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DP Directory, Inc.
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Subscribe Now to Al Harberg's Software Marketing Newsletter, the best way for software developers to get free, usable marketing information. We'll never use your email address for anything besides sending you this twice-monthly newsletter.
Here are some insights into selling more software:
Last month's 2003 Shareware Industry Conference in Rochester, New York was a huge success. With more than 350 attendees, the seminars were great, the food was great, and the opportunities for meeting with other industry professionals couldn't have been better. Mark your calendars for July, 2004! One of the things that struck me this year was the disparity of incomes between companies offering similar software. With applications as straightforward as AntiSpam utilities and BackUp programs, some companies are making hobby income, while others are making a lot of money. It's easy to believe that the differences lie in the quality of the software, the nature of the registration incentives, and the effectiveness of the advertising and marketing campaigns. But I believe that there are often other factors that distinguish the high-income companies from the companies with modest incomes:
- Site licenses.
- Positioning.
- Features versus benefits.
- English versus TechieTalk.
- English versus "English is my second language". If you turn 20 pounds of steel into a boat anchor, you can sell it for $20. If you turn the same steel into surgical needles, you can sell them for $20,000. You can turn the raw material on your web site into a top-notch sales machine!
The first Austin Shareware Schmooze will take place October 16-19, 2003 in Austin, Texas. If the Schmoozes in St. Louis, Columbus, and Seattle are any indication, the Austin Schmooze will attract two or three dozen developers who will spend a few days talking about software marketing, resolving tech issues, and solving most of the world's problems. Visit the Schmooze site.
Kim Komando hosts a radio talk show about computers, with 7.8 million listeners every week. The Kim Komando Show is carried on more than 400 radio stations, and her syndicated columns appear in more than 100 newspapers. You can't email her about your software. But you can submit your press release to her.
Here's a book that will pay for itself many times over!
Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir (published by New Riders) Jakob Nielsen, recognized as the guru of web site usability, charges $10,000(US) to evaluate a company's homepage (not their web site - their homepage). In this book, he documents all of the criteria that he uses when optimizing a customer's homepage, and gives 50 in-depth examples. This book will increase a software developer's sales by many, many times the book's cover price. The Big Picture - Homepage Usability is really two books: In the first 53 pages, Nielsen talks about the purpose of a homepage, and discusses the 113 guidelines that he uses when evaluating a homepage. He has keen insights into communicating your site's purpose, information about your company, the site's content, links, navigation, search-engine, shortcuts, graphics and design, user interface, window titles, URLs, news and press releases, popup windows and splash screens, and tools for gathering customer data and fostering community. The information is easy to understand, and easy to put into practice. In the final 250+ pages, Nielsen deconstructs 50 web sites from companies with high name recognition. In agonizing detail, he inspects every inch of the homepage, and offers suggestions and criticism. He breaks every homepage screen into its component parts: operating system and browser control (roughly 19 percent of the real estate, using Internet Explorer), welcome and site identity, navigation, content of interest, advertising and sponsorship, self-promotion, filler, and unused portions of the homepage. The percentages allocated to the various categories vary from site to site, by huge amounts. It's fascinating to see the different approaches that major companies use on their homepages. What it Means for Software Developers - Most of the material used in this book was developed by watching real users access real web sites. So, when Nielsen recommends that you include a search box on your web site, that you place it in the upper-right corner of your homepage, and you label the button "Search" (rather than "Go" or "Find"), it's not his personal tastes that you're reading about - it's actual field experience with real users. As a result, the book's recommendations carry much more weight than the typical marketing book's suggestions that are based on hypothetical theories or personal taste. Nielsen's selection of web sites is not ideal for the typical independent software developer. The companies and institutions tend to be huge, and as a result, their concerns are different than the problems that software developers wrestle with every day. For example, programmers rarely have to include stock quotes, news for stockholders, investor relations press releases, links to multi-national legal pages, or other issues that Fortune-100 companies address. On the other hand, it's fun and easy to browse through the 50 web sites, looking for ideas that can be adapted for our own homepages. And for every idea that we can find, Nielsen includes detailed comments, criticisms, and suggestions. The Bottom Line - It's an expensive book, and worth every penny. If you only read the first 53 pages, the book will pay for itself many times over. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this newsletter, send me a note. I'll remove your name immediately and permanently. To SUBSCRIBE to the email version of this newsletter, send me your name and email address. I'll only use your name and email address for this newsletter. I'll never spam you, or let other people have your name or email address. al@dpdirectory.com To SELL MORE SOFTWARE, bookmark this web site, and visit often. There's a lot of free, useful software marketing information on http://www.dpdirectory.com/.
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