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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.
It's All About Marketing
If you've ever bought books on amazon.com, you've experienced every kind of additional selling program known to humankind. From the time you put your virtual hands on a book that you want to learn more about, they suggest a two-book bundle, they tell you the names of other books that previous buyers have purchased when they bought the book that you've selected, they name other titles in the same category, and they tell you that your book qualifies for shipping discounts if you purchase additional books. When you close the transaction, they offer you a discount to ship additional gift-copies of your books to your friends. And, from my perspective, they do all of this without offending me, or making me feel pressured. Some of these techniques can be used to sell more software, too. Used improperly, these techniques can annoy prospects, and drive them to visit your competitors' sites. If you're offering a single product, you still have a lot of upselling options: - You can encourage people to upgrade from a single-user license to a family license, entitling them to use your software on all of their home computers plus one computer at work. - If you're offering home entertainment software, you can suggest that they give a gift to a friend. - Offering gift certificates, or shipping a physical CDROM, with or without a gift card, can generate more sales. - If you're selling business or education software, you should make a major effort to sell multi-user and site licenses at discounted prices. If you're offering two products, you can still avoid the dreaded shopping cart, while selling bundles and other combinations. - At its simplest, you can offer application-a, application-b, or both (probably at a discount for the two-program bundle). - Some developers offer a family of products. A two-program family might consist of a Basic and a Professional version. When somebody purchases the Basic version, you can serve them a screen that tries to upsell them on the benefits of the Pro version. Similarly, you can try to get them to move from Light to Standard to Silver to Gold. When naming your family members, there are two terms that cause people to wince: "Special Edition" reminds a lot of prospects of the nearly-worthless versions of commercial software that come bundled with hardware. And the misspelled "Lite" is a term that evokes in many prospects the sensation of fingernails on the blackboard. If you offer three or more applications, you need to consider offering users a shopping cart. Without a shopping cart, customers have to go through the buying process multiple times. In addition to being annoying, multiple purchases cause red flags with eCommerce and bank processors. And a month later, when your customer sees multiple purchases from the same vendor, they may get confused and issue a chargeback. - The upside of a shopping cart is that it makes it easy for customers to buy multiple products. - Shopping cart abandonment, however, continues to be a major problem. Many shopping carts are non-intuitive and genuinely annoying. While software developers might think it's logical to remove an item from their shopping cart by changing its quantity to zero, most end-users are totally confused by this process. - If you're selling, say, a collection of games, at similar prices, you can avoid using a shopping cart by offering 2-game packs and 3-game packs. When considering ideas for additional sales there are some important principles to keep in mind: - Don't jeopardize your original sale by confusing or offending your prospects with your attempt to upsell them. If you're offering additional software on your product page, make sure your customers are crystal clear about what they're buying. - If you're upselling at the time that they add an application to their shopping cart, be clear. Acknowledge that they've added a particular program to their cart, and ask them if, in addition, they'd like to add another specific program, at a stated, discounted price. - If you're upselling after they've filled their shopping cart, and after they've clicked on the "check out and pay" button, then be gentle. You have a serious buyer, and you don't want to lose the sale. Don't offend them, and don't confuse them. - If you're cross-selling them after the sale, on your "thank you for your order page", you can be a little more pushy. They've already bought your software, so there's no risk of them abandoning their shopping cart. If you give them a deeply-discounted offer, they might go back to your product pages and make an additional purchase. Or you might want to give them a coupon that they can redeem at a later time. - If you're after-selling your customers, using the email that you send them - the email with the registration code or the URL where they can download the full version of your applications - you can offer them discounts on future purchases, or recommend affiliates' software. - Another after-sales tool is the newsletter. Newsletters are at the heart of permission marketing. Tell your customers the advantages of signing up for your free email newsletter so that they'll get tips and tricks on how to use their software more effectively. Tell them that they'll receive notifications about new releases of the program that they purchased, as well as discounts on other fine software from your company. Assure them that you'll never use their name or email address for anything except sending them your newsletter. It's much, much easier to sell additional software to a satisfied customer than to find new customers and convince them to buy. Be careful not to overload your customers with sales pitches. But don't miss opportunities to upsell, cross-sell, and after-sell your software.
Without exception, every book on sales that you will ever read will tell you that the number one reason for failure to sell is failure to ask for the sale. In face-to-face selling, inexperienced sales people explain the product's features and benefits, and expect people to reach for their wallets. It doesn't work that way. You have to ask for the sale. It's no different on the Internet. Sure, your web site has to paint prospects into a word picture in which they see themselves benefiting from owning your software. But you have to say "Order Now". You have to have easy-to-find "Buy Now" buttons. You have to ask for the sale.
Selling Software by Selling Yourself
How to Sell Yourself by Joe Girard (published by Warner Books) The Big Picture - The Guiness Book of Records calls Joe Girard the world's greatest salesman. As a Cadillac salesman, he outsold every other car salesman in the US, 12 years running. In How to Sell Yourself, he tells how he went from humble beginnings to being a successful sales person. In Joe's mind, he didn't sell cars. He sold himself. What it Means for Software Developers - While much of this book deals with face-to-face sales, most of the principles apply to selling software on the Internet. The key to a successful sales career is selling yourself, and becoming the kind of person that people trust, and feel comfortable buying from. In a world where big corporations spend millions of dollars buying name recognition for their brands, Joe Girard used honesty and friendliness and a commitment to service to build a sales career. Software developers can apply these same principles to their web sites. Your web site has personality. And you can communicate these principles with your writing style, your customer service policies, and the overall friendliness of the web site and the software that you're marketing. The Bottom Line - Software developers can learn a lot by studying successful people in other fields. How can you not learn to sell more software by spending a couple of hours reading the insights of a man who built a successful sales career and a sterling reputation in a competitive field? This book is a quick read, and worth the effort. 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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