Marketing your application can be a full time job, if not the full time job of multiple people! There are media outlets to contact, social networks to maintain, promotions to run, ads to buy and monitor… the list goes on and on.

One of the things we see with many small developers, is that often their marketing approach is a “try it and see”. They submit for a few reviews, wait till they come out, look for a lift in sales, and then move on to trying ad buys. They spend some money on ads, look to see what happens, then move to Facebook and Twitter to try out social media. Eventually, many of them make their way to my door at Appency with a head full of doubt, convinced that “none of these marketing channels work”.

I have one thing to say to that. It’s not the channels…. It’s your strategy (and often lack thereof). It is a general rule of marketing that it takes multiple impressions on a consumer to drive awareness in a product and intent to purchase. By taking this “one at a time” approach, you lose a major impact point in your marketing – reinforcement. Imagine you are playing one of your favorite games, and a banner goes across the bottom of the page for the new “Zombies of Madison Avenue” game. At the same time, you are in the middle of battling the evil under lord Spike and don’t have time to click on an ad to a game you know nothing about.

Now imagine that was the only impression you got of the game. Are you going to purchase? Probably not. As an app gamer however, there’s a good chance that our player will also happen to check out one of the app review sites from time to time like 148Apps. As he’s browsing around, he sees a review talking about how cool the “Zombies of Madison Avenue” is along with some screen shots of the game. At the same time, he goes into the forum and sees that there is a thread of people chatting about this new game and its features.

Game…. Set… Match… SALE.

Your potential consumer has now had multiple touch points regarding the app, and while they may have ignored it on the first impression (though subconsciously the first hit is still there), the combination of media, expert review and peer review has turned the potential consumer, into a purchaser.

This multi-part strategy is what we call “Blitz Marketing”. Not only does it reinforce the consumer, but by stacking your marketing efforts on top of each other, you are significantly more likely to find yourself ranked in your category due to the sales boost – something that will increase your overall visibility tenfold and create a dramatic increase in sales. The issue with blitz marketing is that it takes a lot of time and coordination. Before you launch your app, sit down and create a marketing and PR plan, or hire someone to help you with this if it’s not your forte. You only have one chance to make a first impression as they say – and most bloggers will only review your app once unless you make significant changes to it, so contacting them too soon can eliminate this potential publicity stream.

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