I’ve written a new app and think it’s …ahem… pretty good. Rather than just put it in the app store and give it away, I would like to make some money from this one. I have no idea how to market an app and I doubt that I would have the time needed to do it.
I understand that there are companies who could handle this for me, for a fee of course. Something like a book publisher, but for an app.
Does anyone know of a reliable and honest company that does this? I’m totally ignorant about this subject.
Hey Pete, well done getting your app ready and congrats on starting the indie route
Hot take, but you don’t know whether your app is pretty good or not until you’re making sales.
Yes there are definitely agencies who will take your money to promote your app. But at that pre-launch stage: 1) you still haven’t had any market feedback, so 2) you’re unlikely to find ROI from an agency.
That’s why I highly recommend getting some experience of marketing the app yourself first.
You’ll learn to get market feedback + some valuable marketing skills.
You can keep it simple: Write in Reddit subs, Facebook Groups, Threads,…
You seem super confident about your app, so I encourage you to channel that to tell people why they need it.
I’d add that talking with people about your app is one of the most fun part of indie dev. You’ve spent hours making this, now sharing it with people is part of the joy
Thanks for responding. It looks like you’re suggesting that I start by doing the marketing myself, then, if it’s successful, find a publisher that wants to take it over. It’s actually the self-marketing that I’m trying to avoid. If I do that, and it’s successful, who needs a publisher?
If I wrote a book, I would send the manuscript to one or more publishers and, if it was accepted, let them take it from there. That’s how I was thinking about handling my app. If it’s not good enough for a publisher, I’ll just put it in the app store for free, like I did my other app. I don’t really need to do this to make a living; I’m retired. I just thought it would be fun to make a few bucks without a lot of work. Who wouldn’t want that?
Again, thanks for your comments. I welcome any more advice you might have.
I’m a marketer and I’d recommend being pretty skeptical on agencies helping with marketing. Many talk big numbers about visibility etc. but the number they talk about don’t really move the needle aka make money.
If you really don’t want to market yourself, you could get a co-founder who is a marketer and you split the profits. They work for free - just like you - until the two of you make money. There’s a risk factor here for both of you and you give equity / profit split to make up for the risk.
Happy to have a chat on the marketing side.
