作者：John Koetsier

如果一棵树在森林里倒下，是否会有人听到声响？如果你的应用出现在一个已经非常拥挤的市场，是否会有人注意到它？

我很庆幸，自己制作的应用都有数十万下载量，但遗憾的是，关于这个问题，默认答案是不会。事实上，最近的一个调查研究表明，有60%的应用最终都没有带来收益。但你定希望自己属于另外的40%。不要将此诉诸运气，而是应该采取行动。

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下面是若干关于如何战胜这一挑战的建议，顺序依重要性排列。

制作杰出应用

我知道这有些出乎意料，但优秀应用会比糟糕应用更受欢迎。所以要确保自己制作的是优秀内容。

这也许是全新应用类型，或是对常见应用类型进行重新构思。这绝不能是另一乏味的宝石配对游戏：这一类型已有5000款作品。

优秀应用绝非仅仅体现在杰出的构思上，它还涉及其他更多内容：设计、用户体验、甚至是诸如亮眼图标之类的细节内容。这也许会令人感到吃惊，但设计优美图标非常重要。这通常是用户首先看到的内容，他们会基于这个小小的图标判断你的专业水平、设计和时尚感。

争取正面评论

用户会根据自己所看到的评论决定是否冒险投入时间和金钱下载你的应用。这也许显得有些残酷，但你应用的寿命取决于也许没看到重要功能，或者有时会对99美分应用做出愚蠢期许，甚至是刻意给出负面评价的用户。

所以你要竭尽全力争取正面评价。测试，测试，再测试。确保应用没有任何纰漏。向朋友、家人及愿意腾出时间给你较高评价的对象发送促销代码。务必让公司所有人员（如果你在某特定公司任职的话）下载应用，给出评级和评价。

积极争取四星以上的评级及正面评价，因为下面两个营销方法完全基于这一步骤。

植入社交元素

如果说社交活动的激增有带给我们什么启示的话，那就是用户喜欢分享。促进公司发展的最佳方式就是，赋予忠实粉丝更多话语权，将营销任务交给大众。

若你的应用是款游戏，不妨融入排行榜元素。利用iOS平台的Game Center及Android的类似渠道。让用户能够就其所获高分发微博，进行分享及吹嘘。

若这是个工具，那么寻找对应的社交推广方式：和同事分享注意事项，就应用活动内容发微博，公开所获成就，突出自己的看法。

最理想的社交方式显然是嵌入其中。想想《Draw Something》——它有传真机的网络传播效果：一元素原本没有用处，但添加至网络后令其他元素变得更具价值。

最后：只有1颗星评级及存在负面评价的应用将无法通过社交渠道获得成功。它们也许也会在社交网络中得到关注，但绝非出于你期望的原因，也不会带来你所追求的结果。

进行宣传

掌握推销技能。要推广应用，你需要推销自己、你的目标、角度，及最重要的，你的应用。你定希望得到应用博客及主流科技博客的注意，你需要评论。

要做到这点，你就需要进行宣传。内容精彩非常关键，但单有这些还不够。你需要懂得向编辑、记者、博客主及普通用户宣传应用的优点和惊人之处。

如果连你自己都不会为游戏而感到激动不已，那么其他人有什么理由为此着迷呢？

就描述内容进行搜索引擎优化

应用在拥挤市场或Google Play中的曝光度取决于它的受欢迎程度、所处位置及搜索情况。

应用商店搜索和网页搜索一样：更多、更优质的数据等同于更高的排名。所以务必用心撰写应用描述。查看竞争对手如何描述，尤其是那些获得较高排名的对手。适当在描述中融入潜在用户可能会运用的搜索术语。记得不时做出调整。

遗憾的是，多变量测试在此不是可行选择。

采用免费模式，免费增值模式，或是设定较低价格

除非你是迪斯尼或Zynga，否则没有人会对你投以关注。为应用进行冒险不过是纯粹的冒险。多数人都不喜欢冒险。

所以不妨通过采用免费模式或降低产品售价降低风险。可以通过免费增值模式提高最初的下载量（游戏邦注：如果这适合你的应用）。制作吸引用户但促使他们希望获得更多内容的精简版。在初期分发大量促销代码。开展促销活动。尝试不同价位。

如果上述方法都行不通，那就打广告

广告经理Jon Bond曾说过，“未来广告将变得和性生活一样。只有失败者才需要为此买单。”是的，有时我们就是失败者，我们需要为此掏钱。

在AdMob及其他网络打广告，提高应用下载量，但注意，单个下载量的成本也许会超过1美元，就如Google AdWords领域一样，有些骗子会吸光你的资金，但没有给你带来真的的用户。

或者可以通过Playhaven或Applifier之类的服务在其他应用中交叉推广应用，这样你和其他开发者就可以共享用户，建立用户基础。

*如果连广告也不奏效，那就花钱收买用户，争取获得榜单的前列位置

如果你真的非常绝望，多半会考虑采取灰色战术，想要单纯购买下载量，提高自己在应用榜单中的位置，从中你有望获得真正的用户和真正的收益。

要采取这样的举措，你需要付给GTekna之类的公司1万美元，然后奇迹就会出现。你将出现在排行榜中，获得数十万的下载量。但你能够在这个位置上呆多久取决于应用质量及你在其他推广方式中的表现。

推广应用的难度不亚于制作应用。这是个漫长而艰辛的跋涉过程，不是所有人都能做到。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

You built it but they didn’t come: 8 tricks for marketing your mobile app

By John Koetsier

If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear it? And if your app joins the 50 bajillion other apps already on the market, will anyone notice?

I’ve had the privilege of building apps with hundreds of thousands of downloads, but sadly, the default answer is a big, bold no. In fact, a recent study revealed that 60 percent of apps don’t make money. You, however, want to be in the 40 percent. Don’t leave it up to luck, take action.

In a roughly descending order of importance, here are some ways to beat the odds:

Build a great app

I know it’s shocking, but great apps are going to sell better than crappy apps. So make sure you’re working on something great!

That could be a totally new type of app, or it could be a completely re-imagined approach to a common app type. What it cannot be is yet another boring matching-jewels game: there are 5000 of them already.

Having a great app isn’t just about a great idea, it’s also great execution: design, user experience, even details like a great icon. Perhaps shockingly, having a stunning icon is hugely important. It’s often the first thing users see, and they will base their impressions of your professionalism, design, and hipness on that tiny little square of pixels.

Get great reviews

Users are going to decide whether or not to risk the time cost and dollar cost of downloading your app based on the reviews they see. It can be cruel and brutal, but your app’s life is dependent on users who may not see important features, sometimes make stupendously stupid assumptions about what a $0.99 app should offer, and can even in a few cases be malicious.

So do whatever it takes to get good reviews. Test, re-test, and re-re-test. Make sure your app is solid. Send promo codes to friends and family, people who are likely to give you a bit of a break and maybe rate your product just a little bit higher. Make sure everyone in your company, if you work for a company, downloads the app, rates it, and reviews it.

Do what you need to do to get 4+ stars and great comments, because the next two marketing methods are 100 percent dependent on this step.

Build in social

If there’s anything that the explosion of social has taught us, it’s that people like to share. And, that the best way for your company to grow is to crowdsource marketing by giving your passionate users a bigger voice.

If your app is a game, do a leaderboard. Use Game Center on iOS, and equivalent functionality on Android when it arrives. Let people tweet and share, boasting about their high scores.

If it’s a utility, find social equivalents: sharing notes with colleagues, tweeting app activity, publishing accomplishments, highlighting insights.

The best social, of course, is baked right in. Think Draw Something — it has the network effects of a fax machine: one is useless, each one added to the network makes all the others more valuable.

A final note: an app with one star and withering reviews is not going to become successful through social channels. It may very well be highlighted in social networks, but not for the reasons you want, and not with the results you’re looking for.

Pitch, pitch, pitch (and then pitch some more)

Get comfortable with selling. To make your app move, you need to sell yourself, your vision, your angle, and most importantly, your app. You want to get noticed by the app blogs and the top tech blogs, and you need reviews.

To get them, you’re going to need to pitch. It helps when you have a good story (rinse and repeat, see the first tip) but that is not going to be enough. You need to confidently and competently pitch editors, journalists, bloggers, and ordinary people on the shining merits and sheer awesomeness of your wonderful app.

If you can’t get excited about it, why should anyone else?

SEO your app description

Discovery in the crowded app store or Google Play is a function of popularity (which you don’t have on day one) and placement (if you happen to get lucky enough to know the second cousin twice removed of an app store editor, who places you in the featured apps category) and search (yeah, that’s where you sit).

Search on the app store is just like search on the web: more and better data equals higher ranking. So write your description with care. Look at what your competitors are saying … especially those who are ranking well. Craft it with appropriate keyword density for the search terms that you think your potential customers will use. And tweak from time to time to shake it up.

Unfortunately, multivariate testing is not really a viable option here.

Be free, freemium, cheap…

Unless you’re Disney or Zynga, no-one knows you and no-one cares. Taking a risk on your app is just that: a risk. And most people don’t like risks.

So reduce the riskiness by being free or cheap. Use a freemium monetization model to drive initial downloads, if that works for your app. Do a lite version that rocks, but leaves user wanting just a bit more. Give away lots of promo codes initially. Have sales. Try different price points.

If all else fails, advertise

It was Jon Bond, an ad exec, who said that “in the future, marketing will be like sex. Only the losers will have to pay for it.” Well guess what, sometimes we’re losers and yes, we have to pay for it.

Advertise for downloads on AdMob and other networks, but note that costs per download can be in excess of $1, and just like in the Google AdWords world, there are scammers looking to suck up your cash and leave you with no real users.

Or, cross-promote your app with other apps using services like Playhaven or Applifier so that you and other developers can share users and build audience.

If *really* all else fails, buy users to get in the top app lists

If you are really desperate you are going to enter gray-hat or even black-hat territory, and simply buy downloads so that you rise in the top app lists, from which you hope to generate real customers and real revenues. (Just to be clear, I don’t recommend this … but it does happen.)

To do so, pay a company like GTekna $10,000 or so and let the magic happen. You’ll get on the leaderboard and have a shot at hundreds of thousands of downloads, just from the visibility. Whether you can stay there or not depends on how good your app is, and how well you’ve done all the other steps.

Marketing your app is just as hard, if not harder, as building your app. It’s a long tough slog, and not everyone can do it. Have you successfully marketed your apps? Let us know how in the comments!（Source：venturebeat）