iOS Promotional Code Marketing

Hey folks,

I have a little bit of a victory to share. I tried some marketing techniques this weekend and my productivity app jumped in rank.

Things I did:
Dropped the price by 1 tier.
Advertised with a banner on http://www.igadgetjunkie.com/
Provided the site with 3 promo codes to give away in a contest.

Granted the site's traffic doesn't appear to be super-high yet, but it's been steadily increasing and so this is a great time to get in on the ground floor with this site. On Friday my app was at #17 and now it's at #10 (as of Monday April 6th) under Paid Productivity apps.

So anyway, the site appears to be open to doing more giveaways, I talked to the site admin and they're considering weekly giveaways if they get enough promo codes to sustain the offer. It works out well since during the time the promotion is run, the site "advertises" your app, and once the promo codes are given out then three more people have the app in their hands, which they can then show their friends in a "look what I won" fashion.

I'd recommend it if you have a ton of extra codes that you don't know what to do with. It could help you out for virtually no cost.

I receive absolutely no payment from this website, I just advertised with them and gave them a couple of promo codes and I'm happy with the results, and would like to pass along the plug to any fellow developer looking for additional ways to market their app in this sea of 30k+ apps.

If you missed it above, the site is http://www.igadgetjunkie.com/ and tell 'em you read about their site on the MacRumors forums. =)

I'm glad you asked. I've had three prices: introductory (2.99), regular (3.99), and sale (1.99).

Many developers have reported a steep dropoff in sales since the beginning of April, myself included, to the tune of 30% drop for some odd reason. The advertising combined with the sale price brought me back up to the March numbers, but it's hard to discern which helped more since they occurred at the same time.

What's interesting is that at 3.99 I saw fewer customers but the profits were higher than previous days, but at 1.99 although the sales figures were increased, the total profits were much lower. 2.99 appears to be the sweet spot and the new regular price.

I highly recommend donating promotional codes for giveaways at *any* site, I just provided one that I had some success with. I also learned some strategy from this as a result.

1. Find a site that will give away codes in a contest.
2. Contact the site owner and offer to donate one or more codes for their giveaway. You may need to donate an additional code for them to check out your app in order to have an informed description for their giveaway.
3. Make sure they run the contest entry period for about a week or so. The longer the better but be careful to plan the timeframe right being aware that your promotional codes do expire after a given amount of time or update.
4. Once your contest goes up, twitter / facebook / e-mail friends or subscribers letting them know that they can enter the contest to win a free copy of your app.

I have a hard time trying to get some people I know to use their promotional codes to download our app and give it a whirl for whatever reason. This type of use practically guarantees another download and more exposure.

Hope this all helps!