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推荐手机应用程序提高曝光率的多种策略

发布时间:2011-03-23 10:12:06 Tags:,,,

尽管越来越多的智能手机用户都在下载应用,但开发者还是不得不绞尽脑汁,好让自己的产品从成千上万的竞争者中脱颖而出。

以下是游戏邦编译《华尔街日报》博客对解决该问题的相关建议:

Mobile-Apps

Mobile-Apps

奖励性广告:不少开发者都正通过其他应用进行交叉推广,为下载自己产品的用户提供奖励。例如,一家公司可以通过广告展示,向用户提供与其相关的虚拟商品(如扑克游戏中的筹码)。《Tap Zoo》游戏开发商Pocket Gems就曾表示,通过游戏营收服务公司Tapjoy的渠道,成功让自己的产品攀升到了苹果App Store榜单的前列。

掐准发布时机:发布应用并非可精确掌握的一门科学,但据应用市场专家所称,周末才是手机应用的下载高峰期。结果,许多开发者纷纷在周五推出市场推广活动,以期在周末时推高应用的下载量。不过游戏邦获悉,应用分析服务公司Flurry的总裁西蒙·卡拉夫(Simon Khalaf)却认为,开发者应该深思熟虑,别人都正扎堆发布应用的时候,其实对你最不利。

应用推荐网站:AppBrain是一款Android应用,同时也是一家Android推荐网站,支持用户根据地区分布等条件,搜索在谷歌Android Market中找不到的产品。除此之外,它还可以根据自己的算法,对应用进行排名,用户可将自己的Facebook或Twitter帐号与AppBrain绑定,在搜索到新应用时向好友推荐该产品。除此之外,Appolicious、AppStoreHQ等也可以为iPhone、iPad和Android应用提供类似的服务。不过这些推荐引擎提供的服务效能如何还没有准确的答案。游戏邦获悉,有人认为这些第三方服务,很难与苹果自己的应用推荐功能匹敌。

品牌联盟战略:如果应用名称能与一个知名品牌沾边,那就一个很好的推广策略。例如,Shopkick这款折扣应用,就与百思买(Best Buy)、梅西百货(Macy’s)和Sports Authority等品牌连锁商店进行了合作,支持用户在访问实体商店时,向他们提供消费优惠服务。游戏邦还了解到,音乐鉴别服务应用Shazam与服装品牌老海军(Old Navy)也在上个月联合开展了广告活动,支持用户通过该应用为广告中的音乐贴标签。

推出多个版本:保证持续下载量的最佳方法,莫过于高居应用商店下载量榜单前列,开发者拥有的高下载量应用版本越多,成功的机会就越多。Roivo目前在苹果iPhone的付费榜单中,就有三个版本的《愤怒的小鸟》名列前茅。Tapulous旗下最著名的音乐游戏《Tap Tap Revenge》在App Store已经推出了20个的iPhone版本。Forrester公司的分析师Sarah Rotman Epps表示,“这种策略就好像宝洁公司的牙膏一样,他们推出了多种类型的佳洁士产品。”

预装手机应用:如果开发者能够游说无线运营商、手机设备制造商在手机产品中预装应用,那就会获得更大的胜算,因为这样就可以省略下载步骤,直接收获大量的用户群体。但运营商对这种预装应用操作的看法并不一致。

虽然苹果和谷歌的应用推荐列表都不会轻易向开发者让步,但还是有些开发者另辟蹊径,想出了对自己最为有利的推荐方式。

口碑传播效应:最重要最强大的推荐功能,当属来自好友的评价,有开发者认为现在的智能手机用户数量不断增长,这种途径将成为最为有效的应用推荐渠道。据IDC调查显示,智能手机在2010年的出货量上升了74.4%,达到3.026亿部。地理社交网络移动应用公司Loopt的首席执行官Sam Altman表示,Loopt所展示按钮极大地方便了用户邀请好友的操作,它将为那些为应用带来新主顾的用户提供产品折扣价等激励性奖励。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

App Developers’ Strategies to Get Noticed.Article Comments Digits HOME PAGE ».EmailPrintPermalinkTwitter

Even as more consumers own smartphones that can download apps, developers need to be more creative to stand out among the hundreds of thousands of other apps.

Here are some of the ways that developers have recently been trying to get the word out:

Incentive advertising: Developers are running an ad campaign on other apps offering incentives to users to download their app. A company, for example, could offer virtual goods related in the app that the user is currently in – like poker chips in a poker game — when they see the ad. Pocket Gems, the maker of the popular Tap Zoo game, said it has used gaming monetization company Tapjoy’s service, to help break into the top of the charts on Apple’s App Store.

Timing the launch: Launching on app stores isn’t an exact science but app market experts say that the weekend is when most downloads happen. That has led some developers to launch their apps on Friday with a marketing campaign that they hope will vault them to the top of the chart and keep them there through the weekend. But Simon Khalaf, president of app analytics service Flurry, says developers should also be mindful of big launches that others have planned. “The last thing you want to do is to launch when others are launching,” he said.

App directory sites: Mathijs Vogelzang, co-founder and chief executive of AppBrain, an Android app and website, created his site to allow users to find apps in ways that they couldn’t through the Android Market, such as searches by countries. It also has an algorithm that recommends apps to users based on their current apps. Users can link their Facebook or Twitter accounts to AppBrain so that they can communicate with other app users, discover new apps and recommend them to their friends. Meanwile, Appolicious and AppStoreHQ also offer similar sites for iPhone, iPad and Android apps. How effective these sites are is uncertain. On Apple’s App Store, some say that it may be difficult to compete against Apple’s own Genius recommendation feature.

Branding partnerships: How better to get your app’s name out than by attaching it with a better known brand? That’s a strategy that many developers have used in various ways. Shopkick, an app that offers discounts at stores when it is accessed at their physical location, has partnerships with chain stores like Best Buy, Macy’s and Sports Authority to display in-store signage advertising its app. Music identifying service Shazam partnered with clothing brand Old Navy in an advertising campaign last month, in which users can use the Shazam app to tag the music from the ads.

Filling Shelf Space: The best way to ensure consistent downloads is getting on the top download lists on app stores, and the more apps that a developer has on them, the better their chance of success. Rovio, for example, currently has three versions of Angry Birds on Apple’s list of top paid iPhone apps. Tapulous has 20 iPhone versions of its popular Tap Tap Revenge music game on the Apple App Store. “This is similar to what P&G does with toothpaste, filling the drugstore shelves with as many kinds of Crest as possible,” said Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps.

Wooing the Decider: If developers can convince a wireless carrier or handset maker to preload their app onto their phones, that can greatly increase the chances of success because the app gains a large audience without having to convince people to download their product. But carriers are split on whether it even makes sense to preload apps.

Neither Apple nor Google technically accept lobbying efforts by developers to get their apps onto their recommendation lists, but some developers have tried to come up with apps featuring innovations that they think will pique a company’s interest.

Word-of-mouth: At the end of the day, there’s nothing more powerful than a recommendation by friends, and developers say that it’s become even more effective now that so many people own smartphones. According to IDC, shipments of smartphones jumped 74.4% to 302.6 million units in 2010. Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application, said it displays buttons that lets users invite their friends more prominently than before, and it plans to soon offer incentives like extra discounts for products to encourage users to bring others on. (source:wsj.com)


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