Mac Indie Marketing Archive March 2010

iPhone App Store SEO

A while back, I wrote a post "15 Suggestions for Marketing your iPhone Application" in which I suggested you work on having a website for your iPhone application so that you can get found in Google.

While a lot of this is still relevant, I did notice the article "App Store SEO: The Impact of iTunes Web Preview" which shows that Apple's new, rich web previews take care of a lot of the criticisms I had of their launching pages.

I still think it is a good idea for an iPhone (or iPad, for that matter) developer to have their own website, where they have much better control over their content and can do more to convince the website visitor how cool your application is. But at least Apple's change will help as well; the advice in the article I've linked to is good stuff!

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Mar 12, 2010 8:00 AM

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Track Your New Customers with Cookies

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.

cookiesFirst 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…

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Mar 10, 2010 10:57 PM

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Smashing Mag's Marketing Your Mobile Application

One of my favorite websites these days is Smashing Magazine. Generally geared toward web development and designers, it has enough tidbits that keep me subscribed to their RSS feed and their prolific Twitter stream.

Today they featured "How To Market Your Mobile Application." I wanted readers to know about this, not only because many Mac developers are also iPhone developers, but also because its advice is good for Mac developers as well! In fact, there is little in the article that is specific to mobile or iPhone apps. So go check it out!

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Mar 3, 2010 4:36 PM

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An Interview with Gedeon Maheux, the Iconfactory

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.

Gedeon Maheux, IconfactoryI'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…

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Mar 2, 2010 9:51 PM

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