I’ve now participated in Mupromo and MacZOT. On MacZOT, I promoted Share while on Mupromo, I promoted Paperclip. Two different apps on two different services. The comments I have can’t be directly carried over due to some differences in timing and whatnot. However, I think it’s best to be forthcoming for the sake of other developers that are evaluating these options.

Software promotions in general

I want to go on record saying that I’m generally supportive of software promotions in general. I was even a part of the moribund 20MacApps promotion. Not even that soured me on software promotions. I think that in general, software promotions are great for a shot in the arm for sales. It also brings in a larger user base as well as bit of advertising. I generally think that it’s good to get your product out there. More users can spur more sales as they recommend the software to their friends. Also, getting your product on a promotion may introduce it to an audience that otherwise wouldn’t see it. I don’t mind selling at a discount to people who otherwise wouldn’t purchase it at all. If you run a software promotion and would like some software, please email me. I’m almost always interested.

MacZOT

My experience with MacZOT was really good. They handled me with great care. I was generall happy with how things went. They more or less took the home page for Share and formatted it to their layout. All I had to do was provide a way to send license codes. They were very courteous and we had plenty of communication. I think the sales were slightly better than Mupromo. The think that surprised me most was the fact that I had the best day of regular sales on the same day as my MacZOT promotion. I nearly made as much in standard sales as I did on discounted licenses. I don’t know how or why it happened, but it was a very pleasant surprise. It was also truly a one-day promotion and everything was resolved very promptly afterwards.

MUpromo

MUpromo was a successful promotion by any means. I made a decent number of discounted sales. However, I felt like the promotion was a good bit more corporate. I didn’t receive as much personal communication. I received at least one or two form letters which kind of drew me back a bit. MUpromo looks very slick but also feels very corporate. I kind of preferred the personal interaction that I had with MacZOT. Also, MUpromo seemed to draw away from my normal sales. That’s a bit of a disappointment but I suppose is what should be normal with software promotions. Finally, MUpromo is highly integrated with MacUpdate. I didn’t add Paperclip to MacUpdate and I only set its update information every so often. It’s a great resource but I’ve never found it to be a good source of sales. That said, MacUpdate will update itself whenever I release an update to an application (I assume it catches my appcast feed). Seeing as how I haven’t really messed with MacUpdate, I was a bit surprised to find that it used a really old screenshot of Paperclip and had an exceptionally short explanation. If I were able, I’d have gladly provided a much more descriptive explanation of Paperclip and plenty of screenshots. Since I was a bit pampered by MacZOT, I kind of assumed MUpromo would take care of this. They didn’t and I’m sure it hurt sales.

Summary

If you’ve got a great presence on MacUpdate, MUpromo could probably do you a lot of good. It looks very slick and probably has a lot of daily viewers. MacZOT, however, treated me like a valued partner and did more for me.