Software Marketing Secrets

Software Marketing Directory Updated

Peter Gillberg — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:50:31 +0000

We have added a lot of new links to our Software Marketing Directory.

But it is in no way complete and I would appreciate any suggestions to great software marketing resources online. It doesn’t necessarily need to be directly connected, just a resource that you as a software marketer has great use for.

If you have suggestions you can post them in the comments area at the bottom of this page or in the Software Marketing Directory section.

Check out the Software Marketing Directory

For you waiting for the articles about software branding, I am sorry that they have been delayed. I am writing on a few of them but as I want to have a high quality it takes time (in between all other work).

All the best,

Peter - Software Marketing Secrets

Six Reasons Why You Should Build Brands

Peter Gillberg — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 19:11:37 +0000

Before we go any further looking into how we can build brands it’s important to understand why building your software brand is important.

I hope you have had a chance to check out the first part in this series; Software Branding: Introduction, and have an understanding of what I mean by brand and branding. To make a long story short I am not referring to the company/product, logotype or slogan. What’s really important is the brand identity, or the associations and expectations that are connected to a brand.

There are several important reasons as to why you should work with building your brand or brands. In this article I have included 6 major reasons why it is vital to build your software brands.

The reasons are…

1) Create Repeat Clients by Brand Recognition

With a strong brand you will have bigger chances to attract clients back to you when it is time to upgrade, crosssell or upsell your products. You can read more about up-selling and cross-selling software here.

2) Competitive Advantage – Differentiate Yourself

Few products are truly unique. In most software niches there are several strong competing brands, at least in the niches that are worth existing in.

If you can do what it takes to stand out you gain credibility and competitive advantage. Your products may be chosen before the competitors solely because of your brand.

2B) Protect Yourself

Reverse engineering, copying of software products - face it, anything you can develop most likely your competitors can too, but copying a well built brand identity is far more difficult.

3) Retain Increased Sales Price

A strong brand increases the perceived value of your product and with a higher perceived value you can charge higher prices. This also means that you have a better defense against competitors trying to compete by lowering their prices.

4) Transfer Value Between Products

If you have built a strong company brand and you are launching a completely new product under a new brand you can transfer value from your other products as they are already connected to your company brand. Thus your new products can get a flying start.

5) Decrease Marketing Costs

It costs money to build a brand. It doesn’t need to cost lots but you will need to invest. But when your brand image is memorable, you can actually invest less and still trigger the impulses you want. So a stronger brand can mean a higher ROI on your marketing campaigns.

And last, but not least…

6) A strong Brand Has An Economic Value

Have you ever pondered about selling your software company in the future and perhaps work with something else? Microsoft’s brand was valued to 56.9 Billion US$ in 2006 according to Business Week. A software company on the second place of Top 100 Global brands Scoreboard.

The actual value of a brand is calculated based on: “reports from analysts at J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. Interbrand projects five years of earnings and sales for the brand. It then deducts operating costs, taxes, and a charge for the capital employed to arrive at the intangible earnings. The company strips out intangibles such as patents and management strength to assess what portion of those earnings can be attributed to the brand.”

Furthermore “the brand’s strength is assessed to determine the risk profile of those earnings forecasts. Considerations include market leadership, stability, and global reach—or the ability to cross both geographic and cultural borders. That generates a discount rate, which is applied to brand earnings to get a net present value. BusinessWeek and Interbrand believe this figure comes closest to representing a brand’s true economic worth.” (Internbrand)

When researching this article I did a quick scan to find articles on this subject and there is no end to articles covering the fact that it’s important to build brands.

But when it comes to why I should spend my time building brands I came up surprisingly short. I admit I just spent a few minutes searching, but in this time I didn’t come up with one single in-depth article on the subject.

The closest I came was comments such as brands build loyalty and drive sales. Please do comment on this post if you have any good articles on the subject. Also, please don’t hesitate to post any comments or questions you have in the matter.

You may reprint or distribute this article as long as you leave the content and this information intact. This Article was written by Peter Gillberg and published at http://www.SoftwareMarketingSecrets.com

Software Branding: Introduction

Peter Gillberg — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:19:14 +0000

You can only do branding if you have a million dollars. Only big companies should brand their products and company. Branding is just about the graphic image or logotype.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again.

I just did a quick Internet search on the subject and the erroneous statements above are very common. The most common misconceptions are that it’s expensive, difficult and that it’s all about the looks.

Well I am here to tell you that when it comes to marketing software, building your product brand and company brand are among the most important things you can do.

I am going to do a series of posts about why and how to brand your company and your software, why this is important and what you should think about.

So what is Software Branding if it isn’t about the looks?

Wikipedia defines a brand as

“A brand includes a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme associated with a product or service. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the use of the product or service and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to the product and serves to create associations and expectations around it.”

I find the last part especially interesting - “a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to the product and serves to create associations and expectations around it”.

Stephen King from WPP Group, London says: “A product is something that is made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by a customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless.” (Aaker in Managing Brand Equity, 1991)

This is the first post in a series. Let me know in the comments section below, what you think, if you have any questions, if you agree or disagree and if there is anything in particular you would like me to cover.

Software Marketing for the Software Developer

Peter Gillberg — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:59:45 +0000

Today we have a guest writer Cristian Dorobantescu, that has been involved working both with software development and software marketing. Here he shares some interesting insights in this sometimes bipolar landscape.

Read on to find out what Cristian has to say…

Back in 2002 I joined a software start-up to work on their sales. You know the regular geek company, 7 or 8 programmers in an apartment, coding all day and doing innovative products. I bet that most (small) software companies start like that, with some technical guys developing some products, placing the products on the site then waiting for the sales to happen.

Then, the same technical guys try to make some sales things, which might not be the most efficient approach in terms of sale results (but probably better than some sale guys trying to code

If you are in this situation (technical guy trying to work on sales), then you should handle at least the following aspects in selling and marketing your software.

Chicken and egg problem in software development

Now, most technical people are very feature oriented and while working on their baby are more interested in technical challenges and innovation than in making features requested by the market. So, should you develop a product to showcase your expertise or should you implement “useless” features that are requested by the customers?

You can’t have sales without features and at some point, you can’t have features if you don’t have sales. So before you think about starting a product, define your goal; making money or features?

Features/benefits/needs

From the same “toward features” orientation, the product descriptions and presentations are a …list of features. On a more advanced level we could probably have a list of benefits.

But really you want to get to Needs. Start by thinking what needs/pains your product can or should solve. Then make sure the market hears the right message: what needs you solve and how.

Market your products through look & feel and ease of use

No matter how hard your work on marketing and selling your products, there is no better tool than the look & feel and ease of use of the product itself. From my experience I know most technical people don’t think this way, so I should make some sort of explanation. So here it is: would you buy a car that is full of gadgets but with a terrible bad handling and a nightmare look, or a nice looking one, easy to drive and with some gadgets?

Listen to your customers

If you decided that you want to actually have a successful selling product and not just features, you need to start listening to your customers. Because they are the one that pay your work, have a pain than need solved and really matter at the end.

The best way to market your product is to start from the customer. Hear his pains and translate them into features. Make them nice and easy to use. Then half of your marketing is done. What do you think?

Care for some more articles on marketing and selling your products? We have some more advices on how to sell software online and offline (http://www.avangate.com/articles/software-business )

Cristian Dorobantescu has been involved in international software sales since 2002, with a special interest for online sales. Currently the Avangate Affiliate Network Coordinator, he has previously worked on distribution channel development and online sales for international software companies.

Benchmark Online Software Sales

Peter Gillberg — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:41:15 +0000

You have launched your software and started selling it online. You are actively promoting and are getting visitors and leads from different traffic generating efforts such as SEO, PPC, Banners, Shareware sites, Word-of-mouth, Resellers and other activities.

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

Software Upselling

Peter Gillberg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:32:23 +0000

What’s the easiest and fastest way to radically increase your sales? Done right you can increase your sales to many of your clients with very little effort.

How, you may ask…

Introducing the Software Upsell

More on that in a few moments, but first a little background.

Wikipedia defines Upsell or Up-selling as: “Up-selling is a sales technique whereby a salesman attempts to have the consumer purchase more expensive items, upgrades, or other add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale. Up-selling usually involves marketing more profitable services or products, but up-selling can also be simply exposing the customer to other options he or she may not have considered previously.”

Starbucks call their smaller size Tall and the up-sales Grande and Venti. Example of up-selling in the software industry would be to sell a more advanced version of the same software, a bundle with another software title, the software in a box as well as downloadable, a service agreement and so on.

How to Upsell Software

How do you go about it? It’s easy. At the time of purchase you simply offer your clients a more valuable deal. By making this offer interesting to the client you can easily convert 60% or more to go for the Upsell.

Upselling was perhaps not invented by the software industry but not many industries can match the creative ways software marketers has introduced the Software Upsell.

And if you’re not upselling your product you are definitely leaving money on the table. Start now…

Ways to Upsell Software

I have come across many different ways of upselling software, here are a few we and partners are currently utilizing

Add a (or several) Premium version(s) of your software (Professional, Deluxe, Server, Technician, Plus…)
Add a Support Agreement
Add a Multi license option
Add a Box, Manual to the order
Add a Guarantee to access the software
Add a related software product
Add an option to lock in future upgrades to lower price
Add express shipping options
Offer Software Upgrades
Offer Add-ons to your product

You should offer your clients as many of these as possible.

The Upsell should be optional. Don’t force your clients into at as it will not be appreciated. Some software companies don’t include any support with their products, it has to be purchased as an additional service. I don’t think I need to tell you how their clients feel about this.

Good luck upselling!

Peter - Software Marketing Secrets

You may reprint or distribute this article as long as you leave the content and this information intact. This Article was written by Peter Gillberg and published at http://www.SoftwareMarketingSecrets.com

Online Video Advertising Conference

Peter Gillberg — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:01:37 +0000

19th of July ClickZ is holding a conference on Online Video Advertising in NYC, NY.

It’s targeting Online Marketers, SEO/SEM Professionals, Media planners/Buyers and E-commerce managers among many others.

It should come as no surprise that this Conference is held now. It was just a few months ago when Nielsen released the interesting findings on Online Video Advertising. Nielsen/Netratings are of course also present.

Some interesting parts are ” Strategy: Determining if video should become a part of an interactive marketing and advertising strategy” and ” Online Video Advertising: The Future”.

Software Marketing Secrets will unfortunately not attend, although it would have been exciting.

Until next time

Peter - Software Marketing Secrets

Viral Software Marketing – the “Callen Virus”

Peter Gillberg — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:25:00 +0000

Brad Callen is a software creator and software marketer extraordinaire. He has just unleashed a new virus upon the world

Cough, cough. Oh, I think I just got the “Callen Virus”…

In 2004 Brad Callen launched SEO Elite, a software targeting Search Engine Optimizers. It made a huge success.

The SEO Elite website is currently ranked the 4,611th most visited website on the Internet (according to Alexa ranking). At the end of 2005 he released another title - KeywordElite. It became an instant success and has sold extremely well.

Brad Callen is now launching a new series of 3 software titles under one brand - IMWishlist or Internet Market Wish List. The titles are Directory Submitter, Article Submitter and a third, yet to be revealed title.

All software products are aimed at the online marketing community. (Yes, I have the virus too – the links above are affiliate links.)

In this series of launches, Brad is using a series of very interesting viral components to spread the software like wildfire.

Viral Software Marketing

The three software titles are all released in two separate editions. A free version with less features, and a “Gold” paid version.

The free version is of tremendous value to the internet marketing community so Brad has no problem motivating people to download the software, and to have people promoting it for him.

In fact IMWishlist.com hit almost the 1,000 most visited website in the world just a few days ago.

The Viral Marketing Components

What first caught my eye is that IMWishlist viral components are so incredibly well worked out.

A few of the components that make the message viral are:

A well developed version is given out free of charge
When somebody that you have sent the free version buys the Gold version, you receive 75% commission
Everything is done for you, you get step-by-step marketing advice
Instant setup, when downloading the software you are also instantly and effortlessly set up as an affiliate (carrier of the Callen virus)

This is how it works: You somehow get word of one of the titles, for example Article Submitter. You go to the website, download the software for free. You are automatically signed up as an affiliate. All you need is a clickbank account (also free and easy to set up). You can now spread the word about the “excellent and free software”, giving value to for example your own list. You then get 75% commission on anyone upgrading to the paid version. And so it goes on (and on…)

The Callen Virus Comes In Many Forms

If you are a serious affiliate marketer you also get an incredible amount of already completely pre-made messages for the various ways of spreading the message. In fact, I have never seen such an extensive amount of material shared by any software publisher.

The material includes: Affilitate links, text links, audio links, email copy, signature ads, banners, articles, pre-made blog reviews, ezine ads, top sponsor ads, Google adwords and instant buzz ads.

All the material is well thought out. Even the absolute beginners get complete step-by-step instructions.

For example 8 different professionally designed banner ads, two long articles, already prepared blog reviews, (This one is not one of those ;-)).

Lists of ezines where you could place the ad. List of marketing forums where it would be suitable to include posts and so on. Go and see the complete list of ways that the Callen Virus will display itself. Observe - you will need to enter a clickbank affiliate id to see all the information.

And all material of course automatically include your affiliate links.

As a professional software marketing Doctor I can only conclude – there is no stopping the Callen Virus…

Sell More Software Online - 10 Tips

Peter Gillberg — Thu, 10 May 2007 05:46:09 +0000

When doing extensive split testing on our online software store SoftwareCasa.com, we realized early on that small changes on product landing pages can have a huge impact on visitor to sales conversion. Switching a red buy-button to blue with small text changes improved conversion rates with up to 50%. I just checked our statistics and one of the campaigns we are currently running is converting visitors to buyers at a rate of 11.62%.

Here are ten fast action steps you can take to greatly improve your online conversion rate (turn visitors into software buyers.)

1) Include Professional looking Box Shot of your product. Even if you are selling downloadable products you should display a box shot of your product.

2) Include a short Video presenting your product for suspects early in the purchase process. Not everyone will want to download and install a trial version so this is an easy way to present your product benefits. We will introduce a service shortly that can help you with this. More about using Video

3) Offer trials version of your software, but collect emails when offering them and follow up with an auto responder. The average number of contacts to close a sale is seven, so make sure you follow up diligently. Don’t request too much information up front or you will lose prospects.

4) Offer Screen shots of your product in action. This is a quick way to explain the features and benefits of your software early in the sales cycle.

5) Set up individual landing pages for different products. Don’t drive your clients to your homepage, but instead to specific pages featuring your products, or better yet, your product benefits or even product target groups.

6) Set up a blog and post news and specific features of your product. An excellent way to feature individual benefits and inform your client base about product news and releases.

7) Even if you are trying to drive online sales, include a clearly visible phone number. Not many people will call, but it helps that the prospects know they can reach you if they need to.

Make sure your product page has a clear call to action. If your goal is to make a sale, the buy button should be the most eye-attracting element of your page.

9) Offer testimonials from previous customers. Third party endorsements sell your product better than you ever could. Choose your testimonials carefully so they address the benefits you want to promote. If you can include pictures of your customers or even video that will drive sales even further.

10. Make sure your check out process clearly show the number of steps and what will happen next. Many sales are lost in the checkout process.

One website that does almost everything right is SalesForce. The only thing that bugs me is their phone number 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. They call themselves “CRM Software Leader” and on the other hand they say “no software”. Anyone care to explain that to me

The list above is part of an Online Software Sales System we have developed to increase conversion rates for software publishers and developers selling software online. This system includes over 100 action points that will help you increase your online software sales. The system covers both online advertisement campaigns, landing page optimization, checkout optimization as well as steps you can take in your overall strategy to increase software sales.

You can contact me directly for more details about our Online Software Sales System.

The Future: Advertise Your Software with Online Video Ads

Peter Gillberg — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:08:27 +0000

Are you interested in moving your suspects to prospects?

SoftwareCasa Online Software Reseller is partnering with an Online Video Ad Production Company.

Online Video Ad Production Company ImaginACTION, headed by Dr. David Smith. with 30 years experience in broadcast television, writing and multimedia are the perfect partner when you want to create online video ads.

Dr. Smith is a Director/Cameraman/Writer specializing in Commercials, Broadcast Television Documentaries, Radio Broadcasts, Books and Articles on Science, Social issues and the environment.

David published more than 35 research papers and worked in Australia, Canada, Sweden and on the Amazon River in Brazil.

He recently worked as Associate Producer and Animation Supervisor on the new large-format (IMAX) documentary “Australia: land beyond time.”

And we will shortly open the possibility for you to acquire their services.

ImaginACTION just finalized production of a new Video Ad for one of SoftwareCasa’s products, Snagit (Published by TechSmith).

Please take a look at our Snagit video here:

Due to loading times we have uploaded a video with lower resolution.

If you are interested in moving your software company to the next level for a reasonable budget this is a fantastic opportunity.

With a Video Ad of your software you can easily create interest for a product and move your suspects to prospects to buyers.

Recent studies have show that with Online Video Ad Production you get:

A higher ad interaction
The online video ads resulted in some kind of interaction in about 8% of the cases, compare this to the normal interaction with a standard jpg or gif image which is about 0.1%

Longer viewing
The online video ads played on average 2/3 of their full time (about 20 seconds for a 30 second spot).

The ads had a higher CTR (Click Through Rate)
The videos had a CTR of 0.4% - 0.74%, compare to image ads 0.10% - 0.15%.

Stay tuned to hear more about this opportunity.