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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
Whether you're fine-tuning the text on your web site, writing your press release, crafting standard responses to email inquiries for more information about your software, or talking with your prospects on the telephone, you can make more money if you tell your story well. Here are a few stylistic techniques that you can use to increase your sales: (1) Avoid writing in the first person. You're using the first person when you use the words I, we, my, and our. The bottom line: Use the first person sparingly on your web site. People care about themselves, and they're much less interested in you. On your web site you say, "I wrote this program to solve my business problem, and I decided to offer it commercially". You'd sell more software if you turned this thought into a benefit for your customers. Tell them how your neat new idea will benefit them. You say something like, "Our company is dedicated to listening to our customers, and providing the finest software available". You can close more sales if you tell your customers how your revised software can benefit them: "Because we listen to our customers, you can benefit by our program's feature-1, feature-2, and feature-3." You have a link that says, "Our Privacy Policy". More people would click the link if it said, "Your Privacy is Important". (2) Write in the second person. You're using the second person when you use words like you, your and you're. Writing in the second person draws your reader into the conversation. The second person lets you paint a word picture that involves your readers, and makes them want to learn more about your software and how it will benefit them. Pick up a book on how to sell real estate, and you'll find that the classic example of how to paint your reader into a warm fuzzy picture is something like, "This summer, when you're sitting here at your kitchen table and looking out your window at your kids playing in your yard, you'll be so pleased that you'd decided today to make an offer for this house." The sentence has seven variations of the word "you". If you reread the first sentence of this article, you'll see eight variations of the word "you". The article you're reading isn't about me, or about some stranger. It's about how you can use words to make more software sales. Part of the reason that you've read this far is that the article is largely written in the second person. When a visitor is reading your web site, they're asking, "What's in it for me?" By using your web site as a way of speaking directly to them, you can make them understand what a really neat program you're marketing. Second person sells. (3) Use the third person to describe things objectively. When you're writing in the third person, the subject of your writing is something or somebody besides you or me. You're telling what a program does, or what a customer might do if she or he used your software. If you're a really good writer, and you know your audience, you can use the third person to write interesting, appealing sales copy. It's easy to lose the reader's attention, though, because you're not talking about them. You're talking about some external, abstract concept such as a computer program, or some software feature that you hope they'll be able to turn into a benefit. Don't use the phrase "the user" on your web site. Your prospects don't think that their world revolves round their computer, and they simply don't relate to references to "the user". (4) Write in the active voice. You're writing in the active voice when you say that a subject does something to an object. For example: The program compresses data into a zip archive. Active voice sells. In ordinary conversation, people naturally use the active voice. The easiest way to find sentences written in the passive voice is to say them aloud. If they sound strange or contrived, ask yourself how you would say the same thing to a friend. Chances are, you'll come up with the active voice version of your awkward passive voice sentence. (5) Don't write in the passive voice. You're writing in the passive voice when you say that an object has something done to it by a subject. For example: The data is compressed into a zip archive by the program. Passive voice sentences are vague, and generally don't tell you who did what. When you say, "Plug-ins can be added to the program," we don't know who is going to add the plug-ins. Is the developer going to add them before the sale, or are the plug-ins something that the buyer has to manage? Compare that to the active voice sentence, "You can add plug-ins to the program". The passive voice is ideal for weasel-words, and for people who want to avoid responsibility. Passive voice sentences like "Mistakes were made." and "Program bugs were found." let you dodge responsibility. The Bottom Line: - Use the first person rarely. It's effective in small doses when you want your prospects to relate to you as an individual. - Use the third person when you want to describe things dispassionately. - Use the second person when you want to paint your prospects into a picture. In your press releases, tilt the mix heavily toward the third person because that's how your write-up will appear in the publications' New Product Announcements sections. On your web site, use more second person prose. Second person sells. - Use mostly active voice sentences, and you'll make people more comfortable with your words. Read your web site aloud. If it doesn't sound like something you'd say to somebody face-to-face, change it to something more conversational. You'll sell more software.
Studies have proven that restaurants can make more money by playing fast music during peak eating hours. By playing music with a brisk beat, patrons eat more quickly, freeing up tables for the next round of customers. I'm not sure that blinking text and annoying animated .GIF files will make your prospects chew faster, but they will drive them to visit your competitors' web sites. Another great way to rush people off of your web site is to not tell them immediately what platform your software runs under. Few people have the patience to hunt in every cubbyhole to try to find your platform information. And even fewer people are going to download or purchase your application if they don't have a clue whether it will run on their system. You can keep people on your web site longer if you: - Create a color scheme that complements your software. If you're selling arcade games, then blow your visitors' socks off with over-the-top graphics. If you're offering business applications, then choose a look and feel that cries "Professional!". - Eliminate links to your favorite sports team, your local weather, and your favorite charity or political party. If you feel deeply about supporting any of these causes, then take the additional step of creating a dedicated web site. You'll get more than enough incremental sales from your software site to pay for your non-profit site. On your software site, keep visitors intrigued with the benefits of your software. - Avoid humor. What's funny to you might be offensive or incomprehensible to others. Unless you're certain that all of your web site visitors speak the same language, and have the same life experiences, avoid humor. - Ask questions. Engage your prospects. Get them thinking about how their lives would be better if your software were installed on their computers. - Invite people to bookmark your site so they can return to it when you add exciting new content. Add exciting new content to your site. It takes work to make your site inviting, and keep it fresh. But this extra work will result in extra sales.
Focus on Your Customers
The Customer-Driven Company Moving from Talk to Action by Richard C. Whiteley (published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company) The Big Picture - To succeed, you have to treat every customer right. While there's been a lot of talk about delivering quality products and services, this book provides a practical guide. The author believes that there are two types of companies: companies that consistently deliver excellence, and the companies that go out of business. And you have to look at excellence from your customers' perspective. What it Means for Software Developers - A lot of the book is about instilling a customer-driven mindset throughout your organization. With a one- or two-person software company, you don't need to spend a lot of time learning how to saturate your employees with your vision, or liberate your customer champions. But there is a lot of good material about how to organize and implement a customer-driven mindset in companies of all sizes. The Bottom Line - The book has a lot of good insights, case studies, and checklists. It forces us to think about our attitudes toward our customers, and our willingness and ability to respond to the marketplace. It reminds us that we have to ask customers for feedback and respond to complaints. If you don't have a lot of management books on your shelf, this is a good one to add. 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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