The 35th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Carter Thomas of Bluecloud Solutions. Bluecloud is a USA based iphone app marketing company that specializes in iPhone application monetization. Carter built and sold over 400+ iPhone and iPad apps (mostly games) in his first two years as an iOS marketer

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

You can click here if you’re interested in learning more about App Traffic Academy.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

The 34th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Leon Dorado and Arash Eskandari of JawCandy. Leon and Arash discuss the development process for their first app Bumify, and why they’ve made the decision to release future apps by reskinning existing apps. JawCandy’s forthcoming apps include Chicken Choke and Mustache Mojo.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

You can click here if you’re interested in learning more about App Traffic Academy.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

Full text transcript of podcast interview below.

The 33rd episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with mobile marketing expert Greg Hickman. Greg is the host of the Mobile Mixed podcast – a podcast I strongly recommend. In this interview, Greg shares mobile marketing tactics and strategies that app developers can use to drive app downloads and create engaged app users.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

You can click here if you’re interested in learning more about App Traffic Academy.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

Full text transcript of Episode 33 of the APPetite App Marketing podcast – Greg Hickman interview:

Jeff Rutherford: Welcome to the 33rd episode of the APPetite App Marketing Podcast. I’m your host, Jeff Rutherford. Stay tuned for my interview with Greg Hickman. Greg is the host of the Mobile Mixed Podcast. He’s going to talk about a wide range of mobile marketing tactics and strategies to help you drive downloads and market your own app. Stay tuned for the interview.

Jeff: Welcome back to the APPetite App Marketing podcast. My guest today is Greg Hickman, the host of the Mobile Mixed podcast. Greg is also the mobile marketing manager at Cabela’s, the retailer. Greg, welcome to the podcast.

Greg Hickman: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Jeff: Sure. First, I just wanted to let my audience know that they should definitely go out and check out your podcast, Mobile Mixed. There’s a lot of great info there. They should take a look at it, download it, listen to it. Not everything will apply specifically to app marketing, but I think they’ll learn a lot, so I just wanted to throw that out there.

Greg: [laughs] Thanks, I appreciate it.

Jeff: I wanted to just start off and get a little bit about who you are, just your personal background and how you got into mobile marketing.

Greg: Sure. After graduating college, I got started working at a marketing agency in Connecticut that represented Pepsi and Unilever, very full service agency, doing everything from TV to radio, print, online, and my boss had actually left and went to a small promotional company that was focused on mobile.
This was in 2005 at the time. It seemed really interesting to me, so I chose to take a new opportunity and we were doing a lot of mobile promotions for professional sports teams like the New York Jets, the Florida Marlins, Carolina Panthers, as well as AT&T, promoting a lot of their third party content providers such as like Sony Pictures and EA Games.

You need to remember that at this time, there was no iPhones, so a lot of the marketing was definitely text message marketing based and how that tied to in person live events and also other online initiatives, was there for a handful of years and really just fell in love with mobile and believe that it was going to “the next thing” and really a great marketing vehicle to connect with an audience and customers.

From there, it had gone on to do some consulting, started my own text message marketing company, and then worked with a network of 300 shopping centers across the United States, implementing mobile marketing programs for them. Around that time, just it is, was 2008 or so, then do that for a handful of years and along that time, last year, we’re talking right now in July of 2013.

About June of 2012, I started Mobile Mixed, which was really just started off as a mission for me to connect with other people that I thought were doing really cool things in Mobile. It started off as this interview based show, and then it started adding blog content, editorial content, and really just started training people on how to be a better mobile marketer based off of my experience and the experiences of those that I’ve been interviewing.

It’s really just evolved. The site and podcast are taking off, and I’m super excited about those. Those actually led me into working with Cabela’s as well. I lead the mobile marketing strategy for Cabela’s which, as you mentioned, is a very large retailer in the hunting, camping, and fishing space.

All things mobile for them, I am kind of leading a team in an effort to make them more mobile.

Jeff: One of the things I’ve noticed with your podcast is that, recently, you’ve created some very specific niche content, an episode is directed at very specific businesses, like one that comes to mind is you did one, if I’m not mistaken, hair salons and how they could use mobile marketing.

Not necessarily for game developers who are listening to this, but definitely, developers of productivity apps, I think that the strategy that you did could be a good strategy. One thing that comes to mind that I’m familiar with is the company Evernote, which a lot of people are familiar with, they do a ton of blog content where they have what they refer to as Evernote ambassadors, where they’ll do blog things such as how to plan a vacation using Evernote or how to be a better parent using Evernote, et cetera.

I just wanted to talk about that for a moment in terms of your old decision and wondered how did you decide to create those specific niche episodes, and what has the response been?

Greg: That’s a great question. Basically, as I was building my audience in the blog and podcast, I get a lot of people that would essentially reach out to me and say, “Hey, this is my type of business. How can I use mobile? I don’t think mobile would work for me.” I got to a point where I was like I’m on a mission to basically do an episode that’s about all different types of business, and I call the podcast series, “How blank can use mobile marketing.”

I still have this long running list of topics that I’m making my way through, and I’ve really just been prioritizing based on the request that have come through. A lot of the people that tune in to my show are marketing consultants and small business owners that are providing services to a small business owner such as a restaurant or a salon.

I literally just got an email right before we got on this call from an eye doctor who wants me to do an episode about how eye doctors can use mobile. A lot of it just comes from request, which has been great, makes my life a lot easier because I’m just delivering the content that people are asking for. It really just stemmed from the fact that a lot of people have come to me and said that they don’t believe that mobile can work in their business, and I was basically on a mission to go out and prove them all wrong.

Jeff: I assume the response has been great to the wounds you’ve done.

Greg: Yeah, it has been great. I’m fairly new to the blogging and podcasting world and the online marketing world. I’ll be doing mobile forever, but building an audience and generating traffic and all that stuff has been fairly new to me. The site is a little over a year old now, as of earlier this month.

A combination between that series and the episodes where I’m not interviewing people, and it’s more just me, solo episodes, teaching people, things that I’ve learned, more that I’ve come across really is what has sparked a lot of the growth.

Again, it is very, very niche in the topic. If I’m doing an episode on restaurants, an app developer might be like, “That’s not for me.” Those that have chosen to listen to the episodes that maybe outside of their focus, I’ve actually received a handful of emails that are like, “Wow, that actually really helped me think about mobile differently in my business and knowing a restaurant or whatever.”

That’s sort of the point and from a content marketing perspective, if you’re not…This is really for all business. We can talk about this is how this relates to an app developer, but if you’re not talking to one specific person, it makes it really hard for people to follow the story and follow what you’re trying to say.
As you hone in on one person, so even though I’m just talking about restaurants in one episode, whoever is listening knows what a restaurant is. They’re able to at least put themselves in that position or put themselves in those shoes to at least relate to it, that even that relation is more powerful than media saying, “It really doesn’t matter what type of business you have, you can do all of these things.” It just makes it harder for someone to connect with it.
Just because of that alone, those episodes and that series itself has definitely done well for the site.

Jeff: How would you relate that to something that an app developer could do in terms of trying to gain that audience or content marketing?

Greg: I’ve been involved in a lot of apps that have been developed, and one thing I could say is that I think a lot of people fall short on is starting the planning of how you’re going to market it, when you start developing the app.

For most people, it’s a fairly long process to develop an app. It could take multiple months. As you start developing, you need to start thinking about how you’re going to market and who you’re going to market to.

If you’re building an app, just like if you’re building a restaurant, you should have a specific type of customer or user in mind. Starting to layout who that customer is, who that typical user is, what are their user habits, where do they spend their time, and really start training this persona of…My customer is Jack, and he has two young children, and he lives in the Southeast and loves to go fishing or whatever.

He always has his phone with him. He’s in his early 50’s, so he might not be as augmented to reality yet. Maybe he’s using some of these more basic features like text messaging. How can I create an app that’s going to resonate with him? Really identifying who that person is and creating something for that person is really the start. Then knowing where you’re going to go and where that person is that you can then market to them.

People get stuck in this concept of “the product will sell itself,” and yes, the product will sell itself one you put it in front of the right audience, but you need to find the right audience. If you’re not doing anything to build awareness about this amazing product, then who’s ever going to find out about it?

Jeff: That’s great. I think that doing those personas is really key and really valuable for marketing, because I’ve talked to potential clients before, not necessarily app developers, but just in the technology and software space. I ask them who their ideal customer is, and they say, “Everybody.” I’m like, “Oh.” [laughs]

Try to market everybody, you’re not going to be successful, so I think you’re right. Again, circling back to the whole content marketing and your idea of doing these niche podcast episode, again, I think app developers…I use the Evernote example. There are a lot of other examples out there, where you are talking to a specific audience of how they can use your app and you’re either writing a blog or doing a podcast.

As you mentioned, the eye doctor example, I’m sure there are lots of people out there doing a Google search, how can doctors use blank, use a productivity app? It’s something to think about in terms of your content marketing strategy.

Greg: Even this is not necessarily specific to, say, a mobile app developer, but look at HubSpot. They’re a software company and they have one the most traffic blogs on the Internet when it comes to marketing advice. They generate a lot of awareness about themselves and how to market, how to use their tools, not even just their tools, how to use the concept of their tools in more of a general sense.

I can imagine what type of traffic and awareness that has created for them. Really, just the lead generation that it’s created for them. They come with all of these amazing white papers that you have to download and provide your email address. I’ve downloaded a handful of them, and they follow up with you.

They’re like, “Hey, what interest you about this? How can we help? Are you looking for a software like HubSpot? If not, maybe we can point in the right direction.”
They’re just being helpful. They’re just creating good content, and that’s their marketing. They spent a lot of time and effort on creating that content, and in a lot of ways, aren’t spending probably as much money as other businesses are, in order to get the word out. That works for them.

Jeff: HubSpot is a great example, and I just want to emphasize what you just mentioned that they have a free blog, obviously, that tons of people are coming to. In order to get those emails, they offer white papers and case studies and eBooks, PDF eBooks, that are gated, meaning you have to give them your email to get it.

For an app developer example, figuring out some type of content that you could create, that would have enough value, that you could work with a designer or a friend to design a really nice looking PDF and then you ask people for their email in terms of the download process. I agree with that. That’s a great strategy.
I wanted to talk about, you’ve talked a lot on your podcast and your blog articles about using mobile marketing, specifically text messaging, and as you talked about how you got into the marketing and mobile marketing industry around text, how could an app marketer, in your opinion use text messaging as part of their tactics and strategies to drive downloads or to find engaged users.

Greg: That’s a good question. I would say, you need to understand the channel of SMS, first. Obviously, SMS is a very immediate channel, over 90 percent of text messages are read within minutes. How does that become an advantage to someone like an app developer that’s promoting it? Maybe early on, as they start marketing it, they build their website, and they have people signing up to be kept up to date on when certain things released and update and stuff like that.

You can have them subscribe to a text message marketing [?] less, because when that thing goes live, you basically send out a text message with a link that takes them to the app store so they can download the app. That’s a lot easier than doing it from an email. It’s direct, it’s going to be read super fast, and it’s already on their phone, so you obviously know they’re looking at it on their phone.

It’s going to open up the app store, and they’re going to be able to very quickly get the app on your phone. That comes on to, “Where does that text call to action go? How do you incorporate it into your marketing?”

You need to think about all of the other channels, and I always say that mobile is one of the most complementary channels that exist and probably the most dependent channel that exist.

If you don’t add that text call to action to, say, a print ad, or your website, or a radio spot, or your podcast, there’s no way that people are going to know about it. If you’re creating that content as this app developer and you’re creating the content early, you’re building an audience talking about what problem is this app going to solve for you.

You’re constantly referring them to subscribe to this list to get more tips and to be kept up to date on when this product is going to release quickly. Send a text message with a link to download it. Other ways, I’d say that’s probably the main one, having that list, to be an acquisition source, but you could do some sort of text sweepstakes.

If it’s a paid app, maybe people could opt in to win a free version or win some sort of experience that the developer is giving away that maybe is going to enhance the app, something like that.

As you’re building it, people that are interested can follow along and they can opt in to have a behind the scenes view of you building this thing, or have small group chats to have your interested audiences help facilitate what features and functionality go into it.

This obviously all needs to be planned early, but it could be a way to acquire those that are interested in participating in that.

Jeff: That’s great advice.

I wanted to see if we could drilldown a little bit, because if someone’s listening who is a solo app developer.

Are there vendors or tools that you would recommend, or a place on your site where you have recommendations, so that someone could implement collecting those telephone numbers and sending out the SMS or text message blast when you announce the app? How does that work? Can you give us an idea around is it something that’s affordable for small developers?

Greg: Absolutely. I list a handful of solutions that a small business owner or app developer can use on my site in my Resources page. You can visit mobilemixed.com/resources and I go through all the resources that I use and recommend.

To name a couple of them, a good one for an app developer might be a company called Mogreet. They have a product called Mogreet Express. They just got acquired by a company called Tevia. If you go to mogreet.com, M O G R E E T, they do SMS and MMS.

The reason I mention them first is because one, their team is amazing, and two, their product is very affordable. The plans start at 30 bucks a month. You can also include picture and video messaging, in addition to the text part of it.

As an app developer, you can maybe give away sneak peak screenshots of certain things and have a link to a survey. In the wire framing stage, you can send out a message that says, “Check out this quick video. This is what we’re planning. Click the link below and give us your feedback.” Something like that.
You could start making it more of an interactive experience, and obviously more visual, since you are creating the app and it’s going to be something that’s in someone’s hand at some point. That could be a cool way.

Outside of that I would look at probably a company called Waterfall Mobile. They have a small business solution that’s pretty powerful as well, then there are some other cheaper ones that are out there that I have on my site. From an app developer perspective the Mogreet one could be pretty interesting, because of that multimedia messaging capability.

Jeff: That’s great. You mentioned earlier that you’ve been involved in the development of some apps. From your own perspective, have you seen any particular tactics or strategies that worked, in terms of driving downloads and finding engaged users?

Greg: One, I would say that a lot of the apps that I’ve been involved in were a part of the business, they weren’t the business.
What I mean by that, some of the app developers that are listening might be making an app where it’s, say, like Hotel Tonight, or something like that, where the app actually is the business or, say, like in Uber as a mobile first, started off as a mobile only, really is a mobile only business, whereas the companies that I’ve been involved with apps for the most part, have had other marketing channels.

App is now one part of the strategy. In those scenarios, I always refer to what I call asset activation. You have all of these assets already. You probably have an email list. You probably have other marketing channels. You have a website, so maybe you’ve been in business for a while. You have traffic. Maybe you already have a newsletter and things like that.

Leveraging the things that you already have. If you have an in store experience, having signage in the store. Leverage the things that you already have that are going to essentially be as close to free as possible for you.

Outside of that, some really good paid solutions that have worked are Facebook app install units are amazing. I would definitely recommend app developers looking to using Facebook advertising. You can target very, very, heavily in to the interests of people and what other things that they may have liked.
For example, if you’re building an app and you know that your ideal customer might be a HubSpot customer, you can create an ad that will be seen by people that have expressed interest and liked HubSpot on Facebook.

You can do that multiplied by however many other brands and products that are out on Facebook that people may have liked, and really, really, target who sees your app install unit. Basically, it puts, if you’ve seen it, at least on the mobile version, a big ad unit with a button that says “Install this app.”
It takes you right to installing the app. If you do it right, and again you focus on where your customer is and what other brands and products they might be interested in, it can be very, very, cost effective, so I’ve seen that be successful.

There’s a company. I’d have to look back to see what episode it was, but a gentleman by the name of Craig Palli was on my podcast. He works for a company called Fiksu, F I K S U. They are a mobile app marketing company. They help generate quality downloads and help you acquire loyal app users.

They have a lot of strategies. We dive in to a handful of them in the episode, from how you pay, paid solutions, and also free solutions for finding those loyal users. They actually have services that help you do so, depending on your budget.

I know they’ve worked with Hotel Tonight. That’s one of their clients. If you’re building an app that you aspire to be like a Hotel Tonight, I would definitely check out Fiksu, because that’s who Hotel Tonight used.

Jeff: That’s great. I interviewed someone from Fiksu as well. I think that’s great. They do have a lot of great offerings for app developers looking for downloads. That’s great.

Greg: Lastly, I would say one thing that you need to be thinking about is this day and age there are a lot of apps out there, so you have tons of competition. You need to understand that 80 to 90 percent of all apps that are downloaded are used once before never being used again, or being deleted.
More importantly, from your marketing, obviously, you need to make sure you have a good product that’s going to keep people coming back. When you do come out and launch, you need to have some sort of strategy for that initial, for a lack of a better term, welcome series.

What’s the experience that a new app user is going to go through in that first 90 days? How are you going to connect with them over the course of 90 days, once they’ve downloaded the app, to make sure they come back?

You can do all that you can to get people to download it, but if you’re not keeping them engaged, either with the app, obviously there’s a product problem.
If there’s a communication problem, you need to have something in place that is going to reengage them when they go idle for a certain amount of time, and things like that that I think a lot of people don’t think about when they’re building the app because they are just an app developer. Maybe they don’t have marketing experience or things like that.

It’s way bigger than just the app, although, again, if your app sucks, then no matter how good your marketing is, it doesn’t matter.
Thinking about ways to make a splash, one that comes to mind and, I’m not really sure how they did it but if your audience is listening they should look in to this. Did you hear of the app called Mailbox?

Jeff: Yeah, where they have a gated entry?

Greg: A waitlist.

Jeff: Yeah, waitlist…

Greg: There are hundreds of thousands of people on that waitlist, all of my friends that got in early. I don’t know how they saw it, some sort of social sharing. When you signed up, it said, “Share that you’re signed up.” I saw that and that’s how I signed up through some sort of social sharing.

It became this crazy viral thing that you got on, and every day you were checking to see where you were on this list. “How close am I to finally getting this thing that everybody’s talking about?” I will tell you I personally got frustrated with that after a long time because it didn’t seem like I was getting any closer at all. I complained a few times. They responded. That was great, and then they got acquired.

I got approved to use it, probably a few weeks before they got acquired, and I forget who they got acquired by.

Jeff: I think it was Dropbox.

Greg: Yeah, possibly Dropbox.

Jeff: Possibly.

Greg: Once they got acquired, I had friends that were 400,000 on the list and they were moving up over 100,000 spots a day. I was so frustrated they were moving so fast, because they had that bandwidth. That happened for a long time. That was months that they were building that anticipation. I’m sure it definitely turned some people away. They were like, “Screw this. I shouldn’t have to wait.”

That didn’t probably cost them anything. They got people engaged, excited about this product that looked super sexy, and something that was going to solve a problem that a lot of people were trying to solve, and then they let everyone share it for them and market it for them. It turned into this viral thing.

If you can think about ways to get people to become these ambassadors before the product ever even becomes available, you’re going to be in a much better position when you launch.

Jeff: That’s great advice. What apps, personally, have you downloaded and used, in the last six or eight months, that really impressed you and that you have gone back to?

Greg: That’s a really good question. I’m taking out my phone right now.

Jeff: [laughs]

Greg: I’ve had Mailbox for more than a few months, but I use that pretty much religiously. I use Evernote a lot. I didn’t, obviously, download that recently.
One that I’ve had for a while that I like, but I do use it all the time, is Camera Plus. It’s an amazing camera app, one that I’ve found that I like more than any of the others.

Have you heard of Cobook?

Jeff: I don’t think I have.

Greg: It’s like an address book, but it’s like an address book on steroids. I use it now. I have an iPhone, so I use it in place of the regular address book. I wouldn’t say I have to use it every day, but I do use it a lot.

One that I just downloaded that I have been using pretty religiously is Evernote Hello.

Jeff: Oh yeah.

Greg: I just came across that a couple of weeks ago at a conference. When I meet people, I take a picture of them, I add their contact information, and then it shows me a time line of when I met these people.

When I get home and I’m like, “Oh, remember that girl that did that thing that I met at that conference,” I could just go back see when I was at that conference and easily find them. I can scan the business card. That one has been a life saver.

Those are the most recent ones.

Jeff: That’s all the questions that I had. Did you have anything else that you wanted to add in terms of thoughts that you have in terms of how to drive downloads in app marketing?

Greg: Yeah, I would say one thing. When I worked with the shopping centers, we were rolling out applications for all of these malls across the country, and we did something I thought helped us create awareness. This was expensive, but this gives you an idea of the things you can do.

We created life size iPhone costumes. They were 32 inch LCD screens built into…We had professional costume designers build the most crazy…You wear this costume that is connected to wheelchair batteries that power this LCD screen that is connected to an iPhone. It looked exactly like a large iPhone that you could wear.
It was probably about 65 pounds. It was pretty heavy to wear for a handful of hours. But we built three of them and we took them around the country to all of these malls as the apps launched. We went out and solicited PR, local radio and local TV.

Imagine your little shopping mall in your town and you’re walking through the mall, like if it’s an outdoor mall, and there’s this life size iPhone walking at you and engaging you and handing you a flier to download the app with the URL and all of the information.

That drew a lot of attention. That’s one on one direct marketing. The people that we sent out there, we trained them on how to use the app. The app was on the screen as they’re walking around wobbling through the mall.

We went out and we got local TV so we had local stations like FOX, ABC, NBC come and cover it. You’re sitting at home at night in your local market and all of a sudden see a news spot where there’s this big iPhone walking around. It catches your attention.

It did cost money to build those things. You could probably do it much more affordable than what we did, but things like that where it’s not a lot of people are doing it, it connects directly with your customer.

Obviously, it’s a mall app. Where do we go? To the mall that has the apps. They’re obviously already customers to the mall, they’re in the mall. Now you’re just letting them know there’s this new way to engage.

You need to think about creative ways to stand out, make a splash, even if it’s in a very small local market. It doesn’t need to be this national thing. Start off small, and if you get picked up on local news stations that’s not going to hurt your promotion effort.
I just wanted to share that story because I think that once we did that, we literally had even app developers and other companies calling us saying, “Hey, can we buy the suit?” or “Can we rent out the suit?”

We literally started a service where we were renting out this costume, one of these three costumes, and shipping it around the country to people that were interested in using it to promote their own app. That was interesting, too. It could potentially spawn this whole other business but it was a hassle to deal with that part.

It just goes to show you that app developers were interested and agencies that were building apps were interested in using this thing to promote their own app.

Jeff: That sounds great. It reminds me of actually in my PR business, I’ve talked to a few app developers who are developing apps for specifically the college market. What I’ve always told them is going back to the Facebook example.

Start with one campus because again if you…Going back to your persona, is if you say I’m going after a college market, it’s difficult to boil the ocean and reach the “college markets.” Start with one school and do everything that you can. Have people there on the ground, ambassadors getting other students to download the app. I think that’s a great example of that kind of real world.

Again, we’ve been speaking with Greg Hickman of the Mobile Mixed podcast. Definitely go and check out his podcast as I mentioned before. Greg, thanks for doing this interview.

Greg: Thank you so much, Jeff. I appreciate it.

The 32nd episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Luis Levy of NovyPR. Levy discusses how app developers and small app studios can best market their iOS and Android apps and games. Levy also reveals how app developers can use Reddit to help gain attention for their apps and games.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

You can click here if you’re interested in learning more about App Traffic Academy.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

The 31st episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Sam and Seth Coster, of Butterscotch Shenanigans, developers of the new game Quadropus Rampage available for iOS and Android.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

You can click here if you’re interested in learning more about App Traffic Academy.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

The 30th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Trevor McKendrick of Salem Software LLC. Trevor discusses how he created a popular Spanish Language Bible app for iOS including determining a profitable app niche, hiring developers, and optimizing the app for discovery via the app store.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

You can click here if you’re interested in learning more about App Traffic Academy.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

The 29th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Josh Frank, of Yunk Apps, the creator of a new photo app, Collage Shaper.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

You can click here if you’re interested in learning more about App Traffic Academy.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

[audio: http://traffic.libsyn.com/appetiteprpodcast/28.mp3]

The 28th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Christopher Haag, developer of Hamster Chase, a fun game available for iOS and Android. Haag discusses how he got 10,000 downloads in 8 days following the release of Hamster Chase.

Click here to play on the iPad or iPhone. Click here to download the Mp3 file.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

[audio: http://traffic.libsyn.com/appetiteprpodcast/27.mp3]

The 27th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Steve Murch, CEO and founder of BigOven, a recipe and cooking app available on multiple platforms – browser, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, etc.

Click here to play on the iPad or iPhone. Click here to download the Mp3 file.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

[audio: http://traffic.libsyn.com/appetiteprpodcast/26.mp3]

The 26th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Carson Barker and Cliff Haley of Appspire, an app marketing and advertising firm. Barker and Haley are the authors of a new book – APPOWER: A Guide To Mobile App Marketing Success. Interview transcript below.

Click here to play on the iPad or iPhone. Click here to download the Mp3 file.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

Interview transcript

APPetite App Marketing podcast Episode 26

Jeff Rutherford: Welcome to the 26th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast. I’m your host, Jeff Rutherford. Stay tuned for my interview with Carson Barker and Cliff Haley of Appspire, an app marketing and advertising firm. They’re also the authors of the new book, “App Power: A Guide to Mobile App Marketing Success.” Stay tuned for the interview.
[music]

Jeff: Welcome back to the APPetite App Marketing podcast. My guests today are Carson Barker and Cliff Haley of Appspire.me, a leading mobile app marketing agency. Appspire.me recently published an ebook about app marketing that’s available for the Kindle, “App Power: A Guide to Mobile App Marketing Success.” Guys, thanks for joining the podcast.

Cliff Haley: Thanks for having us.

Carson Barker: Yeah, thanks for having us on.

Jeff: Sure. Given your knowledge of app marketing and the effectiveness of certain tactics and strategies. They obviously change over time. As you look ahead in 2013, what are the top performing app marketing tactics and strategies right now that you think developers should definitely consider?

Carson: The two top ones are in app advertising. That’s a big deal. You can get a lot of downloads and you can increase your rankings that way. Developers should bear in mind that when they’re in the developing process they need to make sure they get the SDKs installed, so they can do that in app marketing process. I would say social media, as well. It’s always been a big deal. If you get a good app, you can build a good, engaging social media campaign around it that just increases your chances for success.

Jeff: OK, go ahead.

Carson: I’m interested in to see how the Windows 8 thing unfolds in 2013, as that takes off. I use Windows 8 their app market seems a little bit limited, but I don’t think it’s always going to be that way. I’d say one thing to keep to keep an eye on is what’s going on there, and maybe you can be the first guy to market it in your particular niche with Windows 8. That’s an open playing field at this point.

Who knows? It may be horrible and crash eventually but not if enough people jump on board. I’m definitely keeping an eye on Windows 8 app market.

Jeff: That’s interesting. So, in terms of social media, are you specifically referring to social media around the app itself, or building in social media hooks for sharing and et cetera if that makes sense for your app?

Carson: Yeah, you have to do a little of both. If you’re going to do a social media contest, hooks and campaigns, they need to be focused around your app. They can’t just be win a free iPad, and that’s it. You have to tie it all together and make a brilliant package that will draw people back to downloading the app.

Jeff: Got it. So what is your experience been thus far with mobile app ads via Facebook, are they performing well? Is the costs going up?

Carson: Well, I would say that they’re performing well, but it’s as a direct response to direct ROI, as in app advertising is. Just because you get someone on Facebook, they still have to click the ad, they have to click and read your Facebook page, more likes. Then you have to convince them to download the app from there.

There’s just more steps in the process. It’s still a really good tool for mid to long term marketing. If you ever have updates to your app, you can announce it on Facebook, and so forth.

Jeff: Got you. In terms of the pay-per-download campaigngs, are there specific networks, exchanges, or players, in the space, you would recommend?

Carson: I’m a little hesitant to do so, because obviously, the app marketing world is changing every minute, every day. I mean some of our favorite ad companies that we use, I mean we may not use them next week, then we may use them again. Apple is always changing things. We got to stay ahead of the curve the best we can. I mean, our preferences change frequently.

Jeff: Sure, sure, if a developer is going to pursue a cost per install campaign for their app, are there general guidelines or best practices that you would suggest?

Carson: I would say shoot more for rankings than downloads because if you get higher rankings, you get organic downloads, not ones you’re paying for.

Jeff: In terms of that, how would that impact how I would do a campaign? In terms of focusing on rankings versus downloads.

Carson: Most people that do advertising campaigns, they’re more concerned about getting a few downloads here and there, in paying for those. That’s great, but I think the bigger picture is, you want to get higher rankings, so you have to pull together a more expansive campaign to pull in rankings than just downloads.

Jeff: Can you talk about store review optimization? SRO? What are some SRO guidelines that app developers should keep in mind?

Carson: We break ours down into a format. Keywords’ obviously a big one. I would say you have to sum up your app in one or two sentences, somewhere at the top of your app store description. That’s another big one as well. You have to make it creative and punchy and it grabs your audience pretty quickly, or else they’ll skip onto the next thing.

Jeff: Do you have any suggestions for developers and how they can increase the number of reviews of their app? What are some ways that…?

Carson: At in store app reviews? Is that what you’re…?

Jeff: Yeah.

Carson: You can always submit to review sites that will get people… Your app out there more often and get more people to review your site in the store.

As always, tell your friends about it, but really giving a lot of buzz up through press releases and social media so people can come check out your app and leave comments on there.

Cliff: Yeah. I also recommend that if you’re an app developer, that you are paying attention to what people are saying in the app review sections and you’re responding to that. If there are complaints, you’re addressing them in the open. You’re transparent about that. That can influence whether or not somebody leaves a review if they come to your page and they see that you’re interacting with people.

Even if they’re completely happy with your app at this point in time and they understand that it might get better, they maybe more inclined to say, “Hey, this is app is great on the first download. I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

If they think that you’re an active developer and you’re going to listen to the feedback you get, you’re going to keep working on your app. Whereas if you don’t respond to anything and your app is not that great on its first run, then people might expect it will never be that great.

How you interact with people in the reviews themselves and through social media, of course, can kind of influence your overall image.

Jeff: I mentioned earlier your new ebook “App Power.” Can you talk about the ebook? What does it offer app developers?

Carson: Sure. Cliff and I decided to write that a few months ago. After talking with clients, we realized we had some kind of industry insight that not many other people have, and so we decided to divulge that and put that out there for app developers to check out how to make their app successful. Apps are being uploaded by the hundreds now to iTunes and Android. If you don’t any marketing behind it, your app’s just going to get lost in the dust, so to speak.
These are some basic guidelines on what to think about when you’re uploading your app and if you want to make it successful.

Cliff: Yeah, and we kind of wanted to reach an audience that wasn’t the developer audience as well, but maybe the guy who has a cool idea for an app. Obviously, the first step that they’re going to think of is, “How do I build it?” Once you build it, then what? It’s not only for developers, but conceivers as well.

Jeff: I know you mentioned in your book the importance of the app icon. Can you talk about why the icon is so important?

Carson: Your icon is pretty much your business card. That’s your handshake. That’s the first thing people see when they look at you in the iTunes store of the Android store, so if you don’t have a compelling icon that’s simple but has great design to it, you’re just going to get passed over.

Jeff: If a developer listening has released an app and it hasn’t performed as well as he would like, or he or she would like, and it’s just buried in the app store, are there any specific tactics or strategies outside of what we’ve discussed that you would recommend of how they could revive interest in the app and improve the rankings?

Carson: Yeah, sure. First of all, I would say that it’s never too late to get your app some more downloads and some higher rankings and make it successful. We’ve had apps that come to us that have been around for a year and they’re just kind of struggling. We’ve turned a great campaign around for them. As far as what’s wrong with it, most of our clients that are in that position, they just don’t do any marketing or advertising behind it so no one sees it.
The first step they should take is look at their app and say, “OK, is this something wrong with the app or am I just not doing any marketing behind it?” Once you get to that step, then you see where you go from there.

Cliff: Right, and what we said about listening to reviews and your users folds into that, as well. It’s surprising how many people have apps and they’re wondering, “Why isn’t my app doing well?” Then you point out to them, “Well, look. These people are telling you why it’s not doing well. Address these issues and then we’ll talk about getting you some advertising.”

Jeff: Sure. Let’s talk a minute about Appspire.me. What does Appspire.me offer app developers? What do you guys do?

Cliff: We do marketing and advertising campaigns for app developers to get them higher rankings, more downloads, and some buzz in the press. We’ve been doing that marketing since 2009. That’s our specialty. We figured out a few years ago that app marketing was going to be the next big thing so we jumped into it head first. We figured out pretty quickly that it’s a whole different animal than any other marketing out there.

We did some trial and error stuff and learned some best practices, and now we’ve got our services down to a T.

Jeff: Great. For app marketing specifically, what are the big differences that you see between Android and iOS platforms.

Cliff: Well your audience is different. We’ve noticed that the Android audience, I guess because they’re smaller and more dedicated, they’re a lot more responsive than the iTunes audience. You’re people that buy Android phones, usually you do a lot of research and thinking into buying their Android phone just because an Android can do so much, whereas just random customers will buy an iPhone just because they’re out there and they’re just kind of the majority.
But usually the people that have Androids are a little more tech savvy and therefore they’re glad to have this phone and they’re reading reviews and checking out more apps and so they’re an easier audience to reach out to.

Jeff: Got you. What apps have you downloaded and used in the last six to eight months that really impressed you?

Carson: One of the most recent ones that’s impressed me is KiteDesk. That’s a really cool app that’s a cloud server. Basically, it takes all the cloud services that you have, like Facebook and Google and DropBox, and converts them all into one streaming format. So it’s super convenient. We definitely like that app a lot.

Jeff: Any others or any games that you’re playing?

Cliff: You know what, as much as I would like to play games on my phone, I’m so busy right now. Games are not an option for me. [laughter]

Cliff: Well, games are an option for me, so there’s definitely one that I want to talk about and mainly, if they’re listening. I want them to understand that they have got to get their app on the Android system. Ever since I’ve switched from iPhone to Android, this game is the only one I miss. It is called “High Noon,” where you basically gun down an opponent in a Western street. It sounds horrible, but it’s awesome. They really should build that on Android and I’ve reached out and told them to do so, which means that they probably will if they care at all what I think.
[laughter]

Jeff: That’s great. Well, any current clients that you’re working on that you would want to mention and give a plug for an app for the listeners to check out?

Cliff: Yeah, we’ve started working with one that’s really cool called “TumbleWords.” It’s like “Scrabble,” and they’re actually based here in Austin, as well. They’ve just got a really compelling design to this app, and it’s a fun game to play and it has a little social media and group playing aspects on it, but the design, especially, just really blew us away when we checked it out.

That’s definitely one we’re excited to be working with.

Jeff: That’s great. That’s all the questions that I had. Did you have anything that you wanted to mention that we didn’t discuss?

Carson: It’s all I’ve got. How about you, Cliff?

Cliff: No, I think that’s it. Just for app developers out there, to really pay attention to all the clutter and noise that you’re going to have to cut through with your app. We’ve seen a lot of apps come across our desk that are trying to, in some way, replicate or be the next Twitter or Facebook. Iit’s better to take Twitter and Facebook and use that to enhance your app than try to unseat those guys.

If you do that, if you use existing social media technologies in your app you’re going to have a much better chance than trying to replicate social media again, just for the sole purpose of your app.

Long story short is if you can leverage any existing technologies to make your app better, it’s better to do that than to try to recreate. Reinvent the wheel.

Jeff: Right. One thing that I did want to ask. We talked about it earlier. Are there any specific social media campaigns or tactics or strategies that you’ve seen that you would recommend developers consider and think about?

Carson: Contests always do really well, but you have to tie that in with your app. Or else once the contest is over, you won’t have anything else to do with it. If you can bridge a social media contest with live events, like you put on a booth at South by Southwest, or if you have a music related app, you go to some music festival, and tie that in with the social media, that’s always a really good thing to do as well.

Jeff: Got you. Well, great. Again, we’ve been speaking with Carson Barker and Cliff Haley of Appspire, a leading app marketing agency. They have an ebook in the Kindle store, “App Power: A Guide to Mobile App Marketing Success.” I’ll have links to all of that in the show notes that you can check out.
Guys, thanks for doing the interview.

Cliff: Yeah, thanks a lot, Jeff, it’s good talking to you.
Jeff: Yes, sure.

Carson: Yeah, thank you very much.

Jeff: Sure.

[audio: http://traffic.libsyn.com/appetiteprpodcast/025_APPetite_App_Marketing_podcast_-_Howard_Tsao_CEO_of_Muse_Games_interview.mp3]

The 25th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast features an interview with Howard Tsao, CEO of Muse Games. Muse Games is a New York-based indie studio that uses the Unity game engine. Muse Games’ games include CreaVures (iOS and browser) and Guns of Icarus.

Full interview transcript below.

Click here to play on the iPad or iPhone. Click here to download the Mp3 file.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast via email.

Do you have an interesting app marketing story or special insight into app-specific marketing? We’d love to interview you. Email us.

If you haven’t listened to the APPetite PR App Marketing podcast before, check out these earlier interviews:

Interview with Aron Aharonoff of GreatApps.com.

Interview with Molecube about their app marketing experiment.

Interview with Jeff Hughes, author of Android Apps Marketing, Secrets To Selling Your Android App.

Interview with Glenn Kiladis, GM of Free My Apps at Fiksu

Interview with Mark Grossnickle, CEO of Kihon Games

Interview with Nick Foster of Adrenaline Punch

Interview with Jacob Stevens, co-developer of Pizza Vs. Skeletons

Interview transcript:

Jeff Rutherford: Welcome to the 25th episode of the APPetite App Marketing podcast. Stay tuned for my interview with Howard Tsao, CEO of Muse Games. [music]

Jeff: Welcome back to the APPetite App Marketing podcast. My guest today is Howard Tsao, CEO of Muse Games, the creators of many games, including the “Guns of Icarus” and “CreaVures.” Howard, welcome to the podcast.

Howard Tsao: How’s it going?

Jeff: Good. First, can you tell me about yourself? How did you get into the game industry and what led to the creation of Muse Games?

Howard: It’s a good question. I love games. I think that’s really what it comes down to. Earlier on, we were in…Me and a few other guys on the team were doing this other venture. That is, really trying to fuse virtual worlds with web content. It was pretty interesting. It was new at the time. We spent a lot of time, and that was really earlier on in the Unity. That’s like Unity 1.5 days, I think.
We were really trying to make that work. I thought we created some pretty cool visualizations, but it really wasn’t going anywhere, and there was no business model around it. We were passionate gamers. With Unity, with everything that we learned with Unity, we decided to focus on games, and that’s really when we started Muse.

Jeff: Do you code yourself?

Howard: I don’t.

Jeff: You don’t, but you love playing games, you said.

Howard: Yeah. [laughs]

Jeff: I know many of your games are available for Mac and PC, but CreaVures, your game was one of the first games of yours that was released on the iOS, and I know that Chillingo published the game. What has been the experience so far with CreaVures and releasing the game for iOS?

Howard: That’s a good question. We decided to work with Chillingo at the time where we really didn’t know what the iOS market was about. We didn’t really have any experience, really, in game with the iOS. We got to talk to Chillingo, we thought the opportunity was pretty cool. Working with Chillingo is great in that they will assign you a producer and the producer will give you a lot of really valuable feedback. I think they have experience publishing games on the iOS for, obviously, a long time now, with a lot of success. Taking feedback on them, do it on a development process, was pretty cool. Obviously, we need to, and a lot of times, when people give you feedback, you just kind of go, “Oh.”

On the other hand, we take, we’re going to take feedback from our player base, regardless anyway, players are our biggest supporter, but also our harshest critic. In that sense, we’ll be taking feedback from just about anybody and what not, Chillingo who has experience publishing the game.

I think, from that standpoint, the relationship was great. I think in terms of publishing, they obviously have a relationship with media and so on that we didn’t really have access to. I think, in a sense, they helped, as well.

Jeff: What has it been like, in terms of downloads and players? I’m not asking you to tell me exactly the number of downloads. But are you seeing enough to say, “We’re definitely going to release on iOS in the future,” in addition to PC and Mac?

Howard: That’s a good question. Our downloads… We’ve done fairly well. Part of it was being fortunate to have some featuring by Apple. In addition to, even though we’re in the US, we also were game of the week in Europe and had a big banner, which is really fortunate. That helped propel the game in the first couple weeks, in getting a lot of people checking out the game. Obviously, some of the write ups also helped. But from that standpoint, it really helps. With a lot of iOS, because the market is really competitive now, it’s getting the featuring and getting some awareness at launch. We were pretty fortunate to have that. As far as whether we want to release another game, yeah, definitely. In terms of iOS, we also learned a lot with CreaVures, throughout the process.

Really what players in iOS are looking for. We have a much better understanding after CreaVures. So, in the next game that we’re working for iOS, we’ll definitely make the game more conducive. With coming from a PC game… Granted, with CreaVures, we built it with iOS in mind. We just made it a hard port and decided to make the port on a whim.

But to be able to make the game conducive, especially with a platformer that is timing sensitive, there were a lot of challenges. And I think that we learned along the way. With the next game, we’ll definitely take some of the lessons we learned and apply it.

Jeff: From your perspective, do you think that the industry will continue with the native app download process for smart phones and tablets? Or do you think, at some point, that we’ll move more towards browser based apps, versus the downloading native app model?

Howard: Yeah. I think downloading mobile is actually growing and I think it will continue to grow. If anything, I might actually think that will move away from browser and have more…

Jeff: Native?

Howard: Exactly. More mobile present. Being a dev, though, right now we’re in a privileged position, especially when we use an engine like Unity, where we can actually look across platforms and hopefully support as many distributions, or as many platforms, as we can. Granted, as long as the game fits. So that was the idea behind CreaVures, anyway. Being a dev, at least for us, we wouldn’t be pigeon holing ourselves into one method of distribution.

Jeff: What has Muse done to market CreaVures or is the arrangement with Chillingo… Do they handle, primarily, a lot of the marketing, since they have such experience?

Howard: Yeah. With CreaVures on iOS, we’ve been doing marketing primarily through Chillingo. On the PC and Mac front, we basically just do as much as we can to, at least when they are at launch, try to get the word out through media or journalists and through some giveaways that we did. But largely, it was also Steam. Steam doing an awesome job of featuring it in new games. For better or worse, we were more dependent on publishing, such as Chillingo, and platform, such as Steam. As a result, we were pretty complacent in doing that and not doing as much as we can to build up a community of our own, through social media. That’s a hard lesson to learn, as well.

Jeff: [laughs] With that in mind, are you trying to build up your social media now?
Howard: Absolutely. With Guns of Icarus Online, we have definitely done a much better job of interacting with our community and trying to get the word out. We just have more interesting, more relevant and more current stuff that we’re constantly posting on our Facebook and Twitter, for example, in keeping fans engaged. We definitely do a lot. I think that’s hugely important. Early on, we were just like, “OK. We can get our game on Steam. That’s super awesome.” That was that. In reality, looking back, that was actually kind of dumb.

Jeff: [laughs] I’m curious. Outside of being featured on Steam and independent of what you’ve done, in terms of CreaVures, with Chillingo, with any of your earlier games where they were on Steam, did you do any kind of paid advertising, in addition to just getting the word out via social media? Have you ever done any paid ads? Whether it’s Google or even a more mobile specific, like Tap Joy or Fixu?
Howard: That’s a good question. We’ve never done paid advertising. With Guns of Icarus Online, which is basically a PC title, we are also on Steam. We’re exploring that, now. But up until this point, we’d never done any paid advertising.

Jeff: Given your experience to date, both on iOS via Creavures and the other games that you’ve done via Steam, if you were having a beer with a young developer or a small app development team that’s just finished their game, what kind of basic advice would you give them on things that they should think about, in terms of marketing?

Howard: Great question. With the original Guns of Icarus, for example, on Steam, we were trying to bite into too much, I would say. And not really spending the time polishing as much as we should have, or implementing as much as we should have on the core of the game. That sounds like crazy. Like really obvious. But in terms of release, especially when we were a small team with not a lot of resources or money, you can definitely get into a trap of wanting to release the game. Maybe before it’s really ready. Getting players playing the game as early as you can will be immensely helpful. Earlier on, we were just sitting in our room, closing our doors and working on the game. And really have more blinders on, and just work on the game until we feel like it’s at a state where we’re ready to show people. But, usually, from a development standpoint, that’s too late.

Having players check out the game, try the game. Even in prototype stage or early alpha or whatever. Checking out the game. It’s really important. Through people playing, we end up revising a lot of mechanics, as well. That will be the biggest lesson.

Jeff: To get that feedback early and at the same time, also in addition to getting feedback, you’re also building buzz?

Howard: Exactly. Especially for e dev. I feel like there’s no greater way to build a community than just to talk about the game yourself, really interact with the players for better or worse. Players can have really bitter complaints about your game. But those feedback are worth listening to, especially if those player pre order. Because for people who pre order the game, they really… It’s their hard earned money. They really have the right to give you feedback or criticism.

Jeff: Have you done a Kickstarter for one of your games?

Howard: Yeah. Actually, we’ve done a Kickstarters for both CreaVures and Guns of Icarus Online.

Jeff: Oh, you did?

Howard: Kickstarter campaigns.

Jeff: How was that process like for you?

Howard: It’s been amazing. I first learned about Kickstarter through a friend of mine who is doing this fitness thing, actually. It’s completely not game related. I want to say that’s almost two years ago, so when Kickstarter was in it’s I wouldn’t say infancy early days. We gave CreaVures a try. Initially, we were like, “What’s this thing? Kickstarter?” Don’t really know what it’s about. But once we’d done a campaign for CreaVures, we fell in love with it and realized how powerful it was at the time. With Guns of Icarus Online, the same way. We did our campaign late last year. It was September. So we finished by January, last year. Kind of unfortunate, in a way. It was before the double fine phenomenon.

Jeff: What were the rewards? If you could just mention one or two, if you can remember, from the campaign.

Howard: A bunch. A combination of digital and physical rewards. I guess we were brave enough to do the physical rewards. It’s hugely rewarding and it’s fun to design for them. For Guns of Icarus Online, we had a bullet USB, for example, or our book that we put together. Or a captain’s log book that we sketch in. They were really rewarding and, for the players, it gives that sense of collector’s mentality. It’s something permanent and a piece of memorabilia almost. We’re really proud of it and people who got it were really happy. But it’s hugely time intensive.

Jeff: What do you feel like you learned from your Kickstarter campaigns that you may do differently next time? Or if you spoke to someone you would say, “Keep this in mind?”

Howard: Good question. In terms of getting the word out, we did a lot. We put in a lot of effort on our own, trying to spread the word. Once you have some momentum going, Kickstarter do a really good job of featuring the different indie projects. We were fortunate enough to get featured. At the time, when we did it, what was viewed upon as good video is probably different from what is viewed upon as a good video now. With today’s level of polish for video, or what people do for video, looking back at our campaign, people would be like, “That’s actually kind of crude.” Video is pretty important, I would say. In terms of structuring your gifts, just be conscious of the costs and go through some estimating and hopefully get, ideally for free, from vendors. Make sure the quality’s good before you commit to the physical gifts.

Also, budget a lot of time for it if you’re doing it on your own. Cost wise, we did a good job of making sure that we budgeted the cost of the physical gifts right. But it was still more time consuming than we thought. I must have made like four separate trips to the post office, each time with 100, 200 items. So by the third or the fourth time, the post office lady just wanted me out.

As soon as they saw me…

Jeff: [laughs] That’s funny. What apps or games have you downloaded and played in the last six to eight months that really impressed you?

Howard: On iOS?

Jeff: IOS or even on Steam?

Howard: I finally played through Limbo. I checked it out. Obviously, during IGF. But since they didn’t really have a Mac build, I actually just played through it recently. I thought the build was phenomenal, as the whole world already knew. On iOS, I would say recently I’m playing some of my indie dev friends’ games like” Jack Lumber,” “Hubrix” or “One Tap Hero.” Each one brings something really unique to the market.

Jeff: That’s all the questions I have. Did you have anything that you wanted to mention that we didn’t discuss?

Howard: I don’t know if I can give a plug for Guns of Icarus Online. [laughs]

Jeff: Yeah, of course.

Howard: Guns of Icarus Online is available for pre order on Steam. Right now, if you pre order you can get 25 percent off and there’s a four pack where each copy gets a costume and the soundtrack. It’s a pretty awesome deal.

Jeff: I’ll have the link to that in the show notes as well.

Howard: Thanks.

Jeff: Again, I’ve been speaking with Howard Tsao, CEO of Muse Games, the creators of many games including the Guns of Icarus and CreaVures. Howard, thanks for doing the interview.

Howard: Yeah, no problem.

Transcription by CastingWords