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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.
Ideas to Help You Sell More Software
If you did a better job of telling prospects about your program's System Requirements, you'd sell a lot more software. From the time a visitor arrives on your home page, to the time they purchase your software, you have to tell them continuously how they would benefit from owning your application. If you give them puzzles to solve or distractions from your sales message, they lose their train of thought. This makes it much harder to get them to buy. If you give them a really tough puzzle that they can't solve, then they'll hit their "back" button, return to the search engine or download site, and visit your competitors' web sites. With regard to explaining your program's System Requirements, you have to: (1) Tell your prospects if your software will run on their computers. It annoys me when I visit a software developer's web site, and I can't figure out if their application will run on my machine. The developer's web site has all of these clever descriptions about how my life will be better if I buy their software. By using their software, I'll save time, save money, reduce stress, do things tomorrow that I can't do today, and race ahead of my competitors. I'm not reading any of this. I'm skimming their site, looking for the phrase Windows 98. If their software runs under Macintosh, UNIX/Linux, Palm OS, Pocket PC, AS/400, or some other platform, I don't care about how it will benefit "the user". It simply won't benefit me. Until I see "Windows 98", I'm not taking the web site seriously. If you want to sell your software to Windows users, you need to say Windows several times on your home page and on each product page. (2) Tell your prospects your System Requirements in language that they will understand. If you speak to English-speaking prospects in English, they may buy your software. If you speak to them in techno-babble, they'll buy from your competitor, even if your software is better. Here are some of the horrible things that Windows developers say to make their prospects hit their "back" buttons: - Runs on Win9x. There are three ways that people can react to this phrase: (A) They understand it immediately, and keep on reading your sales message. Everybody who is reading this newsletter reacts this way, because we're all in the software industry. Unlike the vast majority of computer users, we know what Win9x means. (B) They think about it for a moment, and say to themselves, "I bet Win9x means Windows 95 and Windows 98." They should be thinking about how their lives would be enhanced by having your software installed on their system. Instead, you gave them a puzzle to solve. And now it's going to be harder to get their minds back on track, and to sell them your software. (C) They don't have a clue. Their spouse or their boss said to them, "Find something on the Internet that performs this particular function, and make sure it runs under Windows 98." They're looking for "Windows 98" and they simply can't - or won't - solve your Win9x puzzle. You've lost their sale. - Runs on Win2k. If you'd rather be cute than rich, then find cute ways to confuse prospects. I'm starting to see Win2k3 in press releases and on web sites, too. Every day, secretaries and administrative assistants are asked to go to search engines and download sites and print pages about software that performs certain functions, and that runs on Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003. And a lot of these folks aren't going to translate Win2k into Windows 2000, or see Win2k3 as anything but total gibberish. - Runs on Windows NT4 and newer. What percentage of software buyers knows if their Windows 98 machine is newer or older than NT4? How many XP owners know if they can use software that "runs on Windows 98 and newer"? Many prospects don't have a clue what year the various Windows operating systems were released. Either you make it easy for them to buy from you, or they'll buy from your competitor. - Runs on all 32-bit Windows systems. If you're selling programmers' tools, then this is a great description. But if you're marketing games or utilities or general-interest software, you're throwing away sales and money with this description. The typical carpenter or dentist or insurance company worker has absolutely no idea that eight years ago, when Intel was moving from the 386 to the 486, and Microsoft was moving from 3.1 and NT3.51 to 95 and NT4, that "32-bit" was the computer industry buzzword for the new technology. But they understand what your competitors are saying. Your competitor's software runs on Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP. It's not as nice as yours, but at least the prospect knows that it will run on their computer. The bottom line: Use your web site to paint your prospects into a picture in which they see themselves having a more productive, less stressful life after installing your software. Don't give them puzzles to solve, and don't confuse them. Tell them your System Requirements in simple, easy-to-understand terms. Sell them your software.
June, 2004 marks the tenth anniversary of the Educational Software Cooperative (ESC). Rosemary West, ESC's former President and current Webmaster, has been posting some fascinating accounts of the software world of the early and mid-1990's. If you'd like to learn more about who the key players were then, and where they are now, please visit ESC's public newsgroup on news://news.lanbytes.net/edu.educational_software_coop Members and non-members are welcome to lurk, browse, and post.
If you're marketing email, SMS, or any kind of messaging software, you should post your New Product Announcement for free on Sharon Housley's Messaging Software Forum - http://www.messaging-software.com/forum
Selling More Software to Women
EVEolution
by Faith Popcorn and Lys Marigold (published by Hyperion) EVEolution is a new marketing theory that is based on the notions that men and women are different with respect to how they buy things, and that it makes no sense to market to them in the same way. The Big Picture - The authors believe that there are real differences between women and men which affect the way they receive marketing messages and the way they shop. It has become politically fashionable to deny that there are gender differences. Popcorn and Marigold insist that we have to recognize the real differences that do exist, and make sure we're marketing effectively to women. The book presents eight Truths that "reveal how to understand, reach, motivate, and sustain the loyalty of the female customer." What it Means for Software Developers - A lot of women and girls are making software buying decisions. Women's demographics in the teaching profession are strong. And mothers make most buying decisions for household goods. There are 13 million single mothers in the US. I believe that the ideas, case studies, and blue-sky brainstorming in this book can trigger ideas that will result in more software sales. Whether it's setting up a message board and establishing a community of users of your software, or adding an "About the Company" page to your web site that identifies your company as a female-owned business, there are things that you can do immediately that will increase sales. The book is not about selling software. Most of the examples are about creating brand loyalty and long-term sales for household and personal consumer goods. You have to think about how to apply these principles to a high-tech business. The Bottom Line - Women buy differently than men. Women have money. You can sell more software if you target women effectively. While I wouldn't name any of this book's theories "Truths", there are some excellent insights into how to market more effectively to women. The 8 to 12-year old girls' market has 15-million members in the US alone. And these youngsters spend $5-billion each year just on clothing. They need to buy your software, too. This 250-page, $15.95(US) book is a quick read. One or two ideas from EVEolution can make it a good investment of your time. 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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