You could ask people to pm you and then in the message request that they leave a review. Its more personal in a pm and it ensures that the codes go specifically to forum members.
I'm with songbird on that one, it also helps to cultivate a relationship with people that will give you feedback on the game. If lurkers grab them all then they're just going to keep lurking, haha. I now make people work for them
Also, who are you giving them out to? If you're just leaving them in a forum for people to snag vs passing them out privately or something like that...you might want to check your itunes account and see how many codes have actually been redeemed. If you know you've only released 20 promo codes and only 5 or so have been redeemed then at least you know a good percentage haven't even gotten around to checking out your app just yet. I've used the following site to pass out promo codes, btw. http://iphoneapp-promocodes.com/ This was for an app I just had codes lying around for and I think it helped expose the app to people who wouldn't normally know about it. They've updated the site and how they dispense codes since then...so I'm not sure how good their claim on reviews is since the update.
Thank you for the advice. I did just put them up on the promo codes forum. I did get all 20 redeemed, according to itunes connect, which I'm happy about. It's nice to see people downloading and playing the game. However, I was hoping for at least one review. I've checked out the site you mentioned, and I'll try it out.
I am of the opinion that promo codes are the absolute worst way to promote your game. I've given out 100+ for various games and may have gotten 3-5 reviews out of them. It would probably be more effective to hand codes to people at the Apple store on a piece of paper.
Also, sometimes it takes itunes awhile to update the reviews. Maybe this was a bug before but I had several people tell me they reviewed one of my apps and I didn't see any of the reviews until a couple days later. Actually I think there might be a thread about this on the forum somewhere.
In my experience most people don't give it a review. If they say they will it's been abou 1 in 10 for me. I usually give out the code in a PM and send a personal message asking if they would give it an honest review.
You should point out right in the thread or make people work for them. A lot of the forum members try to leave a review, because it is the least you can do when you guys give it out for free, but sometimes lurkers can get them all before anyone from the forum sees them.
That's really the key. If you post the codes in an open forum they get taken by lurkers and you won't get any reviews. If you use the PM system, you can keep track of who you give them to and whether or not you get a review. If you ask them to, many who PM you will PM back and give feedback and tell you when they've left a review on iTunes. If you're developing other games in the future, it also provides you with a list of people you can offer codes to again, because you have a good chance of getting useful feedback from them.
I put some codes up, asking for them to twitter a link for them. I got about a 20% return on reviews. All positive.
I've found in general I get about one review per 80 normal purchases (ie. don't expect a huge ratio). You can probably force this up somewhat easily enough by putting 'reminder' prompts in your game for people to rate it etc.
I've seen a few examples of this and it can work well. Remember to think about when your pop-up appears so that it's a positive thing for the player rather than an annoyance, that way you're more likely to get a positive rating.
I haven't used it myself - BUT if I did then I'd do it on a single fire flag (queried from the games preferences) and only trigger it at a point where I felt the user had used the game a fair bit and was obviously enjoying it. Say perhaps storing a 'number of times started' or 'time played' variable behind the scenes and then triggering it after a certain point. That should ensure that the person is favourably inclined towards your product at the point they fill things out.
