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Ask HN: How do you market an iPhone App?

11 pointsrickharrison7 comments
On HN

Although I have been developing for the iPhone for a while, I just released my first personal iPhone app. What is the best way to market the app? What blogs should I contact and offer free codes? What techniques have you found work the best?

Comments

Wave your magic wand and get featured by apple ;)

For "free" marketing techniques : -Add your app to your forum signatures wherever you post most often -Twitter giveaways -Tell your friends and family -Submit to review sites/ blogs (In my experience you might try small blogs first unless you have connections at a major blog or think your app is mind blowing)

For paid techniques: -iAds (I haven't seen conversion numbers yet) -Admob/Adwords/etc (No one that I know has had success with this) -Pay per install

Disclaimer: I own and am just launching a pay per install company called adsreloaded.com (there was another thread about this launch in which people seemed skeptical on the idea, but I also received interested from a few developers). If you are interested I have a special offer in which the 25% cut I usually take is added to your campaign instead. If you aren't interested I hope some suggestions of mine do help :)

There are several ways, this is what I would do:

1) Give the app to industry bloggers, writers and anyone willing to listen to your pitch 2) Submit your app to as many directories as possible 3) Find where your target demo congregates online and become active there 4) Consider an affiliate program to induce sales (banner ads) 5) Rinse and repeat...

Tell all your friends about it. Write to bloggers who have written about the problems your app solves (or if it sib entertainment, relevant bloggers in that space). Tell us about it. Socialize a lot and tell everyone you meet about it (after you've genuinely enquirer about their passion/work/life).

I am wondering, does anyone have insight into how App Store search results are ordered? Can anyone give SEO tips for the app store search?

I have no experience, but it would help to tell us which app, I imagine techniques can be different for different types of apps.

Show HN: ... might be a good start

submit your app to the review sites there are quite a lot of them

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