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1. How do I promote my Android application? by paul@bowen.fm

2. Make it free(mium) So this isn't a way to promote your app but it's a marketing strategy. Making your app free will ensure that every one of the rest of the suggestions below is more effective by 10x or more, releasing a paid app, especially on Android, will only bring you pain. If you want some reasons why you should make your app freemium go to www.bowen.fm

3. App stores Submitting your app to several app stores is an easy free way to ensure you're more visible. The first stop should be Google Market. You could leave it at at but it's free to submit to Getjar and Amazon Android Market place so you might as well. Google Market + Amazon take a revenue share of the money you make from either selling your app or from any in app purchases (IAP) that are made through their billing solutions which is the trade-off for exposure. Getjar only accepts free apps and allows you to implement your own billing solutions if you use IAP. App stores are effectively risk free as a revenue share is given to the app store owner.

4. 2.1 On market presence you’d be surprised at the install rate at which apps are installed / clicked through etc based on their icon. It’s CRUCIAL, and it’s free for you to optimise. Trial a couple and see what works best. App name is also REALLY important. Make it easy to find, both in the app store but using Google. I know so many companies who’ve used an obscure name, or hyphenated name, and suffered from it.

5. 2.2 Begging app store curators: This section is all about getting free promotion and putting your product in front of the people who curate the editorial sections of an app store is a great way to get yourself some free exposure. Find out who looks after the editorial sections of Google, Amazon, Getjar in your country, email them and tell them why your app offers such good value to the end user. Providers include: Google Android Market, Getjar, Amazon Appstore for Android

6. 3. Mobile Affiliate networks: When reducing risk mobile affiliate networks are another good way to buy traffic for your application, they're middlemen who bring together publishers / affiliates (normally application developers or mobile website owners) who want to monetise their traffic and advertisers who want an audience for their traffic through technology. Affiliate networks revenue model is normally on an override of 30% of the revenue you pay out to an affiliate, so if you had a $1 app and gave $0.50 commission to an affiliate for providing that sale, then you'd pay $0.15 commission to the affiliate network. The same can work with IAP for free apps. The issue here is volume, there are very few affiliate networks that can provide any sort of scalability with this model because of the poor conversions from the traffic they monetise and there are normally set up fees. Providers include: Mobpartner, Commission Junction, Tradedoubler, Linkshare, Offermobi, Sponsormob, Moolah Media, Mobilclix

7. 4. Pay per install providers: When reducing risk mobile affiliate networks are another good way to buy traffic for your application, they're middlemen who bring together publishers / affiliates (normally application developers or mobile website owners) who want to monetise their traffic and advertisers who want an audience for their traffic through technology. Affiliate networks revenue model is normally on an override of 30% of the revenue you pay out to an affiliate, so if you had a $1 app and gave $0.50 commission to an affiliate for providing that sale, then you'd pay $0.15 commission to the affiliate network. The same can work with IAP for free apps. The issue here is volume, there are very few affiliate networks that can provide any sort of scalability with this model because of the poor conversions from the traffic they monetise and there are normally set up fees. Providers include: Mobpartner, Commission Junction, Tradedoubler, Linkshare, Offermobi, Sponsormob, Moolah Media, Mobilclix

8. 5. Incentivised Pay per install: The end user who downloads your app still has to install your app but they got some sort of incentive for doing so (normally virtual currency in a game they were playing). In terms of volume this is the single biggest paid source of installs on Android but the fact that the incentivised installs are further up the conversion path means quality can suffer. Providers include: Tapjoy (disclaimer, I work for them), Flurry, mdotm

9. 6. Incentivised Pay per action / acquisition: still using the incentivised model but incentivising the user to engage with an app rather than just download and open it. Providers include: At the moment Tapjoy are they only company to offer this.

10. 7. Social SDK's: are mobile social network for gamers. This allows gamers to discover new apps through what their friends are doing and what's popular. Providers include: Openfeint, Scoreloop, Papaya, HeyZap

11. 8. Adnetworks: Although adnetworks have massive scale, the metric an adnetwork will normally bill an advertiser on is CPC (cost per click), this can mean it's very difficult to see how your campaign is converting and if you can track this with their SDK it will often be higher than you'd like to pay. To run a campaign on an adnetwork you need to manage very tightly. Providers include: Admob, Millenial Media, Jumptap, Smaato, Adfonic,

12. 9. Recommendation sites: There are plenty out there and the CAN be effective but it's a shot in the dark to know which one will work the best for any particular app. There are app stores / social networks, pure fanboy sites, recommendation engines etcetc Providers include: androidcentral.com, androidpitt.com, androidpolice.com, appESP, Appolicious, Chomp, AppBrain, Appboy, AppAware

13. 10. Referral system: Implement a referral system to reward people who refer your app to their friends. You can incentivise people to email their friends, reward them by having X number of friends within the app. Your biggest advocates are your current customers.

14. 11. Youtube video: Make a couple of youtube videos showing how the app can help / entertain people. Make the video irreverant, amusing and worth sharing.

15. 12. Social Media: Twitter, Facebook and any other social site you can get your name out on

16. If you want some more advice email paul@bowen.fm