By Chris Luck Rapid growth in mobile marketing has encouraged entrepreneurs and innovators to enter this exciting world. However, finding your niche in this lucrative arena can be challenging. By developing and marketing mobile games, I have learned some tricks of the trade to strengthen your exposure and your customer base. Finding the optimum geolocation Where should your focus and marketing budget go? The first component is defining the optimum geolocation so you can boost your ROI for marketing efforts. Otherwise, you run the risk of wasting time, money and resources on a strategy that will not pay off in the long run. You can determine your optimum geolocation by using services such as AppFigures or Flurry to analyze your data. Study the results and use it to target consumers who are looking for applications such as yours. Which geolocation is generating the most revenue for you? Once you can answer this question, you can fine-tune your advertising to that specific location. Many people, myself included, make or made the mistake of trying to conquer the whole world with their marketing strategies. When I finally did analyze the data on my company’s mobile game, I could see the United States accounted for more than 70 percent of in-app purchases, but only 20 percent of my paid traffic was directed at this sector. I was not optimizing my marketing campaign to the audience that was paying attention. When I finally did understand the numbers and used them, install numbers improved and my game placed in the charts. A winning strategy, right? Finding the right source The second component of success is based on researching your referral sources to make sure you are spending your money on platforms that brings an audience to your product. Due diligence will pay off in this area. Many promotions promise massive exposure and conversion, but prove to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Beware of sources that “guarantee” such promises. I was hopeful my app would charge to the top of the charts with such a referral source and only managed to glean 500 installs in a day from that venture. I learned my lesson and now perform thorough research to find venues that best fit my vision and our target market. Relevance to mobile marketing The key for a successful marketing scheme from my own experience in gaming boils down to efficiency. By carefully watching your analytics and researching to discover what source and exposure techniques bring you the most revenue, you can find consistent and reliable avenues to broaden your audience. Do not underestimate the value of the time and effort to find the appropriate means. It can be surprising to find out that your data does not match what you predicted to be an outcome. Trust your data, and you will be able devote your resources to a more efficient path to success. MY EXPERIENCES in the mobile gaming industry have opened my eyes to the necessity for intelligent planning, choices and analysis to reach my revenue goals. Target an audience who understands and seeks out your products. Building up from this core group will allow you to avoid the frustrations and mistakes that could occur during the initial launch of your app. By focusing on the data, you will learn to game the mobile marketing world. Chris Luck is founder/CEO of app developer Appiteks, St. Louis, MO. Reach him at chris@appiteks.com.