Mac Indie Marketing
Musing about an Indie Developer Referral Marketing Coop
Occasionally we send out referrals for other software from fellow Indie Mac developers in our monthly mailings. As a way of helping our users/friends to find out about cool software, and also as a favor for our developer friends, we will include a blurb about the other developer's product(s) in our mailing. Often we'll arrange with the developer for a coupon code we can mention, so that our readers get a special deal by buying the application using our referral.
Sometimes this is a one-way thing, where we just mention the application because we like it so much, for the good karma of doing so. Other times, we have made agreements with the other developer that they will put in a reciprocal mention of our product in their mailing, so that we scratch each other's back.
Of course it's quite possible to set up a commission kind of deal for this kind of thing, though we have only done this once or twice. As long as it's still a genuine recommendation, I don't have any ethical problems about doing that; we all have to make a living and doing so is a way to bring in another stream of income.
How to turn people into walking billboards for your company
John Fox's MemoryMiner has a cool gallery feature, so I took John up on his idea for a blog post. Only somebody like Justin Williams (Cocoa developer, and also, I'm told, a popular singer who is quite a sensation with the young ladies) would be able to pull something like this off!
(Apparently a lot of developers will be bringing promotional buttons to WWDC. I thought about doing that for Karelia but I'm worried that idea has already "jumped the shark." What kinds of swag would be better?)
"10 Marketing Resources…" is also Useful for Mac Apps
I ran across this article, 10 Marketing Resources Every App Should Provide. Though it's geared toward Web-based applications, it has some good advice that should apply to Mac applications as well. (In fact, you'll see a familiar icon in Tip #2 that is a Mac application!)
Note to self: Make sure we are doing all 10 of these on the Karelia website! :-)
The AppStorm website may be worth browsing around; they have a Mac section that looks very nice!
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