a bit more research and his site, http://www.crazymikesapps.com/ is ranked at 364, 402 (at the time of writing this) which is supposed to mean it's the 362,402 most popular website in the world. I'm sure that's not specifically true but the point is he gets a fair few visitors. After looking at his advertising services and costs I've decided to go for it and have requested a review & video(or podcast) review along with a months' worth of advertising. I even made that "animated" gif advert especially!
In terms of sales figures I've tripled my sales figures since the other day! That makes it sound so much better than it's actually doing, but it does mean I've had at least 1 sale per day which is encouraging. More than that it's surprising because the sciOmeter has had ZERO exposure out there. It's also nice to see that every copy sold so far has been to someone in a different country so globally it's taking over!
Muhahah...oh wait, I'm not supposed to do the evil laugh until 1 million sales...
But not without reason. The press release I started to write, and then I thought: Hmm, this isn't a game! Gamerelease.net may not be happy if I missuse the press release system.
But that's not to say I didn't keep myself busy. I've been searching for places to review/advertise the sciOmeter and after a previous experience with google-ads (not that they were bad, just a waste of time!) I did a bit of research on which site(s) would be best.
Okay I know this is going to cost me cash, and that's fine. You don't get anything for nothing...well that's not true I guess with free iphone apps but you know what I mean. So I've given myself an *unspecified* budget, but it's not much! After all, I'm getting married this year and that's expensive! Rather than trust random sites about their popularity I made use of http://www.alexa.com/ which is a web statistics site and is a fairly good (although not perfect) indicator of how popular and visited a website is.
According to this, one of the most popular iphone site on the net is http://www.iphoneapplicationlist.com/ now there's no public information about their advertising rates. I've send details of the sciOmeter for their perusal and also sent a separate email regarding their advertising costs - that'll wake em up a bit.
I'm not impressed by that site itself though, it looks unorganised and I wouldn't want to click on anything there. Plus apps get added to the forums at a frightening rate at certain times of day. I don't believe (and this is just my personal opinion) that this is a good place to get the sciOmeter noticed!
Moving on I was being eagle eyed and watching the number of youtube watches of the video go up from 21 to 22 (heh) when I noticed that our channel has a subscriber! And infact that subscriber is an iphone app reviewer called CrazyMikesApps! So I did a bit more research and his site, http://www.crazymikesapps.com/ is ranked at 364, 402 (at the time of writing this) which is supposed to mean it's the 362,402 most popular website in the world. I'm sure that's not specifically true but the point is he gets a fair few visitors. After looking at his advertising services and costs I've decided to go for it and have requested a review & video(or podcast) review along with a months' worth of advertising. I even made that "animated" gif advert especially!In terms of sales figures I've tripled my sales figures since the other day! That makes it sound so much better than it's actually doing, but it does mean I've had at least 1 sale per day which is encouraging. More than that it's surprising because the sciOmeter has had ZERO exposure out there. It's also nice to see that every copy sold so far has been to someone in a different country so globally it's taking over!
Muhahah...oh wait, I'm not supposed to do the evil laugh until 1 million sales...
Saturday 20 March 2010
Adventures in Marketing: The sciOmeter!
Well although I don't want to completely disclose the total number of sales for the first day to the world, I can tell you that it is larger than Zero!
But although I should be satisfied that it's sold at all, I'm not! I want to see this in the top 10 apps and there must, must be a way to do that. So far my tactics have been:
- To contact a couple of non-game related blogs but related to the subject matter (one rejection so far)
- Contacted three iphone related blogs and trying to get added to some lists
- digg'd, stumbled the app - no additional diggs yet though.
- Shared it on facebook, but no one's bothered to look at the vid
- Mentioned it on the iphone app section of eurogamer
so I've been fairly busy for the first marketing day, but today I've got the whole day to worry about it - and to get my PC up and running again! Stupid HDD crashes...
My plan for today is:
- To contact at least 3 blogs that deal with iphone apps (silly ones if possible)
- Possibly mentioning it on somethingawful
- I've got a google ads voucher - might create an account and do some real advertising
- Write and send a press release using gamerelease.net with which I have an account.
- Add app to iphoneapplist site, which I created an account with yesterday.
So plenty to do, the only problem is that it's going to be difficult to see where I get the most response (if any!) from because I don't receive stats like that from iTunes. Anyway, wish me luck!
But although I should be satisfied that it's sold at all, I'm not! I want to see this in the top 10 apps and there must, must be a way to do that. So far my tactics have been:
- To contact a couple of non-game related blogs but related to the subject matter (one rejection so far)
- Contacted three iphone related blogs and trying to get added to some lists
- digg'd, stumbled the app - no additional diggs yet though.
- Shared it on facebook, but no one's bothered to look at the vid
- Mentioned it on the iphone app section of eurogamer
so I've been fairly busy for the first marketing day, but today I've got the whole day to worry about it - and to get my PC up and running again! Stupid HDD crashes...
My plan for today is:
- To contact at least 3 blogs that deal with iphone apps (silly ones if possible)
- Possibly mentioning it on somethingawful
- I've got a google ads voucher - might create an account and do some real advertising
- Write and send a press release using gamerelease.net with which I have an account.
- Add app to iphoneapplist site, which I created an account with yesterday.
So plenty to do, the only problem is that it's going to be difficult to see where I get the most response (if any!) from because I don't receive stats like that from iTunes. Anyway, wish me luck!
Thursday 18 March 2010
New Release! The SciOmeter!
Finally it's out there! It's taken long enough for something that looks so basic but I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end.
Basically the SciOmeter is a scanning application that will display the percentage of science within an object. For more information check out the site: http://sciometer.bumpkinbrothers.com/
For even more information check out the video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_q4JWW_eQ
I'm still working on the "how it works" page for customers of the device, but it should only be a day or so until it's ready!
Basically the SciOmeter is a scanning application that will display the percentage of science within an object. For more information check out the site: http://sciometer.bumpkinbrothers.com/
For even more information check out the video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_q4JWW_eQ
I'm still working on the "how it works" page for customers of the device, but it should only be a day or so until it's ready!
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