Can you solve ‘The Epstein Mysteries’?

The New Art Gallery challenges visitors to the gallery and art lovers around the world to crack ‘The Epstein Mysteries’ with the release of the brand new smart phone game for Android and iPhone devices developed by The Connected Set.

‘The game challenges players to solve the mystery surrounding the shooting of Kathleen Garman, the lover of the notorious and controversial twentieth century artist, Jacob Epstein.

Using the game, players can hear dramatic testimony from nine suspects, access the rich archive of personal letters and artefacts belonging to these intriguing characters and find clues amongst the extraordinary artworks of Jacob Epstein on display at The New Art Gallery Walsall, part of the cherished Garman Ryan collection.

Jo Digger, Head of Collections at The New Art Gallery Walsall, said: “This is an immersive, fun and rewarding new way to learn more about Jacob Epstein, his fascinating and controversial life and his extraordinary work.  We’re really excited about the launch of our first smartphone game and to have the opportunity to add a new dimension to a visit to The New Art Gallery”

You can download The Epstein Mysteries for free from iTunes and Google Play now here.

The Connected Set has launched Birmingham Museums Quiz a free iPhone app that guides players on different trails of various artworks, artefacts and objects at seven of the Birmingham Museums Trust’s venues. By answering questions about the featured objects correctly, players will earn prizes to redeem on site at the venue.  If players complete all the trails they will be rewarded with the Grand Prize for a unique experience at one of the museum venues.

Birmingham Museums Quiz is available to download from iTunes now and will include trails for Thinktank, the city’s science museum, and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.  From 12^th October, a brand new trail will be added to the app to celebrate the opening of the new gallery, ‘Birmingham: its people, its history’, following a £8.9m gallery refurbishment. Further new trails for will be automatically added to the app at intervals from now until Spring 2013, to coincide with the different venues’ seasonal opening times, gallery launches and other events.

Linda Spurdle, Digital Manager at Birmingham Museums said: “Birmingham Museums Quiz was devised as a fun way to encourage visitors of all ages to discover what’s on offer at all of our venues. The interactive game is aimed to engage visitors while on site and reward them for their efforts. Kids will enjoy the observational ‘where’s Wally’ style questions while adults can choose the more challenging, knowledge based level. Whichever trail you follow, you’ll be sure to discover new or forgotten gems, no matter how much time you have”.

In partnership with Cass Sculpture Foundation and three of London ’s most high profile museums (the V&A, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum) The Connected Set has released an engaging, fun and interactive exhibition guide for ‘Tony Cragg at Exhibition Road’.

This is the first outdoor exhibition of Tony Cragg’s work in London and the first of its kind on Exhibition Road. Five major outdoor sculptures have been installed along Exhibition Road. A number of indoor works are on display at the V&A, the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum, which run alongside this famous London thoroughfare.

The app guides visitors around the sculptures in both indoor and outdoor spaces. It provides insight, analysis and interpretation on the splendid sculptures whilst allowing users the chance to photograph, share and enjoy a quiz and challenges about the works.  The app was designed to cater for family audiences, collectors and more serious art lovers.

When it comes to marketing, Seth Godin or Richard Branson, I am not.  But I do know that if you’re launching an app it’s hard to come by decent advice or discover other people’s experiences to help inform your decisions on promotion.

Although the team at The Connected Set does not generally offer marketing services as part of our development process, we have been involved in the launch of what have turned out to be notable apps.  Most recently, we launched Tate Britain QuizTrail, which featured on the home page of iTunes and beat it’s annual download targets in the first month.

I can also legitimately claim to have worked on a worldwide number one iPad app featured in the app store just seven months after iPad launched.  However, that was for a Virgin and the aforementioned Richard Branson did put his personal weight behind the launch at a glittering event in New York.

I now know only too well the challenges of launching an app with little or no budget, so I thought I’d share our experiences here in the hope that it will help you launch your app.  In return, I only ask that you drop me a note to let me know how you got on to jake@theconnectedset.com or @jakecassels

Step 1: Naming your app

Step 2: Planning

Step 3: App store promotion

Step 4: Video promotion

Step 5: PR

Step 6: App Review Sites

Step 7: Social Media and Online Buzz

Step 8: Paid promotion: PPC, QR Codes, Posters & Fliers

Step 9: Updates and push notifications

Step 10: Touts, shouts and celebrations

It’s likely to be the first thing you do.  Or, in my experience, it might be the last thing you do, when you discover your excellent name is thrown out by the lawyers because a Bluegrass band has lay claim to it.  And you’re offering couldn’t be more different to theirs.  Here are five quick steps to making sure the name of your app works for you:

1. Carry out searches – don’t just Google your app name to check which other brands are using your nuanced nomenclature, I strongly recommend a quick search on the Intellectual Property Office website.
2. Make it clear – Is the name clear and does it tell you what your app does? An important benefit of clear, understandable names will be search engine and app store visibility.  We hope that with ‘QuizTrail’ we achieved that.  It’s a trail you follow where you answer questions, just in case! Our original name for ‘QuizTrail’ was ‘InQuizitor’, but shortly after we pitched the idea, the domain name was snapped up by a GCSE revision guide series. Perhaps a side point under this heading should be pronounceability.  Your users won’t thank you if they can’t say the name of your app.
3. Be authentic – as tempting as it is to use elements of successful apps in your app name, it’s generally much better to come up with your own name i.e Facepages and Angry Nuns are out.
4. Keep it short – being concise has several benefits.  Chief amongst them is visibility in your selected app store and the ability to fit your name under the app icon.  The label under the icon can only be eleven characters long.
5. Take your time and test – you’ve invested money; more importantly, you’ve invested time.  The name of the app is the key to helping you stand out in the crowd of the literally millions of other apps.

Next: Step 2: Planning your promotional campaign

‘Failing to plan is planning to fail….’ The age old words that ring in the ears of anyone who has lived through a wedding.  They apply just as much with the promotion of your app.  Before we started our plan, we reviewed the strategy for our app by answering these questions:

1. What are the objectives for the app?
   • Promotional or profit based?
   • Engaging, functional or both?
2. What are the app’s unique selling points?
3. Who is the target audience?
   • Where will you find this audience?
   • What benefits does the app provide the audience?
   • What are your desired results, your KPIs?
4. What are your desired results, your KPIs?
   • Sales revenue?
   • Volumes?
   • Quality of audience?
   • Engagement levels?
   • Other achievements – awareness, rankings, coverage?
5. Who are your competitors, or who do you benchmark yourself against
   • Other apps
   • Other websites
   • Other services/products
6. What do your competitors do well and not so well?

With a strategy in place, planning becomes much easier.  We found that the plan should be as detailed as possible, including information about who will be doing what, when and how. We found it useful to include anticipated results.  It’s especially good for when you exceed them – or you can blame bad forecasting when you don’t! It may be useful to do this for each activity and include your desired conversion rates.  Perhaps an e-mail blast to 20,000 contacts would achieve a 2% conversion rate (a typical conversion rate according to the DMA) , which equates to 400 downloads.

The next eight steps I’ve listed are the kinds of activities we found effective to in our promotional campaigns that you might want to include in your plan. I’m sure you’ll have loads more ideas though.

Once you have a detailed plan, summarise it and move on to step 3,which is the next post.

Our experience has found that the most effective channel for promotion was within an App store.  However, this is hard to plan for as there is no guarantee that Apple or Google will promote your app. Here are some tips as to what we believe, but can’t be certain, will help you gain promotion on iTunes or Google Play.

1. Consider your price point – Paid for apps stand a better chance of promotion as Apple and Google retains 30% of revenues from your app.  However, even the lowest price tier is likely to limit download numbers, so you will need to refer to your strategy to inform your decision.
2. What are the USPs of your app and what benefits will it provide the user? Include these details in your submission to the relevant app store.
3. Provide your headline promotional plan including details on reach and any unique and attention grabbing activities e.g celebrity endorsement.
4. Provide artwork from your app and make promotional artwork available.  You can find specs for these at your relevant Apple and Android developer sites.

Find out why video promotion is crucial at step 4

Nothing beats a clear demonstration of how your app works and video is the perfect way to make a compelling case for the download.  It goes without saying that YouTube is a great way to spread the word about your app.  Although, think carefully as to whether you’d like to include comments from viewers on your YouTube channel.

Take a look at an example of the promotional video The Connected Set produced for ‘QuizTrail’.

To read why the PR for your app isn’t like to involve Bolly, move on to step 5.

Where was the Bolly and Brazillos?  AbFab it wasn’t.  Our PR was hard graft but it pays to put the time in.  In our experience it is crucial to take the time to craft highly targeted press releases.  Once you’ve compiled a list of all the media outlets you want to contact, it’s best to make every press release tailored specifically to each recipient.  Make sure to include links to the video and any artwork assets that might help promote the app.

It helps to add a covering e-mail explaining the benefits of the app to their readers or users. If you can’t tailor every press release, here are the key places you’ll want to write one for:

1. General distribution (mass media: national press, magazines, radio TV, broad reaching websites).
2. Trade publications and blogs in the content area of your app.
3. Tech and mobile blogs.
4. Local media in the location where your app’s target audience is likely to be located.

There are online press release distribution sites to consider too, which are a good way to target trade publications, blogs, and consumer magazines. Gorkana is a paid service that will distribute your press releases, but there are a number of free services too, which can be just as effective.

To check out what’s been released recently and as a possible target for your press release, check out Stuart Dredge’s ‘Apps Rush’ in The Guardian.  Stuart also carries out a regular round up of the best apps from his blog on Lauren’s Laverne’s BBC 6 Music radio show every Tuesday at 10.30am.

If you have any partners, clients or sponsors who you are developing the app with, encourage them to distribute press releases and promote the app for you too.

Next: Step 6: App review sites.