Earn money to buy my App

[dev.greger]

Hello,

this might sounds strange but yes, it's true. I plan a new kind of promotion to get my app pushed. You can get my app for free and beside this a lovely buck for your work. This is how it works:

1.) Please select a date, when you are going to buy my app (select 01/06 or 01/07 or 01/08 2010)

2.) Write me an email to internet.greger@me.com with you Paypal-Account-Data and the date when you are going to buy the app

3.) I will transfer 2 bucks (2$) on your Paypal-Account

4.) You buy the App for 1 buck on the selected date. It would be nice, if you write an review for the app

Thats it. Again, you would get the money BEFORE you buy the App!

Here is the link to the regarding app - Tooples the best poker dice game for the iPhone / iPod.

http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/tooples/id320951259?mt=8

This promotion is limited to US customers

Interested? Write me an email!

Kind Regards

01/06: 7 promotion tickets open
01/07: 10 promotion tickets open
01/08: 10 promotion tickets open

 

[strike1555]

Wow, that's quite a deal.

Just one suggestion - make people buy the app first, and then give them the $2 via a "rebate" (after submitting proof they bought it).

Just a thought there to avoid losing your money to dishonest people.

 

[macduke]

I would be careful doing this. I'm pretty sure that something like this would be in disagreement with your App Store contract with Apple. Recently a developer had something like 1500 apps removed for doing something similar and their account was permanently banned.

 

[dev.greger]

I would be careful doing this. I'm pretty sure that something like this would be in disagreement with your App Store contract with Apple. Recently a developer had something like 1500 apps removed for doing something similar and their account was permanently banned.

...ok, I will check this first. Today iTunees Connect is down, but I have read about the developer. He had about 1.000 apps with only faked ratings. This isn't what I want to do with my promotion. So the review is optional!

By the way, look into the Promotion sub forum. There you get promotion codes to write a review.

 

[Resist]

Instead of having people give you their PayPal info, why not just give them a promo code for your app.

 

[return7]

Instead of having people give you their PayPal info, why not just give them a promo code for your app.

Lots of reasons. Not sure if any of them make it ok or if this sort of thing is within Apple's dev agreement. I think this would be frowned upon by Apple, at the very least. For starters, he makes 70% of the purchase price of the app back as revenue. The $2 rebate is a tax write off. It's likely that promo code sales don't help one in sales standings/rankings. It's definite that a free sale does not help one in the "top grossing" standings. So basically, if enough people did this, he could make it to top50, make back the money and hopefully a bit more. If the app made top10, it would really pay off.

 

[dev.greger]

Lots of reasons. Not sure if any of them make it ok or if this sort of thing is within Apple's dev agreement. I think this would be frowned upon by Apple, at the very least. For starters, he makes 70% of the purchase price of the app back as revenue. The $2 rebate is a tax write off. It's likely that promo code sales don't help one in sales standings/rankings. It's definite that a free sale does not help one in the "top grossing" standings. So basically, if enough people did this, he could make it to top50, make back the money and hopefully a bit more. If the app made top10, it would really pay off.

Yep, right. Today I read, that the promotion based downloads also count for the ranking. If this is wrong, this is for me the most important reason. My problem is, that only one user sent me a mail.

Walter

 

[return7]

Yep, right. Today I read, that the promotion based downloads also count for the ranking. If this is wrong, this is for me the most important reason. My problem is, that only one user sent me a mail.

Walter

Marketing iPhone apps is really tough. I don't know what to say. I can say that I don't think this is the right way to do it. That's my opinion. The folks at taptaptap and tapbots know the magic formula though. They're both rather amazing companies.

 

[Resist]

Not sure if any of them make it ok or if this sort of thing is within Apple's dev agreement. I think this would be frowned upon by Apple, at the very least.

Well interestingly we have a thread here where they do randomly give out promo codes for apps. And Apple has iTunes setup to accept promo codes.

But how about doing this then, make the app free or do a free lite version until it gets popular.

Marketing is not hard. Get an online review done and post a video about the app on YouTube. I rarely purchase an app without watching a video about how it works or trying it's free version out first.

 

[return7]

Well interestingly we have a thread here where they do randomly give out promo codes for apps. And Apple has iTunes setup to accept promo codes.

But how about doing this then, make the app free or do a free lite version until it gets popular.

Marketing is not hard. Get an online review done and post a video about the app on YouTube. I rarely purchase an app without watching a video about how it works or trying it's free version out first.

It's much more difficult than you make it out to be. From experience:

- Giving out promo codes almost never results in a review. Usually people just want free apps so they watch the promo codes forum and grab them. It's a poor way to market.

- Unless a review is written by one of the "big boys," it does little to improve one's ranking on the App Store, and therefore sales. And those reviews are tough to get because large sites are flooded by review requests.

- Free / Lite versions help; no doubt about that.

It's all about the ranking in iTunes, at the end of the day. Make a good app, hope you get lucky, and do your best to get featured by Macworld, Tuaw, MR, TechCrunch, 148apps, Ars and so on.

We've tried spending money advertising on blogs, reddit, and so on -- it hasn't seemed to help. Since we don't have a ton to spend, we've backed off on traditional advertisement. Anyway, paying users to buy your product is a bad way to go about it, IMO.

 

[dev.greger]

It's much more difficult than you make it out to be. From experience:

- Giving out promo codes almost never results in a review. Usually people just want free apps so they watch the promo codes forum and grab them. It's a poor way to market.

- Unless a review is written by one of the "big boys," it does little to improve one's ranking on the App Store, and therefore sales. And those reviews are tough to get because large sites are flooded by review requests.

- Free / Lite versions help; no doubt about that.

It's all about the ranking in iTunes, at the end of the day. Make a good app, hope you get lucky, and do your best to get featured by Macworld, Tuaw, MR, TechCrunch, 148apps, Ars and so on.

We've tried spending money advertising on blogs, reddit, and so on -- it hasn't seemed to help. Since we don't have a ton to spend, we've backed off on traditional advertisement. Anyway, paying users to buy your product is a bad way to go about it, IMO.

...no problem, it's your opinion. I have made my self experience.

1.) 10 Promo-Codes gives you only about one rating in average. Thats a bad rate

2.) The Top100 ist best best way to get your app saled

3.) You must be found by the search function

In this special case, I don't need to get in the Top100, I just want to be on the first result page when you search after a special word. And I guess this strategy will work for exactly this target. I already was on the first page but I lost my position, because I had my app for about one week offline. Now a competitor has my position, with an app which is less in features, less in layout, less in ratings and same in price. Before this, I saled about 15-20 units / day, now it's 1-5 units / day. So, this shows me, that most of the users just view the first 4 hits of a search result and don't click the "more results" button.
Now, I want to test if a small invest could bring the app back.

Kind Regards

Walter

Hello,

only one day left and I have 3/30 registered participants. I don't want to cancel the test but we have to move it. I suggest the first week in 2010 (6-8 January). Please register!!!!

Thanks.


Walter

Hello,

only one day left and I have 3/30 registered participants. I don't want to cancel the test but we have to move it. I suggest the first week in 2010 (6-8 January). Please register!!!!

Thanks.


Walter

no more potential particpants? Still need 27!

 

[Tboris]

Maybe people are just used to the way

things are done usually, I don't know. Best of luck anyway!

 

[MacToddB]

App Store Success

It's much more difficult than you make it out to be. From experience:

- Giving out promo codes almost never results in a review. Usually people just want free apps so they watch the promo codes forum and grab them. It's a poor way to market.

- Unless a review is written by one of the "big boys," it does little to improve one's ranking on the App Store, and therefore sales. And those reviews are tough to get because large sites are flooded by review requests.

- Free / Lite versions help; no doubt about that.

It's all about the ranking in iTunes, at the end of the day. Make a good app, hope you get lucky, and do your best to get featured by Macworld, Tuaw, MR, TechCrunch, 148apps, Ars and so on.

We've tried spending money advertising on blogs, reddit, and so on -- it hasn't seemed to help. Since we don't have a ton to spend, we've backed off on traditional advertisement. Anyway, paying users to buy your product is a bad way to go about it, IMO.

I've written a lengthy document on the subject, "App Store Success" (http://www.AppStoreSuccess.com)... and it's FREE! It's even been published in serial form in iPhone Life Magazine. Let me know if you have any specific questions about marketing a specific app, and I'd be happy to help.

Re promo codes, DO NOT just broadcast them. Make people "self qualify". They have to visit your website or watch your YouTube video and answer a question about the app. I did this with 100sounds (a year ago) right here on MacRumors. I asked potential code owners what sounds they would use and why. Got a BUNCH of qualified users, who all posted reviews. I've since done a similar deal with AutoRingtone. We have several versions, and I gave out promo codes for the regular versions and offered a code for PRO to those who wrote a review, upon request. They could write anything, but naturally if they wanted PRO, they probably liked the regular version!

 

[dev.greger]

I've written a lengthy document on the subject, "App Store Success" (http://www.AppStoreSuccess.com)... and it's FREE! It's even been published in serial form in iPhone Life Magazine. Let me know if you have any specific questions about marketing a specific app, and I'd be happy to help.

Re promo codes, DO NOT just broadcast them. Make people "self qualify". They have to visit your website or watch your YouTube video and answer a question about the app. I did this with 100sounds (a year ago) right here on MacRumors. I asked potential code owners what sounds they would use and why. Got a BUNCH of qualified users, who all posted reviews. I've since done a similar deal with AutoRingtone. We have several versions, and I gave out promo codes for the regular versions and offered a code for PRO to those who wrote a review, upon request. They could write anything, but naturally if they wanted PRO, they probably liked the regular version!

...ty mc todd. the article was very interesting. what is your suggest to do in my special case? i only want to increase my ranking for one special search keyword.

kind regards

walter

 

[MacToddB]

...ty mc todd. the article was very interesting. what is your suggest to do in my special case? i only want to increase my ranking for one special search keyword.

kind regards

walter

Before you try to get too fancy, pay attention to the basics, specifically:

1) The name. "Tooples" tells me nothing. If you want to keep that name, fine, but add something like "Tooples Dice Game" (I'm guess Yahtzee or Dice is what you want to optimize for searches). In addition to keywords, the name does play a role in searches. Apple probably won't allow Yahtzee, but they certainly would allow "dice".

2) The description. With the new iTunes interface you get 1 or 2 lines of description before a user has to click on More. Your description has a line of "*****" and then "Tooples 2.0 updaters: Tooples 2.1 may not start after update." Not very compelling is it? You have to grab them with those lines. How about "Competitive Yahtzee for solo and team play!

3) Your website, or really "page" is web.me.com/gregerw/Walter_Greger/Tooples.html ... this needs work, and needs to be in English.

Read the ebook. Pay attention to the basics. Then worry about promotion.

 

[dev.greger]

Before you try to get too fancy, pay attention to the basics, specifically:

1) The name. "Tooples" tells me nothing. If you want to keep that name, fine, but add something like "Tooples Dice Game" (I'm guess Yahtzee or Dice is what you want to optimize for searches). In addition to keywords, the name does play a role in searches. Apple probably won't allow Yahtzee, but they certainly would allow "dice".

2) The description. With the new iTunes interface you get 1 or 2 lines of description before a user has to click on More. Your description has a line of "*****" and then "Tooples 2.0 updaters: Tooples 2.1 may not start after update." Not very compelling is it? You have to grab them with those lines. How about "Competitive Yahtzee for solo and team play!

3) Your website, or really "page" is web.me.com/gregerw/Walter_Greger/Tooples.html ... this needs work, and needs to be in English.

Read the ebook. Pay attention to the basics. Then worry about promotion.

...you are right, the website should be translated. I will do that. Yahtzee is a trademark. I'm not allowed to use it in any case!

I will adjust the title from Tooples to Tooples - Dice Poker ut this won't effect my real problem.

 

[MacToddB]

...you are right, the website should be translated. I will do that. Yahtzee is a trademark. I'm not allowed to use it in any case!

I will adjust the title from Tooples to Tooples - Dice Poker ut this won't effect my real problem.

...and fix the description. What sets your app apart from the other dice games? I like Jeremy's iDice. It's clean, has a Mac version too.