In game advertising is your best strategy. Its free. Make a great free game and advertise a REALLY GOOD paid game.
Other than that...prepare to open your wallet for effective advertising. Everything else is low exposure promotion...with little or no proven effect and no way to gauge its effectiveness.
Within in game ads...at least you know how many saw the ad by the number of downloads the app got.
My sister is a professional blogger (yes, seriously, she makes a living at it) and she has given me an ad free for a few days on one of her blogs, a humor blog. http://www.misscellania.com/
@James I did something similar. I worked with Matt who owns FreeABCSongs.com to do an iPad version. I must say that it was a nice start to a good relationship that will probably birth forth more interesting collaborations.
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Other than that...prepare to open your wallet for effective advertising. Everything else is low exposure promotion...with little or no proven effect and no way to gauge its effectiveness.
Within in game ads...at least you know how many saw the ad by the number of downloads the app got.
http://gamesalad.com/forums/topic.php?id=5165
I tried something weird on my first game where I hid some shout outs (in the profile section of Food Fight!, the broccoli would occasionally raise a sign related to the blog) to the blogs she writes for and three of them gave a mention. I'm not sure how much traffic that created, but it sure didn't hurt.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/46317
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2010/01/food_fight_1.html
I'm thinking of doing an update to my free game and mention my new app, just like synthesis suggested.
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Tickle Stones http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tickle-stones/id363484260?mt=8
Food Fight! (free) http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/food-fight/id352646643?mt=8
musicians are very much like us
but most of us need good music......
most indie bands would love to be featured in something on the app store
cross promote.. trade
they will put you on their website if you feature them in a game
get 5 bands with a song each and i promise you will be on 5 webpages that say
"check us out featured in the new game blah blah.....now on itunes
just remember be respectful because they can trash your game just as easily
exposure someplace that isnt full of just gamers and more devs competing for a bump