What field is it in? For ours (http://feefighters.com), which is b2b app, we have a 6 pronged attack which works pretty well:
1) SEO - people find us when they search for credit card processing and lots of long tail keywords. This is a long term thing but completely worth it. Make sure all of your pages are optimized for SEO.
2) SEM - we were buying keywords on google/bing/yahoo. Facebook has been less effective for us since we're b2b (but we tried it).
3) We get media coverage. We hustle and email and tweet a lot of reporters, etc, try to get interviews. Try to help them out all the time, refer friends businesses, etc. It works (http://feefighters.com/press - page not quite up to date). We paid a PR firm $5,000 a month. It didn't work.
4) We try to write interesting content on our blog/twitter (http://feefighters.com/blog). People link to it and we have a lot of subscribers who have nothing to do with our main business, but they tell their friends. We also do infographics. I personally think they are sort of played out (it was cool when you saw a link to one every few days but now they are everywhere), but they can still work WHEN THEY ARE GOOD and actually explain something well. We have some good ones and some that we aren't proud of: http://feefighters.com/blog/infographics/ - good: tech bubble... bad: restaurant one
5) Business Development - make deals with people in a similar space to sell your app
6) We let anyone refer their friends to FeeFighters and get paid $25 for it: https://feefighters.com/signup-or-login-to-refer-your-friend... It works... people want to refer us anyway, but this gives them an added incentive that makes sense to us financially. We use Amazon.com giftcards because they are the closest thing to cash we can think of that allows us to purchase it on our credit card and send via email to anyone - PayPal is annoying.
These things obviously work better for a particular type of app (one that is the sole focus of your time and makes you money), but some of these things are pretty universal.
"3) We get media coverage. We hustle and email and tweet a lot of reporters, etc, try to get interviews. Try to help them out all the time, refer friends businesses, etc. It works (http://feefighters.com/press - page not quite up to date). We paid a PR firm $5,000 a month. It didn't work."
In my day job, we had a similar lack of success with a $5k PR firm. Lots of money, some press releases and really little to no press coverage and absolutely zero new business.
At my small startup, I hustle and write tons of emails to every site I can think of that's mildly relevant and we've gotten a level of coverage we're happy with even if its just me firing off form emails in my spare few hours a week. (We've even managed to get a little radio coverage).
This is one way. :) And I'm not being cynical. You should take these kinds of opportunities. Of course, you need to strike a balance, but I think pitdesi did that pretty well. You've got to hustle.
Taking my own advice... One of the things that brings people to http://hubski.com (a social aggregation site) is original content. I like to write, and I found that when I wrote on hubski, that content brought quite a bit of traffic. If you are creating in the social space, IMHO you need to think of your site as a restaurant. Above everything else, you need to have quality food. You can get tons of traffic, but if you don't have quality food, people won't come back. It's easier said than done, but I found that contributing my own original content seemed to provide a value that few other things did. I've come to the opinion that quality is everything. The little things count. Be tough with yourself, and listen to criticism.
Ask yourself: "Do I like my app? and What don't I like about my app?" everyday. If you love your app, it will be infinitely easier for you to promote. Make sure you love your app before you start putting serious resources into promoting it. If you love your app, traffic to your site will likely be more effective.
BTW, this post is at #3 samrat. This would be a very good time to tell us what your app is! :)
EDIT: Another thing to try: To get some objective feedback on first impressions, you might want to try stumbleupon. People can vote on your site when they stumble it, and you can look at the average score of your site. IMO I don't think that SU is an effective way to advertise, but that does provide a measure for first impressions. If your score is low, you know you need to work on your landing page.
I wouldn't underestimate facebook for b2b. The users that see the ads still work at businesses. I have had very good success using these for my b2b application.
I used the "likes" targeting in the facebook ads demographics to target occupations that my product is aimed at. I also targeted relevant english speaking countries.
I have tried quite a few different styles of ads, but individual ads for each occupation that were specifically targeted has the best results. I guess I would advise creating many ads, and wording them specifically for each demographic you want to target.
I also tried various pictures, but ultimately a screenshot of my app was the most successful.
The majority of my users so far were acquired via the facebook advertising, it has been my most successful strategy.
6) Referral for $25 ... people want to refer us anyway.
Without the fee, people would refer you anyway, mostly anonymously. So the $25 fee is a way to document where your referrals come from. That sounds like a good buy.
1) SEO - people find us when they search for credit card processing and lots of long tail keywords. This is a long term thing but completely worth it. Make sure all of your pages are optimized for SEO.
2) SEM - we were buying keywords on google/bing/yahoo. Facebook has been less effective for us since we're b2b (but we tried it).
3) We get media coverage. We hustle and email and tweet a lot of reporters, etc, try to get interviews. Try to help them out all the time, refer friends businesses, etc. It works (http://feefighters.com/press - page not quite up to date). We paid a PR firm $5,000 a month. It didn't work.
4) We try to write interesting content on our blog/twitter (http://feefighters.com/blog). People link to it and we have a lot of subscribers who have nothing to do with our main business, but they tell their friends. We also do infographics. I personally think they are sort of played out (it was cool when you saw a link to one every few days but now they are everywhere), but they can still work WHEN THEY ARE GOOD and actually explain something well. We have some good ones and some that we aren't proud of: http://feefighters.com/blog/infographics/ - good: tech bubble... bad: restaurant one
5) Business Development - make deals with people in a similar space to sell your app
6) We let anyone refer their friends to FeeFighters and get paid $25 for it: https://feefighters.com/signup-or-login-to-refer-your-friend... It works... people want to refer us anyway, but this gives them an added incentive that makes sense to us financially. We use Amazon.com giftcards because they are the closest thing to cash we can think of that allows us to purchase it on our credit card and send via email to anyone - PayPal is annoying.
These things obviously work better for a particular type of app (one that is the sole focus of your time and makes you money), but some of these things are pretty universal.