Trying to boost the sales
People ask: what are the sales of Last Concerts like? The answer basically is: depressing. Let me be blunt about it. Since the launch of version 2.0, now one month ago, I have been selling 17 copies. That makes that Apple owes me 18.05 euros according to iTunes Connect. Party time.
Surely I am doing a lot of things wrong. It can’t be just one thing, right?
My guess as a programmer is always that my program is not good enough, but this time that can’t be it. Bad programs still get downloaded and then cursed upon and receive bad reviews. I have two extremely positive reviews on the App Store. It is because good friends wrote them (without even trying the application). The one review that appeared on the web was moderately positive as well.
No, if my program was bad but the promise was good it should have downloads, the website should have a decent number of hits and I should get feedback. None of that is happening, so that is not it.
Maybe people just don’t find it? Looking on the App Store I see that Last Concerts is getting buried in tons and tons of music related applications and you have to search for “last.fm” before it gets to a visible position in your search results. That is probably not a good situation to be in.
So what I started doing is actively go out to where the users are. I have been emailing (spamming if you want) users on Last.fm about Last Concerts. It is the only means I have as Last.fm does not allow for paid applications to be entered on their own showcase website.
So far the feedback from that has been positive. I was afraid that people would come back at me aggressively, saying I am a spammer (which in this case I am, albeit on a very small scale), but no: they love the online demo and they are trying out the app.
So I will be patient and wait for their feedback. In the mean time I will continue my dreaded marketing campain. It is a little challenge I set for myself and I am not giving up yet.
