Why is promoting an app so hard ?

[Mejama]

So basically me and my friends made an app (iOS Game) here in the Uk. it actually blew more than we expected like it is now top 70 in the uk but the thing is that it goes back to 150 every now and then so in order for us to bring it back up we use facebook ads.

Now the thing is that we are just students, we don't have that much money, and we don't want to just depend on ads.We have sent request to numerous game review companies and youtubers but non of them have replied.we even tried taking advantage of the popular vine but yet still now significant increase in ranking and downloads are slowing rapidly.

So i want to know were we are going wrong with the whole thing. If you can tell from the way i sound, i'm new to this whole marketing stuff. So a great/concise insight would be gladly appreciated.

Thanks a million

[Herca]

Its good you even got it where you did. I think the biggest problem is you are competing against so many large companies that have entire marketing departments. 5 years ago I think it was alot different, today big companies are heavily involved.

[Jake]

Many apps never earn significant money, one professor who teaches game development said the typical freelancer can make as much collecting empty bottles, ultimately if you don't have high visibility in the store top seller lists your invisible there.

There are more social sites you can use for some exposure, a youtube demo is probably worth generating, if nothing else it's something for reviewers to see. Many of the review sites will not reply to submissions, they get too many,,,if they do reply it will be asking to be paid to review.

[Marissa]

Don’t forget to cross promote. Find other app creators (ideally non-competing ones) and offer to advertise their app on your social sites if, in turn, they will advertise yours. A link to your page on theirs will generate new hits and will target people who might not have found your page otherwise.

Good Luck!