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We are admittedly rather new to promotion although we do have a few ideas, we're definitely white hat SEO so we're investing a lot of time contacting relevant s

We are admittedly rather new to promotion although we do have a few ideas, we're definitely white hat SEO so we're investing a lot of time contacting relevant sites and people but it's extremely slow and time consuming! We have a very small budget to advertise but we are going to run some small highly targeted campaigns on Adwords, Reddit and a couple of other sites to see how they go (closely monitoring them though). If you have any ideas we're all ears! It's an exciting time for us!

ig1 15y ago
I wouldn't recommend adwords, they're not cost effective for what you're doing. Reddit's probably worth a shot, especially at the "we're looking for feedback" stage. You should also be A/B testing everything, from your front page to the emails you're sending out to bloggers. Test radically different messages and see how they work out, try offering free licences for bloggers to give away. Comparing yourself to other products is an approach that works well, "Ever wanted Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit for the web ?", etc. might work well. Also don't be afraid to look at what competing products are doing to promote themselves and doing the same things. You should get feedback from your users as well, consider installing something like kissinsight and emailing users a few weeks after they've downloaded it to get feedback. Have you looked at the analytics for your search box to see what people are looking for ? Something else you might want to consider is why not remove the technical limits from the free version but instead just insert a promo for your tool into the game ("this game was constructed with x") and include a link back to your homepage. Lack of publicity is more likely to kill you than anything else, if someone writes a popular game with the free version then the promotional value of that is worth far more than the $30 you'd get from a sale.
- TomGullen 15y ago
  Thanks for the advice! We have ~£100 of free AdWords credit so might as well use it, see if we can get any value out of it. I'm curious why you think Adwords isn't cost effective though? I've heard this before and find it hard to believe (but then again my experience of running ad campaigns is minimal!) We have identified a couple of techniques our competitors used effectively and fairly cheaply so are going to explore those as well. Search was one of our weaknesses, but I did a lot of reading on SEO and think I applied it pretty well (technical aspect), we're starting to see results from that but it's a slow process :) We did explore a lot of options about technical limits/nag screens etc, we are going to be tweaking it and seeing what works and what doesn't! A/B testing landing pages is a great idea. I am keeping close track of it on Analytics and making small tweaks here and there constantly, we got the bounce rate from ~50% down to 25% which is good.
  - ig1 15y ago
    Back of an envelope calculation, assuming a CPC of $1 and a conversion rate of 1% (say 10% download your app and 10% of those decide to purchase) it'll cost you $100 to make a $30 sale. You can plug your actual numbers in to give you a better estimate though. For search have a look at the data, use google adwords tool to figure out how many people search for the terms you're targeting and check out how competitive those terms are. Remember even the top ranked search term only gets 20% of the clicks from that search and it drops rapidly as you go down the page.
glimcat 15y ago
The front page is nice. It could use polish, but that's usual. I think the visual emphasis on the "Learn More" button is the main thing that needs improvement; it's easy to overlook due to proximity and visual similarity to the download button. The secondary nav bar could stand to be de-emphasized slightly. I think a bit more space above the "Create/Export/Play" headers would smooth the layout a bit; the shape of the is slightly conflicted at present and this might address it. The "Learn More" page is the part that needs to switch focus from products of the tool to the use of the tool. The "Construct" tab in the primary nav bar should also be renamed "Learn More" - or both to "How It Works" etc. - so that it clearly communicates the action needed. You likely have two main groups arriving at your main page. 1. People who know what your tool is who are there to download it. 2. People who have been convinced to check out your tool and who want to quickly get a grasp for what it will do for them. The faster you satisfy these people, the happier they'll be and the fewer bounces you'll get.
- TomGullen 15y ago
  Thanks, these are great ideas. Agree with you about more emphasis on the use of the tool quicker. And I also like your idea about Construct reading "How it works" I think that's a lot more inviting. Construct will be a bit abstract for a lot of new visitors.
  - glimcat 15y ago
    > Construct will be a bit abstract for a lot of new visitors. Exactly. They won't associate brand and product yet.

ig1 15y ago

I wouldn't recommend adwords, they're not cost effective for what you're doing. Reddit's probably worth a shot, especially at the "we're looking for feedback" stage. You should also be A/B testing everything, from your front page to the emails you're sending out to bloggers. Test radically different messages and see how they work out, try offering free licences for bloggers to give away. Comparing yourself to other products is an approach that works well, "Ever wanted Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit for the web ?", etc. might work well. Also don't be afraid to look at what competing products are doing to promote themselves and doing the same things. You should get feedback from your users as well, consider installing something like kissinsight and emailing users a few weeks after they've downloaded it to get feedback. Have you looked at the analytics for your search box to see what people are looking for ? Something else you might want to consider is why not remove the technical limits from the free version but instead just insert a promo for your tool into the game ("this game was constructed with x") and include a link back to your homepage. Lack of publicity is more likely to kill you than anything else, if someone writes a popular game with the free version then the promotional value of that is worth far more than the $30 you'd get from a sale.

TomGullen 15y ago
Thanks for the advice! We have ~£100 of free AdWords credit so might as well use it, see if we can get any value out of it. I'm curious why you think Adwords isn't cost effective though? I've heard this before and find it hard to believe (but then again my experience of running ad campaigns is minimal!) We have identified a couple of techniques our competitors used effectively and fairly cheaply so are going to explore those as well. Search was one of our weaknesses, but I did a lot of reading on SEO and think I applied it pretty well (technical aspect), we're starting to see results from that but it's a slow process :) We did explore a lot of options about technical limits/nag screens etc, we are going to be tweaking it and seeing what works and what doesn't! A/B testing landing pages is a great idea. I am keeping close track of it on Analytics and making small tweaks here and there constantly, we got the bounce rate from ~50% down to 25% which is good.
- ig1 15y ago
  Back of an envelope calculation, assuming a CPC of $1 and a conversion rate of 1% (say 10% download your app and 10% of those decide to purchase) it'll cost you $100 to make a $30 sale. You can plug your actual numbers in to give you a better estimate though. For search have a look at the data, use google adwords tool to figure out how many people search for the terms you're targeting and check out how competitive those terms are. Remember even the top ranked search term only gets 20% of the clicks from that search and it drops rapidly as you go down the page.

glimcat 15y ago

The front page is nice. It could use polish, but that's usual. I think the visual emphasis on the "Learn More" button is the main thing that needs improvement; it's easy to overlook due to proximity and visual similarity to the download button. The secondary nav bar could stand to be de-emphasized slightly. I think a bit more space above the "Create/Export/Play" headers would smooth the layout a bit; the shape of the is slightly conflicted at present and this might address it. The "Learn More" page is the part that needs to switch focus from products of the tool to the use of the tool. The "Construct" tab in the primary nav bar should also be renamed "Learn More" - or both to "How It Works" etc. - so that it clearly communicates the action needed. You likely have two main groups arriving at your main page. 1. People who know what your tool is who are there to download it. 2. People who have been convinced to check out your tool and who want to quickly get a grasp for what it will do for them. The faster you satisfy these people, the happier they'll be and the fewer bounces you'll get.

TomGullen 15y ago
Thanks, these are great ideas. Agree with you about more emphasis on the use of the tool quicker. And I also like your idea about Construct reading "How it works" I think that's a lot more inviting. Construct will be a bit abstract for a lot of new visitors.
- glimcat 15y ago
  > Construct will be a bit abstract for a lot of new visitors. Exactly. They won't associate brand and product yet.