Hi! Maybe there is the thread dedicated to promocode giveaways on this forum... So what can you tell about promocodes giveaways? Are they really good way to promote your app? What is your experience?
My personal experience is that I've had little- to no effect by promocode give-aways. I aknowledge though that my less than stellar success is probably due mostly to the nature of my previous apps. I believe promo code-giveaways could be useful as a tool the get the word-of-mouth going if you have a title that you believe should spark interest.
I find that promocode give aways have generated interest in our game and, though not making a huge difference in sales, does get the game out there and creates some loyal fans who will do reviews for you and the like. I feel for our next update, I will be a little more aware of where they are going. we ran out pretty quickly. definitely feel it is a good way to generate "buzz" around your game or an update. whether or not that leads to sales in abundance is dependent on the game i think.
I believe a well-hyped game would do well to have a promo code giveaway in the form of a contest. That used to be the original idea, at least; the contest atmosphere would help anticipation for the game. It seems that somewhere along the way a few developers forgot the point (or just got lazy) and are just giving away promo codes left and right without a contest, which doesn't do very much by way of marketing at all.
Blindly giving away promo codes in bulk is only slightly more useless than submitting them to the typical overwhelmed review site. One nice way to build goodwill is to offer them to folk that have tried a lite version of a game and provided feedback. Putting promo codes into enthusiastic fan's hands is usually a win-win situation.
i believe toucharcade specifically requests that you do not submit promo codes when asking them to review your game.
Cept for this kid. This is what I would do, in order of priority: 1. Give promo codes away to people you know will give feedback, and reviews. 2. Start a contest (twitter, icon, game ideas, etc.). Something that requires people actually DOING work. But throughout the contest make sure you hype up your game a bit (too much is bad). People WILL be looking at your game for the contest. Then offer only like 5-10 codes. That way you can hold more contests in the future without waiting for an update. 3. Send a video of your game, with all the information needed to a major review site (Slide to Play, etc.). DON'T send it in to the smaller sites. I'm sorry to all those reviewers, but they just dont have a big following. Ask if they want to review it, if they do send a code. 4. If you become desperate ask people to PM you for a code. But NEVER just giveaway codes. it's a complete waste.
Each time I release a game prepare an email about the game, and I include a paragraph saying that promo codes are available if the reviewer is interested. Then I email it out to a huge list of review sites / submit the forms on their websites. I don't actually give out promo codes to them unless they ask, and it turns out that only maybe 5% ask, so I save a lot of promo codes. And I've found that giving out promo codes on TA (even without a contest) doesn't really do much for sales on a whole, but I think it does get people to see your game and talk about it a bit. If you make people PM you for a code, then only TA forum users get the codes, as opposed to leechers, and I think people appreciate that. And if you ask people to write an iTunes review, they almost always do.
We've had some success with promo code contests... here's an example of one of ours: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=18489& By having a contest, you're more likely to generate some discussion about your game rather than just putting into the hands of a random person. Plus, it's fun to hold a contest and get involved with your customers a bit!
Leechers still get them. You just don't know the leechers when they ask for a code... For devs: Join the promo code exchange group. Then you can see ALL the leeches trying to trading away 10-20 codes.
Actually, it's a huge problem I think. Including promocodes in press releases is not a guarantee of reviewing. But the number of promocodes are limited to 50 and when I include promocodes to newsletters about the game, I can just waste them for nothing. And the same time those 5% who request codes, are bloggers who daily have 7-25 readers on their web page. How to find the balance?
Any number of things could impact the responsiveness of review sites, but for a basis of comparison I submitted Rogueship to about 20 moderate-sized sites, withholding the promo codes but asking if the editors were interested, in which case I'd be happy to send them plenty of codes. Of those sites, only one responded, at which point I gave them the codes. None of the others have been in touch. My feeling is that I may have been ignored by one or two sites due to withholding the codes, but most likely they are just too busy and don't have time to respond unless they've decided to review in the first place. I'll probably resubmit to the sites later after at least one more update to the game. Overall, though, I'm happy I didn't toss my codes into the ocean. Instead, I gave them away to actual players who had valuable feedback. I think actual users and contests are probably the best way to spend codes.
Your recommendations are very good, thank you. It's not a problem to get a review on the small site, but it's hard to have your game reviewed on such site as TA or Slidetoplay or 148apps... even when you send promocodes...
We got a really great response from reviewers when with holding promocodes. We just put in a paragraph that was something like "due to the limited amount of promocodes we receive, we will give you one upon request". and then people emailed back with requests. I think we got a 10% response rate (though not all the reviews have come out yet, and not all were from big sites). Some of the bigger sites we gambled and sent promocodes to, without confirmation first. Figured that it would be more likely they would review. I guess it's a gamble. but at least one, for us, came through with just sending a code out.
For the upcoming release of Age of Tribes I'm planing to offer codes in first line to review sites - but they have to actually request a code (so I dont send them in the first mail). Seems to be the best way from what I'm reading here. And the rest of the codes will go to the most enthusiastic players...
