Increase Your Productivity with Software

I love software and I personally work with a lot of different programs. Right now I have 47 different titles pinned to my Quick launch menu. Some of these saves me a lot of time every day.

Today I’ll cover a few of my favorites. I am guessing you heard about some of them, but I hope you’ll find something that can boost your daily productivity when working with selling your software.

And if you have some tips about software that saves you time, please do let us know by posting a comment below.

1. Snagit

Snagit is really The screen capture tool. I have tried many different and none comes close to Snagit’s functionality both when capturing, editing or sharing my images.

One of my absolute favorites to work with and also a huge time saver. I use Snagit for virtually everything in my business and personal life. Right now I am planning a work/vacation trip to Hong Kong and Thailand. I use it to grab and store information about the hotels, plan the different stops, copy maps online and then add annotations and stamps to clarify parts of the screen captures.

For work I use Snagit extensively, and this may sound over the top but I work with two monitors and my second monitor is basically used as my Snagit Editor monitor.If you try it I am pretty sure you’ll soon realize that it helps a lot. If you look at this website most of the graphic work is done with Snagit.

Check out: Snagit screen capture software.

When on Mac I use Voila for the same purposes. Check out: Voila Screen Capture for Mac.

2. Outlook

I am guessing no further introduction is needed. I also use Gmail for certain things but it’s hard to beat the time-saving functionality Outlook brings when I use the email templates (now called Quick Parts). If you are using Microsoft Office and is not using Quick Parts you are wasting time. You find a good tutorial on how to use Quick Parts here. You will not regret it.

3. Google Desktop

I do most work on Vista OS and I am sorry Microsoft, but your search functionality is not very good (the exception is the new faster search in Outlook). Google Desktop search saves me bundles of time locating critical files when working. Check out Google Desktop and save some time.

4. Camtasia Studio

If Snagit is the ultimate sceen capture tool, then Camtasia is The screen recording tool. In our organization we use Camtasia extensively to create demos and reviews of software as well as tutorials for our staff. To not need to explain the same systems to our new staff over and over again is a huge time-saver. Check out Camtasia Studio screen recorder.

5. Firefox

I used to be a die hard explorer user up until I tried Firefox. Firefox in itself is faster than Explorer so there’s a bit of a time saver there, and when I add using a few add-ons to firefox the productivity goes way up. Check out Firefox. I have also tested both Google Chrome and Opera, and although they are fast, Firefox outperforms them based on all available add-ons.

6. Bonus tip: SuperStamps

When I write articles or want to add professional graphic content to my work quickly, easily and make it look real good, I use SuperStamps. It’s a collection of 654 graphic images that can be used directly from inside Snagit. Check out SuperStamps Snagit Stamps.

I have a few more excellent software titles but I will save them for a future article. I hope you enjoyed this article and that you got something out of it.

Please post your comments, ideas about software that saves time for you below.

PETER GILLBERG is the owner of www.SoftwareCasa.com and responsible for millions of dollars in software sales. He also owns a consulting business for software publishers, teaching them how to implement online marketing and sales strategies. You can reach Peter by visiting his website: www.SoftwareMarketingSecrets.com

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So how do you choose an excellent name for your software?

I found an outstanding and free report on how to name your product and company and I know this is a question that is often discussed by Micro ISVs so I felt I must share it with you…

It’s created by Igor, Naming and Branding agency and covers a wide variety of naming issues such as:

• The Six Steps of the Igor Process
• Step 1: Competitive Analysis
• Step 2: Positioning
• Step 3: Name / Brand Development
• Step 4: Trademark Prescreening
• Step 5: Creative / Testing
• Step 6: Name and Tagline
• Naming Tools
• A. Naming Process Filters – Evocative Names
• B. Name Evaluation
• Blank Name Evaluation Chart
• C. Name Taxonomy Charts
• Studies in Naming
• Studies in Branding
• Case Studies of Igor Naming/Branding Projects

I especially enjoyed reading the studies in naming where Igor looks at “Chrysler Crossfire and IBM T-Rex among others. A couple of things that the report doesn’t cover and it is especially important when naming software – you will need to do research on how common searches are for the name, how easy it is to get listings for your name and if perhaps the name is already taken from some website.

You can download the report here (it’s in .pdf format).

If you have any comments about naming, please share your thoughts in the comments area below.

Best of luck with your cool new names

Peter – Your Software Marketing Secrets Guide

Other Software Naming Resources

Igor Naming/Branding Agency

Definitions behind business name jargon

WordLab

Brand name development

Related posts:

1. Software Branding: Introduction

But the visitors aren’t really converting into buyers, at least not in any satisfactory numbers. Maybe 95% are leaving your website without taking any action…

So how do you know you are doing a good job?

Read on and find out how you can benchmark your conversion rates…

Digital River is the world’s largest provider of e-commerce solutions for software publishers, currently managing half of the digital downloads for the software market (according to themselves.)

A daughter company, Fireclick provides a service that you should check out, a software conversion benchmark index.

According to Fireclick you should have a conversion rate about 3.5 to four percent today, and as this is based on such a large part of the market the numbers give good guidelines of what kind of conversion rate you should have.

I would be hesitant to share my numbers with Fireclick, but the overview is free and you can check conversion rates for a full year back in time.

We have noticed that many different factors play a part in the conversion numbers. For example when you are launching a new major version of your software and are targeting previous clients you should aim for numbers in the range of 10% – 40%.

Among other factors you should take into consideration are:

• Competition
• Price levels
• Niche
• How well-known brand you have (company and product)
• Yearly fluctuations
• Traffic sources
• Sales cycle
• Product-/Upgrade launch

I will go into more depths on some of these factors in future blog posts.

If you are interested in improving your online software sales, take a look at my previous blog post on how to sell more software online.

We also provide a service on how to improve conversion on software publishers websites and we are currently looking for reference clients. You can contact me if you would like to know more about this service.

Until next time

Peter Gillberg – Software Marketing Secrets

Related posts:

1. Sell More Software Online – 10 Tips
2. Help Prospects Forward In The Software Sales Cycle

If you are following the development of Internet Video (all software marketers should…) two resources that is well worth visiting is Ken McCarthy’s SystemVideoBlog and Joe Chapuis The HotBizz Report, a video blog or vlog (what will they come up with next?)

If you are into copywriting you need to visit Michel Fortin’s blog “On Copywriting, Marketing and Life”. Excellent site with a lot of content if you are blogging.

Bob Bly is another copywriter that has done a lot of work for software and technology companies and his bly.com blog is definitely worth a visit.

A hidden gem for online marketing is MindValleyLabs blog. These guys really know their online marketing and it is well worth a visit.

Slowly but surely we are also adding resources to our own Software Marketing Directory. If you have a website that you feel belong in the directory, please email me information. Include a short description of your website and what you want the link to say.

See you soon

Peter Gillberg
Software Marketing Secrets

Related posts:

1. Software Marketing Directory

We have always been fanatical testers and during the fall of 2006 SoftwareCasa performed around 14 split tests of landing/ software product pages that increased conversion rates substantially.

We have now been included in the Beta tests of the new Optimizer tool that let’s you test all possible combinations of your landing page for increased conversion/subscriptions or whatever you are focused on.

With this new optimization tool we will have the ability of performing far more tests with more accuracy than earlier. One important aspect is that we will be able to run so called Taguchi tests which in simple terms mean that we can simultaneously test different factors at the same time.

We will share some of the test results with our Software Publisher Partners.

See the Google Website Optimizer video here

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If time allows I will upload many more resources over the next few days.

If you have any suggestions of resources that should be included, don’t hesitate to post a suggestion here.

Related posts:

1. Software Marketing Directory Updated

December is a busy season for many of us, but if you have a chance you should really spend some time planning your promotional calendar for 2007.

Based on an Excel template I have created a Promotional Calendar for 2007 where you can tie in your promotions to holidays.

Other than the holidays you can tie in promotions to News, Trends, Entertainment/Movie news, Product launches (Vista!), Industry news and other related happenings.

Download the Free 2007 Promotion Plan Here

(Left-click on the link above to open the MS Excel Promotion Plan)

PS. If you download the Promotion Plan, please make a comment if you find it useful or want to add something.

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