Karelia Software

It's possible using any number of website analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Mint, or just the tools that may be provided by your Internet host, to get a sense of how people who visit your website found out about it. It's a great way to see what your major referrers are.

I've been a bit more interested in how people who actually end up becoming customers originally came to our website. This one is a bit tricker, because it means tracking visitors all the way from their first visit through their purchase, but it is more revealing.

How can you do something like this for yourself? Well, it depends a lot on how your store works, but I'll outline the basics.

First off, you need to set a cookie when they arrive at any page of our website and the cookie has not yet been set. Just save the value of the HTTP referer [sic] header. If the value is empty (such as when somebody types in the URL, or clicks on a link to your website from an email message), I find that it's better to set a…

This interview with Gedeon Maheux of the Iconfactory is the ninth in a series of interviews I've held with indie software developers about marketing Mac software. Previous interviews: Justin Williams, Gus Mueller, Daniel Jalkut, Rich Siegel, Oliver Breidenbach, Jacob Gorban, Jean MacDonald, and Kevin Hoctor.

I'm sure everybody reading this blog knows about the Iconfactory, a design/software company based in North Carolina (with branches in California and Sweden). While fellow developers probably know (and look up to) Craig Hockenberry, inventor of the CHOCKLOCK, I thought it would be best to talk to Iconfactory's main marketing person, Gedeon Maheux, about how this über-cool icon design, icon, and Mac/iPhone software business gets the word out about their products. Ged blogs and tweets, of course.

DW: Can you start by telling our readers about the kinds of marketing activities you do at the Iconfactory?

GM: We've experimented with different types of marketing over the years, but the…

This interview with Gus Mueller of Flying Meat Software, is the seventh in a series of interviews I've held with indie software developers about marketing Mac software. Previous interviews: Daniel Jalkut, Rich Siegel, Oliver Breidenbach, Jacob Gorban, Jean MacDonald, and Kevin Hoctor.

Gus Mueller is the founder of Flying Meat Inc, located just north of Seattle in Everett, Washington.  Flying Meat has created a couple of award-winning applications for the Mac; Acorn, a bitmap image editor (which I love to use for graphic manipulation that I don't need a real artist to do for me) and VoodooPad, a personal wiki.  Gus being a self-admitted man of few words, this is one of the shorter interviews of this series!

DW: Can you tell us some of the marketing activities you do?

GM: I don't do any traditional marketing, at least on purpose.  I guess I've got an account on twitter, and I have a blog that's reasonably well known, and Acorn was in MacHeist last spring.  But that's really about it.  I…

A couple of months ago I wrote a post suggesting that indie developers set up a customer mailing list. I figured that it is such an important topic that it was worth revisiting.

This post is a sort of grab bag of suggestions and tips.

There are so many good reasons to have an email marketing list:

• If somebody comes to your website, or downloads your application but doesn't buy it right away, they can join your mailing list, and get to know you and your company a bit more. And then, perhaps, become a customer.
• You will have a base of current and potential customers to notify of your upcoming products and releases.
• You can cooperatively promote your fellow indie developers' software programs. By introducing cool software to people on your list, they will appreciate you, as will your fellow developers.
• You can provide tips and tricks for the users of your software.  Even if your subscriber doesn't own the software you mention, they will see that you are proactive and helpful to your…

This interview with Rich Siegel, President/CEO of Bare Bones Software, is the fifth in a series of interviews I've held with indie software developers about marketing Mac software. Previous interviews: Oliver Breidenbach, Jacob Gorban, Jean MacDonald, and Kevin Hoctor. (Is there an indie developer/company you'd like to see featured here? Leave me a comment and I'll do my best to feature them!)

Rich Siegel is the founder and, after all these years, still the President/CEO of Bare Bones Software, known for its long-standing BBEdit and more recent Yojimbo. He lives in Rhode Island with his family, including four parrots (two of whom he claims are "too smart for everyone's good"). Like most indies, Rich works out of a home office, which presents interesting opportunities and challenges. He enjoys music and can claims to be able to use dangerous power tools without injuring himself or others. His personal website is absolutely not www.richsiegel.com.

I cornered Rich over email and managed…

Just a quick announcement in case you missed it on Twitter or other blogs: Macworld Expo '10 will have an online "Indie Developer Spotlight" in which any application that is discounted for 20% off can be listed on their "indie list" page during the expo, between February 11 and February 13.

Just go to this page and get yourself signed up. One note: you will need a URL to visit, not just a coupon code. (For Sandvox, we were able to supply a URL to our store with the coupon code pre-entered.)

It looks like it's not too late to get a stand at their Independent Developer Pavilion — what some call "Tiny Town."

Here's a quick post with some suggestions for press releases. I hope they are of use. Please leave any comments afterwards about your experiences or ideas.

1. Make your press release interesting enough that people will want to publish it.

When you publish a press release, some websites will just automatically pick it up and publish it as-is, even if it's not that interesting.  However, you should try for more than that — the more respectable publications will only pick up the interesting stories, so give them something to write about!  This goes for Twitter also; if you have an interesting story, people will tweet about it!

2. Topics for a press release

Obviously when you release a new app, you'll want to send out a press release.  But there are so many more opportunities to do something newsworthy and announce it.  Updates to existing software titles.  Announcements of new people on your team.  A special sale (especially if it's interesting somehow).  A milestone you are celebrating. …

I had read recently that it's a good idea to connect with people on Facebook. We've been using Twitter a lot (come follow @karelia!) but wanted to get more of a presence on Facebook as well.

I set up a facebook page for Karelia Software (If you are reading this please stop by and become a fan and write something on our wall!) and started looking around for ideas on what to put there. I've found a few Mac software companies, and some other organizations, with some interesting content, plus a bunch of ideas for making an effective Facebook page.

Why do all this?

Having a Facebook page for your company is a good way to connect with people who are interested in you. Yes, you should have a mailing list, and use Twitter, and hopefully an online forum or discussion email list. Facebook is just another channel. There are ton of people who are on Facebook constantly, so why not connect with them too?

When you make some update to your facebook page, your "fans" get notified of the update. So…

Some recent discussion on the MacSB discussion list prompted me to write a few words about the importance of blogging as a marketing tool.

I've mentioned blogging in previous posts here, and it came up as a marketing idea in a recent Mac SB thread. A couple of negatives suggested about blogging is your customers may not know what a blog is, or that your niche is so narrow that there isn't much you can post about regularly.

I believe that these negatives are far outweighed by the positive aspects of blogging. Especially when you consider that the potential audience for a company/product blog are not your current or potential customers (who would be wandering around on your website), but searchers — and, via extension — the search engines.

Let's look at this this way. People are out there, searching for what you have to offer. Perhaps most of them are using really obvious terms, and in your keyword research, you've made sure that your product's home page works in those terms into the…