作者：Simon Dawlat

我们必须牢记，2013年将会是游戏产业出现巨大转折的一年。

在2015年之前，全球市场上将出现10亿台全新智能手机，而到了2015年，整个游戏市场将变得更加成熟。那时候，产业中的竞争也不会褪去，并且仍具有巨大的机遇。

所以现在，我们更需要将大量的赌注投掷在手机领域。

AppGratis已经在游戏产业中出现了4年多的时间——几乎是伴随着App Store而出现。在专注于更大的问题，也就是应用推广前，我们是以应用开发商的身份存在着的。

基于我们在市场上多年的经验，我将在此为开发者们提出13点建议。

1.始终记住产品是关键。用户反馈总是不受控制——任何消极的反馈都会对开发者造成伤害。

App Store其实就像早前的电子游戏经济，即错误的发行计划有可能彻底毁掉一款历经3年开发的游戏。所以，拥有强大的产品与适当的发行策略才是确保成功的关键。

2.这并不是一个功能友好型环境。不管你是创造应用还是游戏，最好能够尽可能保持简单。《愤怒的小鸟》（猛击，调整，发射）或《神庙逃亡》（切换，蹲伏，跳跃）的成功便是源于成功落实了这一点。

TempleRun(from toucharcade)

3.如果你并未拥有较高的资金，那就去尝试一些较受欢迎的类别。例如文字游戏和博彩游戏便是少数备受玩家追捧的游戏类别。

选择这些类别进行创造将大大提高你的游戏的成功率。但是因为任何事物总是不断改变着，所以开发者们必须盯紧了排行前25名的应用，从中摸索出最新的发展趋势。

4.趋于病毒性。K系数转换漏斗（游戏邦注：每一次的购买安装将自动生成1个用户，而这些用户将通过邀请或分享生成X个新用户）便是一种非常强大且划算的推广策略。

我们还必须牢记，因为社交游戏玩家的注意力主要是在其他用户身上而非游戏，所以这类型游戏也总是很难获得盈利。

相反地，开发者如果想要获得最高的ARPU便要精通于用户获取。例如转向中核玩家便是一个不错的方法。

5.重视你的应用关键词的使用（也就是所谓的“应用商店优化”)

你需要处理搜索与分类排行。也就是你需要想办法去吸引更多目标用户的注意，并提高这些用户的转换率——他们具有更高的盈利潜能。

6.利用强大的品牌并尝试着创造一个新的手机品牌。这也是《愤怒的小鸟》，《MinoMonsters》等游戏所采取的方法。

同时结合两个品牌能够创造出一个非常棒的效果，例如迪士尼与《神庙逃亡》的结合便是《神庙逃亡之勇气》。

如果你们即不是一家大型工作室也未拥有一个著名的品牌该怎么办？你可以改变字面去为游戏赚取吸引力。让我们以两款大受欢迎的游戏为例，即《君主与骑士》和《水果忍者》，我们便可以将自己的新游戏命名为《君主与忍者》。

7.你也可以同时发行多款游戏。这是许多小型独立工作室和手机游戏巨头都会采用的策略，并且这种策略拥有许多优势，如能让你更轻松地进行交叉推广。

说到交叉推广，开发者们应该重视这些趋势：通过互换流量我们便能够无需花费任何成本而增加用户基础。使用像Chartboost等平台与其他开发者进行流量互换也是一种很好的方法。

8.如果上述方法对你来说都没用，我将很遗憾地告诉你，使用小动物的图标已经不如之前那般有效了。

9.当提到盈利时，你可能会采用多层面的方法，如结合广告与交易。大多数免费游戏开发者（游戏邦注：你会认为他们的核心策略便是应用内部购买）都会在用户面前呈现出最醒目的广告。

如果你已经明确了“鲸鱼-海豚-小鱼”的用户分析，并且能够瞄准这些用户，为什么不放弃应用内部购买而采取基于广告的方式呢？

10.在明确如何获取用户后，我们需要清楚应用留存才是最终目标。

开发者必须精通推送通知的使用，并将其整合到产品中，而不是使用一些垃圾信息。如果使用合理的话，推送通知也将具有时事通讯的作用。

除此之外，开发者还必须想办法诱导用户打开应用。确保应用主页中不存在任何不必要的内容，即只包含教程，注册登录，Facebook连接等。

将应用内容直接呈现在用户眼前。提高用户留存的一大关键便是产品市场与较高活跃用户比例的有效结合。

11.强调重新激活用户。这与用户获取一样重要。

开发者可以使用目标推送通知（如告诉用户“你的小狗快要死了！”）或提醒（即告诉用户他们按照了应用）将活跃用户再次引回游戏中。

12.利用新产品发行或各种节假日。这种方法能够帮助你更好地面向“新一代”用户推广游戏。

但是在此之前你必须做好万全的准备，即制定相关策略。一定要重视节假日的推广活动：这是提高游戏的曝光率并把握与节假日相关牵引力的重要机会（游戏邦注：如《Clash of Clans》便借助圣诞节而进行了有效的游戏营销）。

13.有时候你需要孤注一掷。就在2周前，德国应用开发商LOTUM在面向美国和欧洲市场发行《4 Pics 1 Words》时便采取了一次性爆发的推广活动（游戏邦注：LOTUM是AppGratis的应用合作伙伴）。

结果在不到1天时间里，这款应用便攀上了美国，英国和法国市场的排行榜的第一位，并且直到现在仍位列所有国家榜单的前10位。

此外开发者们还需清楚，当你意识自己并不是很了解这个市场时，你也要知道有这种想法的人并不是只有你一个。

所以请一定要保持创造性，尽可能去挖掘更多机遇，不断尝试，并与其他开发者们保持交流。要知道永远都不存在最佳手机营销方法。

（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）

13 top tips for launching and marketing your game, by AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat

By Simon Dawlat

Keep this in mind: 2013 will be massive, the year of an inflection point for the industry.

The road to 2015 will see an additional 1 billion smartphones shipped globally and that’s when we’ll reach full market maturity. Until then, the race is still on and the opportunities are open.

So now more than ever is the time to bet it all on mobile.

AppGratis has been in business for four years – basically since the App Store’s inception. We started as app developers ourselves before switching our focus onto the big problem: app distribution.

Based on our years of market experience, here are our 13 tips for developers.

One

Keep in mind that product is key. Uncontrollable user feedback comes in at real-time – and it can hurt.

The App Store is like the old video game economy where three years of development can be killed by a one-day failed launch. So having a strong product combined with a serious launch strategy is the very beginning of not failing.

Two

Also, it’s not a feature-heavy-friendly environment. Whether you have an app or a game, keep it simple. The successes of Angry Birds (swipe, adjust, release) or Temple Run (toggle, crouch, jump) are good reminders of that.

Three

If you’re not a heavily-funded developer, try to play in some of the most sought-after categories. Word games, for instance, and casino games are only a few example of categories that people are craving (even if it can be hard to understand why sometimes!).

Playing in these categories will statistically increase your success rate. Things are constantly changing, however, so keep a close eye on the Top 25 to see what apps are charting and identify the upcoming trends – try to innovate off them!

Four

Go viral. A K Factor-positive conversion funnel – where every one organic or bought install will naturally generate 1,X new users organically through invites or sharing) – is one of the strongest and most cost-effective distribution strategies.

A lot has been written about virality, so read. Keep in mind however that as a general rule, social products that enjoy a lot of free, organic traffic, are also the hardest ones to monetise because the user’s attention is not focused on your product so much as on other users.

Conversely, you’ll find the highest ARPUs with games where you’ll need to excel at user acquisition. The shift towards midcore, for instance, is a good example of this paradigm.

Five

Address a key vertical and combine this with strong keyword positioning of your app (some call this ‘ASO’ for ‘App Store Optimization’).

You will only be addressing search and category rankings traffic. But that can be quite a lot already and usually commands more targeted users, and so better conversion – hence higher monetisation potential.

Six

Leverage a strong brand or try to create a new mobile-first one. That’s what Angry Birds did, and what a lot of others, such as MinoMonsters, are trying to do.

You can even combine the two for an even stronger effect. Think Disney + Temple Run = Temple Run: Brave.

You’re not a big studio or you don’t own the rights of a famous brand? Here’s an idea. Take two popular titles – say Lords & Knights and Fruit Ninja – and combine their names to form Lords & Ninjas. Licencing status: hacked!

Seven

You can also take a portfolio approach by releasing dozens – sometime hundreds – of games. It’s a strategy that’s been adopted by tiny indies and mobile giants alike, and it has a lot of benefits, such as eased cross-promotion.

Speaking of cross-promotion, you should look at leveraging this heavy trend among developers: by trading traffic you’ll be able to grow your user base at little to no cost. Using a platform such as Chartboost to strike direct deals with other developers is pretty effective.

Eight

If none of the above works for you, I’m sorry to report that using an icon with a kitten works less effectively than it did in the past.

Nine

When it comes to monetisation you’ll probably want to take a multifaceted approach combining advertising and transactionals. Most of the freemium developers whose core strategy you think would be in-app purchases also push displayed ads to some of their users.

If you’ve already achieved the Whales-Dolphins-Minnows cluster analysis of your audience and are able to target them, then why not serve low-to-no in-app revenue users with ads?

Ten

After having painfully figured out how to acquire users, keep in mind that the app retention continuum is a real bitch too.

Become a master at push notifications and integrate them within your product without being spammy. Used wisely, they are like a newsletter on steroids without the costs of shipping.

Find ways of hooking users the second they open your app. Keep your app homepage free of unnecessary obstacles: tutorials, sign-ups, Facebook connect.

Take your users straight to the content and please them right off the door. One of the keys to retention is a good product-market fit combined with a high percentage of activated users.

Eleven

Emphasise re-activation. It should be as important as user acquisition.

This could take the form of dragging back activated users into your game with a targeted push notification (Smartphone: “Your puppy is about to DIE!!!”) or simply reminding a user that they have your app installed.

Twelve

Leverage new product launches and gifting periods of the year. You’ll see massive moments of growth and the chance to market your product to ‘new generations’ of customers.

Prepare months ahead to have a strategy in place when these rare moments do unfold. Don’t hesitate to ‘seasonalise’ your product: it’s a good option for refreshing your product and for capturing event-related traction (think Clash of Clans with a Christmas theme).

Thirteen

And sometimes, you’ll just have to go big or go home. Two weeks ago, for the launch of 4 Pics 1 Words, German app developer LOTUM invested in a non-incentivised, one-time-burst campaign targeted at the US and European markets. (Disclosure: LOTUM is an app partner of AppGratis).

In less than a day, the app had reached the Top 1 position in the US, UK, and FR charts and is now a Top 10 grossing app in all countries.

And remember…

And when you eventually realise how hard this market is, remember that you know nothing and that I know even less than you do.

So stay creative and explore every opportunity you see fit, run experiments and talk to fellow developers. The best mobile marketing practices are yet to be invented.(source:pocketgamer)