App Product Page Techniques that Sell Your Mobile Game
Your app product page is where dreams of success or nightmares of failure materialize. That’s because on this page potential customers decide whether or not to purchase your app. Seize the moment with these five tips to help turn app page visitors into app sales.
5 Tips to Building an App Product Page that Sells
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Eye Catching Icon
Your app icon is the first page element noticed by visitors. In the split second it takes a vistor to scan your app icon before moving on, it’s important your icon conveys what your game is about in a memorable way. The most successful app icons accomplish this with vibrant colors, beautiful illustration and no distracting text.Example: Fruit Nina by Halfbrick Studios
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Grabbing First Sentence
Most of your app product page visitors will only read the first sentence in your description before deciding whether to buy, continue reading or leave. Strong first sentences entice visitors to stay and read on by communicating the game’s goal in an engaging way.Example: Ride ‘Em Rigby – Regular Show by Cartoon Network
“Help Rigby hang on for dear life as Muscle Man rampages through the park.” -
Benefit, NOT Feature List
Visitors shopping for a great game are not interested in things like “physics-based” this and “real-time rendered” that. They’re searching for what makes the game fun to play. Appeal to their sense of adventure, mystery or whatever fits your game’s genre with an enticing benefit list.Example: Scribble Hero by Nickelodeon
-Face off against diabolical bosses…
-Stock your arsenal with awesome weaponry…
-Voyage through outrageous worlds… -
Descriptive Screenshots
We live in a visual world where people prefer images over text. Use your screenshots to help tell your game’s story by adding descriptions.Example: Angry Birds by Rovio
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Positive Reviews
There’s a reason word-of-mouth marketing is effective: people trust people they know. Reviews are akin to word-of-mouth marketing for your app product page. Positive reviews give your game authority and trust, both of which encourage app sales.Example: Cut the Rope by Chillingo Ltd
Feature image above was taken by John Boyer.
13 Comments
Josh
about 12 years agoHey Emmy, First off, I love your blog! Keep up the excellent work. You mentioned that positive App Store reviews can be similar to word of mouth in the weight that they carry. In your opinion, how many reviews does an app need to have before that information starts to carry weight? Obviously with 260,000+ reviews, the app in the example carries a lot of weight. What about an app with an average 5-star rating and 30 reviews? Or 100 reviews? Or 5 reviews? Thanks for another awesome blog. I look forward to reading your response!
Emmy
about 12 years agoHi Josh! Glad you like the blog and thanks for the comment. You ask a really good and important question. Unfortunately, I don't have statistics on the subject so I reached out to my friends at Apptentive to get a more definite answer. Apptentive said two things: (1) there is definitely a correlation between number of ratings and number of people using the app and (2) to read THIS ARTICLE by by MobileDevHQ. The article discusses how ratings affect search ranking. Hope this helps :)
Kent
about 12 years agoThanks for the advice, Emmy. You are right, it is all about copy writing (having a strong and catchy tagline) and attractive images.
Emmy
about 12 years agoThanks Kent! Do you have any examples you're thinking of in particular?
Luca
about 12 years agoThank you Emmy, this is another useful post every indie game developer should read!
Shane
about 12 years agoHey Emmy. Hats off to you for your blogs! Extremely informative and inspiring particularly while I'm looking to launch my first app in the coming months! You have really opened my eyes to the importance of having a strategic marketing plan before launch! Looking forward to reading more. Awesome!
Emmy
about 12 years agoHi Shane! Glad to hear it. Thanks for the comment.
Macc
about 12 years agoHi Emmy, i totally agree with your post, just one question: did you hear about cases where really good reviews (five star ratings/customer reviews) are disappeared. My app is just launched, then second day i got 4 five star reviews, and several ratings, then one day to another they are not displayed. How this will affect my sales, what do you think?
Emmy
about 12 years agoHi Macc, thanks for the comment. I have heard of cases where reviews/comments disappear then reappear. My understanding of these cases is that they are bugs and Apple fixes them fairly quickly. I cannot speak to how this affects your sales, however, there is a correlation between reviews and search results in the App Store. Obviously, the better your search results, the more likely people will see your app and in turn, download it. Take a look at THIS ARTICLE for a better understanding of the correlation. If I were you, I would contact Apple and report this.
Pete
about 12 years agoJust found this blog and really like the content. This post supports the reasons I founded a service which helps developers (especially indies) ensure their App is ready for the market. Just recently added the ability to A/B test App Icons. Not posting the site here as it may seem spammy. I have shared some of the posts and am sure I will be back.
Emmy
about 12 years agoHi Pete! Thanks for the comment. I'm glad you like the blog. Just checked out your site Elusive Stars. Really cool. Testing your app before you launch on various platforms and getting real, objective feedback (i.e., not from your friends...ahem, ahem) is crucial. From a marketing point of view, I love the mystery button. That's GREAT CTA copy. I bet you get a good percentage of clicks on it!
BEE DIGITAL
about 11 years agoHi Emmy, first off, I want to thank you for your blog, you provide very useful information for all indie developers. Keep up the excellent work. Now in our small indie dev team BEE DIGITAL we are working on multi platform educational app for children. But we don't have a lot experience with marketing so blog like this helps us very much. We tried and used many of your marketing tips, tools and technique in practice and I have to say many of them work for us. We are building slowly step by step our twitter/fb community and audience. So thank you again. If you are interested in our new educational project you can check official FB page https://www.facebook.com/teachmeapps
Emmy
about 11 years agoThanks for the comment. Glad to hear the marketing tips you've read here have helped you in the real world! Keep it up!