Many of you know Alex Krivov as the guy who runs jProductivity, the company that offers Protection Licensing Toolkit to keep pirates from stealing your software. Alex’s company also offers InstaTodo, a to-do list manager for iPhone and iPad that lets you create custom, reusable to-do list templates.

How do you get editors interested in telling their readers about yet another to-do app? The proven approach is to talk about its unique usage of reusable templates. Another approach is to send a press release that talks about InstaTodo’s built-in capabilities to manage an imminent emergency such as Hurricane Irene.

Hurricane Irene confronted millions of Americans with the urgent need to somehow prepare their families as this huge storm threatened to devastate the eastern part of the United States. InstaTodo users, however, were prepared with expert guidance. And the InstaTodo press release offered concrete ideas that would help people prepare for the storm.

jProductivity partnered with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide InstaTodo users with Emergency To-Do lists, including FEMA’s Emergency Supply Kit, First Aid Kit, Unique Family Needs, Emergency Food Supply, and Useful Government and Non-Profit Organization Links.

InstaTodo users didn’t rush to grocery stores, trying to guess how many batteries to buy, or how much food and bottled water to purchase. With just a tap or two in InstaTodo, they had all of the information that they needed.

With thousands of editors and columnists looking for a fresh approach to reporting on the fast-approaching Hurricane Irene, Alex sent them the news story that they needed. Here’s PC World Magazine’s today@PCWorld blog posting covering the press release.

Many software developers can use today’s hottest news stories to help market their products or services. Start by thinking about how your software can benefit people in your target audience. For each group of prospects that you target, create a benefits profile that describes how their day-to-day activities would be enhanced by your software.

Next, think through how your software can be tied to current news items. How can your software users benefit from your application during a time of economic turbulence? How can your software help people land their next job? Will your program make people’s leisure time more relaxing, exciting, or fulfilling? Can you tie your application to a particular holiday?

Find a way to link your software to today’s hottest news stories, and your income will go up. It’s good software marketing.

– by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy

Using News Stories to Market Your Software is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

How can a small company – say, a small software developer – compete with a huge company? microISVs can learn a lot from David Ogilvy. Time Magazine called David Ogilvy the most sought-after wizard in the advertising business. Chapter 14 of Ogilvy’s classic book “Ogilvy on Advertising” is called “Competing with Procter & Gamble – Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” And the lessons from this 1983 book are as valid today as they were when Ogilvy penned it.

Ogilvy had competed against Procter & Gamble for decades, and he respected P&G’s advertising prowess. Yet in head-to-head competition, Ogilvy’s advertising firm helped his customers take significant market share away from P&G.

Procter & Gamble spent $700,000,000(US) a year on advertising back in the early 1980s. Their sales were $12 billion a year. P&G’s success was based on their intelligent application of sound marketing principles. Here are some of the things that P&G did to become successful. Today’s software developers can learn a lot about software marketing from P&G’s successful practices.

(1) Product samples

Ogilvy tells us that P&G distributed home-delivered samples on a massive scale. The company was convinced that if they let consumers try their products, they would want to buy them. This was a very expensive way to market consumer goods. They had to manufacture samples, postal-mail them to consumers, and be sure that grocery and department store shelves were stocked with P&G’s products when it was time for end-users to buy more.

Software developers have a much easier time distributing trial versions on the Internet. Once a software application has been developed, the distribution cost is nominal. No doubt, the cost of advertising and promoting your software, and letting potential buyers know where to find it, can be significant. But these expenses pale when compared with the costs of manufacturing and distributing samples of toothpaste or laundry detergent.

For prospects who land on your website, you have to decide if you want to sell them your software, or entice them to download the trial version. For most developers, selling software should be the primary goal, and coaxing prospects to download the trial version should be a distant second choice.

(2) Categories and competition

P&G never entered small categories unless they expected them to grow, Ogilvy explains. The consumer products giant simply wouldn’t spend time in niche markets. While this may be a good practice for well-financed publicly-traded software companies, many microISVs find it quite lucrative to find and dominate niche markets.

“They (Procter & Gamble) often enter more than one brand in a category,” Ogilvy wrote, “and allow each brand to compete with its sibling – with no holds barred.” There are some software developers who take the same approach. In addition to selling their software on the Internet, they’ll contract with a publisher to distribute their boxed software in stores, often under a different brand name.

(3) Market research

Procter & Gamble did a lot of market research. And Ogilvy believed that they created products that were better – and were perceived to be better – than competitive products. In addition to surveying potential buyers before creating a new product, P&G also did extensive test marketing. They would rather be right than first. This philosophy seems to contradict today’s wisdom that being first to market a new category of product is the most important factor in a company’s potential success.

It would seem that Apple has followed P&G’s example. Many years after the first computer tablets were introduced, Apple launched the iPad. By waiting, and by designing a tablet that people would genuinely want to use, Apple revived a tired old concept and turned it into a marketplace success.

(4) Advertising

Ogilvy pointed out that P&G’s ads stressed one key benefit. If they wanted to stress two important benefits, they would run two separate ads (versus stressing two benefits in a single ad). Most microISVs’ advertising is found on their websites. And most software developers’ websites present a library of information about their applications’ benefits and features. Perhaps developers would have more success if they followed P&G’s lead, and spent most of their time emphasizing a single benefit.

P&G’s commercials spoke directly to consumers. Many microISVs have been taking a similar approach by writing their websites’ sales messages in the second person. This means speaking directly to prospects, with lots of “you” and “your” and “you’re” words. In contrast to this conversational approach, other developers talk in the third person about their products, and occasionally mention “the user” as some abstract person who buys their software. Clearly, P&G’s speaking directly to potential customers is a more effective way to do software marketing.

P&G used unknown actors in their commercials. Compare that with today’s practice of getting celebrity endorsements from Hollywood stars, famous musicians, and sports heroes.

While it seems that P&G’s products were on television day and night, Ogilvy pointed out that less than one third of P&G’s advertising budget was allocated to prime-time advertising. Perhaps there’s a lesson there for software developers: If you’re buying search engine words, you don’t have to limit yourself to Google. If you’re buying text or banner ads on download sites, you don’t have to only buy from the highest-traffic sites.

(5) Product names

Procter & Gamble’s product names, Ogilvy pointed out, were short and simple. Today’s list includes Cascade, Cheer, Comet, Crest, Febreze, Gillette, Olay, Clairol, Ivory, Tide, and Pringles.

When they advertised their products, P&G never named their competitors. Rather, they would use a phrase such as “the other leading detergent.” Some software developers name their competitors in their websites’ sales presentations. For example, some microISVs create feature-comparison tables that show their applications’ features and benefits side-by-side with competitive products. And some developers offer competitive upgrades for customers who abandon an alternative product in favor of their own.

Should microISVs include the names of their competitors in the sales presentations on their websites? It depends. In some jurisdictions, it may not be legal to mention competitive companies or products. Where it’s legal, developers might try it both ways, and compare sales results.

(6) Talking about benefits

Ogilvy mentioned an interesting attribute of P&G’s advertisements that might have implications for microISVs: P&G showed consumers how the product will benefit them, without explaining why it might benefit them. Their ads promised softer skin, or a happier social life, and other benefits, tangible and intangible. And the reader or viewer of the ads was left to figure out how the products’ features would lead to these benefits.

Often, product users were portrayed as benefiting emotionally from using P&G’s product. And seldom did a P&G ad connect all the dots. Prospects were on their own to figure out how P&G’s consumer products would deliver all of their benefits.

Most marketers believe that advertising is more successful if you can offer – and prove – a specific, quantifiable benefit. Again, choose the approach that makes the most sense to you, and measure the results. Change your sales message, and measure again.

The bottom line

How do you beat a well-funded, well-known company like P&G? Or to bring the question closer to home, how can a microISV beat a well-funded, well-known software publisher? Take advantage of your strengths. You can move much more quickly than a large company. Once a microISV identifies an opportunity, it’s easier to allocate resources to working on the new development project.

And learn from Procter & Gamble. Bring their successful design, advertising, and marketing ideas to the software development industry, and sell more software.

– by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy

microISVs versus Software Giants is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

PDF Annotator is a Windows application that makes it simple to add notes to any PDF document. You can make comments and corrections, highlight portions of the text, add signatures, and even include designs and drawings. It’s easy to type comments or paste images on top of existing PDF content. Save your additions in the original file and share them with friends and colleagues, with no need for special software to view the marked-up document.

In addition, PDF Annotator lets you add blank pages to an existing PDF document, combine documents, copy pages, and resequence or delete pages. With one click you can remove or hide all of your changes, or simply restore the document to the original version.

PDF Annotator runs under Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 and costs $69.95(US) for a single-user license.

The Epsilon Award’s second-place winner was High-Logic B.V. for its MainType program. MainType is a Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 font manager and font viewer that makes it easy to find, preview, organize, install, and print your fonts.

The 12th annual European Software Conference will be held November 24th and 25th, 2012 in Munich, Germany. Additional information about the Epsilon Award, and about the European Software Conference, can be found on http://www.microisv.eu.

– by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy

2011 Epsilon Award for Software Excellence is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

You can sell more of your software if you make it simple for prospects to learn the price. If you hide the price, they won’t be reading the sales presentation on your website. Instead, they’ll be scrolling and clicking, trying to find out how much you charge for your application.

Paco Underhill, in his book “Why We Buy – The Science of Shopping,” points out that shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores dislike obscure price tags. The same distaste for hidden prices carries over to the Internet. I’d guess that Underhill would be urging software developers to make it easy for prospects to find their pricing information.

Software price and differentiation

Many developers try to use their software’s price as a way of differentiating it from their competitors’ programs. According to Jack Trout, the author of “Differentiate or Die,” price can rarely be an effective differentiating idea. In fact, Trout believes that price can be the enemy of differentiation.

As soon as you talk about price, Trout tells us, people assume that you’re not able to state why you’re different from – and superior to – your competitors. So, it’s best to avoid competing on price.

If you should decide to compete on price, then be sure to have an integrated theory on how price and value are merged together to provide something unique. Trout provides a number of examples:

• Southwest Airlines used this strategy with their low ticket prices plus a system of hubs in smaller municipalities.
• Wal-Mart succeeds with low prices plus store locations in smaller towns plus vendor contracts that support their lower prices.
• Dell uses affordable prices along with direct sales to succeed.

Price alone probably is not a good basis on which to compete. But price plus something else – something that makes a low price logical – can be an effective way to differentiate a product or service.

Responding to competitors’ software prices

If you have a competitor who is making your life miserable by lowering the price of their software, then there are some strategies that you can use to compensate. Here are three of Trout’s suggestions, translated into the software development industry:

1. Do something unusual. Don’t just lower your price to match a competitor’s price. Instead, create a software bundle, or find a non-price way to change what you’re offering to your customer base.

2. Confuse the marketplace. That’s what MCI did when they launched their “Friends & Families” discount program. MCI made it very difficult for prospects to tell if their pricing would be higher or lower than, say, AT&T’s more traditional long-distance pricing.

3. Change the discussion. Admit that your software costs more to buy initially, but tell your customers that you give away free upgrades for the first three years. Talk about the total cost of ownership (TCO). Find some way to change the argument from initial price to overall cost for the life of the software.

Marketing with lower software prices

Trout believes that price reduction sales are a bad idea. He doesn’t believe that they bring in incremental income in the long run.

Sergio Zyman, author of “The End of Marketing As We Know It,” believes that discount prices are a sign of marketing laziness. Price-cutting is what marketers do when they run out of creative new marketing ideas. “When a price promotion ends,” Zyman tells us, “the consumers move on to the next guy who’s willing to pay them to buy his product.”

Trout gives us an interesting example of low prices in the sports retailing business. The four biggest sports retailers are all losing money. They’ve been competing on price. And when Wal-Mart and Kmart got to the point where they were selling 35 percent of all sports equipment in the US, the major sports retailers were in a world of trouble.

Trout is not a fan of the “free” trend that we see so much in the software development industry. He believes that it’s very difficult to distribute products or services for free, and still turn a profit at the end of the year.

Can you succeed with a high-price strategy? Many people believe that the highest quality products should cost more. And people are willing to pay for products that will impress their neighbors and coworkers. A high price, Trout believes, becomes a benefit of the underlying product because it impresses the buyers’ friends and colleagues.

Lowering prices is not a particularly good long-term strategy. So says Philip Kotler, author of “Kotler On Marketing – How to Create, Win, and Dominate Markets.” At the time Kotler penned this book, he had sold more than three million marketing textbooks, and done marketing consulting work for AT&T, General Electric, Ford, IBM, and other Fortune 100 companies. The man knows a lot about marketing.

Kotler reports that the marketing professionals who attend his seminars believe that their customers are more sophisticated than before, and more price-sensitive. At the same time, these attendees believe that dropping prices doesn’t work because competitors respond in kind, and everybody loses.

Kotler believes that it’s a mistake to price your product or service based on a mark-up. Your prospects and customers don’t care how many hours it took you to write the program, or how much you paid for the programming tools that you use. Instead, software developers should base their prices by figuring out the value of the product to their customers.

Branding and pricing are tied together, Kotler suggests. Marketing is all about building a brand. If you don’t build a brand and differentiate yourself from your competitors, then you’re selling a commodity. And the only way to differentiate yourself in a commoditized market is by price.

Software pricing and marketing strategy

Determining the price of your software should be part of your marketing strategy. And don’t use a simple definition of price. You need to consider the list price, site license discounts, allowances, coupons, credit terms, affiliate fees, and commissions, as well as any bundled products or services that you may be offering.

Developers often ask if it makes sense to offer a low-priced personal license and a higher-priced business license, for identical software. Some consumers may be offended by the idea. On the other hand, consumers are used to this kind of pricing.

For example, if you go to a concert, you’d expect to pay more for seats that are closer to the stage, even though the seats cost no more to manufacture or install than those seats that are farther away from the stage. And most people would expect to pay more for weekend tickets than for weekday tickets. The concept isn’t bizarre, but it has to be sold to your software prospects.

Kotler tells us to find a way to add value to the more expensive version. You could offer priority support, or coupons, or long-term discounts to the people who buy the business license. The solution is to create a series of attractive offerings at a range of price points.

Software pricing and repeat customers

Developing long-term customers, Kotler believes, can offer a lot of advantages to people who are marketing products such as software. You can cross-sell and upsell to them. It takes less effort to complete transactions with them because they’re familiar with your software, communications, emails, and procedures. They’re more likely to recommend your programs to their friends.

But there is also a pricing consideration. Long-term customers are less price-sensitive because they’ve developed a relationship with your company. They’ll pay a little more for your software because they trust you, and because they’re comfortable buying from you.

Kotler sees pricing as a way to deal with difficult customers. Most companies lose money on some percentage of their worst clients. If you’re getting customers who require too much technical support, for example, find out why they’re buying from you, and do something to change that.

If you want to keep these customers, then educate them, so you’re not spending as much time supporting them. Or raise your prices so it’s worthwhile to deal with them.

Marketing with higher software prices

Advertising genius David Ogilvy has some thoughts on maintaining high prices in a price-sensitive world. In his book “Ogilvy on Advertising,” Ogilvy said to his prospects, “If you are going to choose your agency on the basis of price, you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.”

Ogilvy urges his prospects to think about the increased sales that he can deliver to them, and not the amount of fees that he charges. This approach can be effective in selling software online, too.

Don’t price your product too low. Ogilvy points out that people judge the value of a product by its price. I agree. I’ve said for years that too many software developers price their applications too low, and it damages their profits.

Harry Beckwith, the author of “The Invisible Touch – The Four Keys to Modern Marketing,” agrees that low prices are not the answer to business success. Beckwith believes that higher-priced goods and services are perceived to be better than lower-priced ones. Price changes perception. Price can actually enhance the experience of using a product or service.

“Higher prices don’t just talk,” Beckwith insists. “They tempt.” My 25+ years of marketing experience in the software industry confirms this belief. In the software industry, most developers will tell you that their Pro version outsells their Standard version.

Beckwith goes on to say that price is often the excuse (but rarely the reason) that you’re losing market share to your competitors. “Look deeper,” he advises.

Most people can afford to pay more money for your software application. Don’t charge them less. Instead, do a better job of convincing prospects that your applications have more value than the software that your competitors offer.

Pricing your software application

There’s no shortage of advice on how to price your software application. But there is no simple formula for arriving at the perfect price-point for your programs. You have to consider all of the factors discussed above, take your best guess, and measure the results. Then, change the price and measure again. My best advice would be – raise your prices. They’re probably a little bit too low.

by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy from DP Directory, Inc.

Software Marketing – Pricing Your Software Application is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

Credibility, Confidence, and Selling Software

Jay Conrad Levinson, in his book “Guerrilla Marketing Excellence,” tells us that credibility is the sum of all of our marketing efforts. Confidence, Levinson argues, is the most important reason that people buy. If you’re credible, you’ll inspire confidence and you’ll get more sales than if you’re not credible. So, building your company’s credibility is an important component of your software marketing endeavors.

Levinson urges us to become problem solvers. If he were writing about the software development industry, he would no doubt be telling microISVs to sell more of their software by making prospects aware of a problem that they have, and describing how their application can solve the problem. It’s best to focus on a single problem, or two problems tops. You lose credibility if you try to present your software as the solution to every problem known to humankind.

Credibility, Guarantees, and Increased Software Sales

For developers selling software on the Internet, credibility means having a professional-looking website that’s well written. It means offering a guarantee. Almost all software developers who offer no-questions-asked money-back guarantees tell us that the money that they lose from people who abuse their guarantee is a small fraction of the additional sales that they make by offering the guarantee.

Credibility and Credit Card Payments

Many of your prospects won’t type their credit card information into an order form unless they can see your company’s name, postal address, and telephone number. At a minimum, add this information to your contact page or your about-us page – or both. Personally, I’d recommend adding full contact info to every page on your website because it’s good software marketing.

If your software development company is located in a country that has problems with credit card theft and abuse, then some number of buyers are going to be reluctant to buy from you. A good way to overcome this problem is to rely upon the credibility of your credit card processing company. Select an eCommerce provider that is based in a country which has a good reputation for trustworthy banking and commerce. And be sure to say on your order page where your eCommerce partner is located.

Don’t assume that your eCommerce company has credibility with your prospects. Most software buyers haven’t heard of the eCommerce companies that are household names for those of us in the software development business. You need to build up your eCommerce company’s credibility if you want to increase your sales. On your order form, explain why you’ve chosen your particular eCommerce provider. Talk about their long-term reputation for security and reliability. Their credibility will transfer to your company, making prospects more comfortable buying from you.

Credibility and Competition

Jack Trout, the author of “The New Positioning,” has an interesting idea about competition and credibility. We should welcome having competitors, Trout tells us. He argues that having two or three competitors adds credibility to your software niche. I’m guessing that not all microISVs will embrace this theory.

Credibility and Longevity

In his book “Differentiate or Die,” Jack Trout presents a theory about credibility that is much easier to embrace. Trout explains that heritage and longevity are forms of leadership. You may not be the sales leader in your software niche, but you have credibility if you’ve been a player in the industry for years and years. If you’ve been in business for a long time, Trout would urge you to talk about your history and experience on your web site. Being long of tooth adds to your credibility.

Credibility and Sponsorship of Software Industry Events

Sponsorship builds credibility. So says David F. D’Alessandro, author of “Brand Warfare.” Not many microISVs have the money to sponsor major national events. But there are other relationships that software developers can form with outside organizations that could increase your credibility. There are local civic events, educational scholarship programs, and regional and national organizations that are looking for business partners. Associating your company with these organizations can make your firm more credible.

In the software development field, you can find a number of membership organizations and software conference organizers that offer visibility – and credibility – to supporters and partners. For example my company, DP Directory, Inc., has been a sponsor of the European Software Conference (ESWC) for many years.

Be sure to widen your perspective, and look for opportunities in vertical markets, too. Find ways to sponsor an organization or an event. Often, charity events have program booklets that provide publicity for their many sponsors. Create partnerships with trusted enterprises. Your software marketing efforts can begin with simple things like link swaps and blog posting swaps, and build from there.

Credibility and Copywriting

Hank Nuwer, the author of “How to Write like an Expert about Anything,” has a lot of advice on how our writing style can make us credible to the people in our target audience. We need to learn the jargon of the field that we’re writing about.

We have to be careful how we weave technical terms into our writing. If we explain and define our terms, then our readers will appreciate the information that we present, and they’ll be able to follow our narrative. If we don’t put these technical terms in context, we’ll confuse our readers, and damage our credibility.

In the software development industry, we need to talk less like techies, and more like our target audience. If you’re marketing educational software, for example, you need to talk like a parent or teacher, and not like a computer consultant. Writers of business and financial software need to write in a way that is credible to business professionals.

Credibility and Content

In their book “Content Rules,” Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman say that creating and delivering an impressive library of content is the best way to establish our credibility and authority. The authors tell us that content builds trust. Content plus credibility turns visitors into customers.

Following their advice, it would be a great software marketing strategy to create podcasts, webcasts, screencasts, blogs, whitepapers, case studies, and articles. As we build this library of content, we build our own credibility.

Credibility isn’t some abstract concept that we need to give lip service to. Credibility is a serious asset that we can use to increase the sales of our products and services.

– Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy from DP Directory, Inc.

Sell More Software by Enhancing Your Credibility is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

Never oversell. Stop talking once you’ve sold, or you risk losing the sale.

That’s good advice from Joe Girard, the author of “How to Close Every Sale,” and “the world’s greatest salesman” according to The Guinness book of World Records.

In face-to-face sales, you’ll lose the sale if you keep selling after your prospect has made a buying decision. I see this problem with software marketing on the Internet, too.

Most of your prospects click the “buy now” link because they want to buy your software. Don’t fill your “buy now” page with paragraph after paragraph of additional sales information. They’ve already decided. Send them to your eCommerce company’s order form, and close the sale.

Don’t confuse your prospects and customers. They don’t have to understand the underlying technology to buy your software and use it to solve their problem. Sell benefits, and don’t get bogged down in technical details (unless you’re selling programmers’ tools, of course).

David Ogilvy says that you can’t bore people into making a buying decision. I’m sure Girard would agree. Girard suggests saying something like, “Have you sold yourself yet, or should I continue to tell you more?”

Include “buy now” links throughout your sales presentation to accomplish the same goal.

Sell your software. But don’t oversell it.

– Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy from DP Directory, Inc.

Overselling Your Software is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

“Optimizing Your Purchase Page (Ideas to Sell More)”
by Jiri Novotny
I’ve focused on the trust, security, simplicity and ease of use in the previous part of the series. Today, I’m going to give you some ideas that can help you sell more, or cultivate word of mouth.
Upselling is the act of offering extra products or services during the product selection phase. Products that complement the primary product work best. You want to maximize the number of impulsive purchases; therefore, discounts help greatly when it comes to upselling, as do low-priced add-ons, or free stuff offered with the extra products… (page 1)

  
Trade Show Calendar
(page 2)

ASP News:
Quarterly Income/Expense Report Q2 online
(page 3)

“Sell More Software by Enhancing Your Credibility”
by Al Harberg
Credibility is all about making prospects and customers believe your sales message. Enhance your credibility, and you’ll sell more software.
   Jay Conrad Levinson, in his book Guerrilla Marketing Excellence, tells us that credibility is the sum of all of our marketing efforts. Confidence, Levinson argues, is the most important reason that people buy. If you’re credible, you’ll inspire confidence and you’ll get more sales than if you’re not credible. So, building your company’s credibility is an important component of your software marketing endeavors… (page 4)

“Any Backup in a Storm”
by Jerry Stern
What a week…. First, we had the biggest East Coast earthquake in 120 years, and now, we’re waiting for Irene. She’s a hurricane…
   I’ve previously written about what to backup for programmers in some detail. But how to backup is more of an issue in a storm. I’m not as concerned with archives or theft right now as I am with readability and portability. In case of an evacuation, I would want to be able to carry data with me, and know that if those backups aren’t readable, I’ve got more elsewhere… (page 6)

“Interview with Borland’s Technical Lead Evangelist”
by Jiri Novotny
Could you please quickly introduce yourself?
 I’m Andreano Lanusse, Technical Lead Evangelist for Embarcadero’s Developer Relations organization. I spend a great deal of my time with developers, both onsite and at conferences and user groups, to ensure the company’s tools meet the expectations of customers… (page 8 )

ASP Member News:
iMacros releases WebBrowser Control Replacement
ComponentOwl upgrades BetterListView (page 10)

News & Press Corner:
ESWC announces 2011 Software Conference
McAfee Survery Confidence in Online Retailers
CompTia studies Cloud Adoption Plans
Embarcadero Unveils FireMonkey (page 11)

September 2011 ASPects Available Now is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

In his book How to Close Every Sale, Joe Girard explains how business people should handle objections. And much of his advice applies to selling software on the Internet, too.

Joe Girard has been named “the world’s greatest salesman” by The Guinness book of World Records. In 15 years, he sold 13,000 automobiles, with no fleet sales and no leases. Joe Girard knows a lot about selling!

On the Internet, you have to anticipate objections and answer them. One risk, of course, is that you may be raising objections that your prospects would never have thought of on their own.

You can reduce the number of objections by delivering a comprehensive sales presentation.

“You must realize that your answer to every objection doesn’t have to be 100 percent satisfactory,” Girard explains. Sergio Zyman says something similar when he reminds us that we don’t have to win every round to win the fight.

Life involves compromises. And your competitor’s software has its problems, too.

Objections are good things. They indicate that the prospect wants to buy, but has a specific problem that you need to deal with.

People aren’t always honest when they raise objections. For example, people who believe that they can’t afford your service or product may not want to admit that. So, they fabricate other objections.

Never get into an argument with a prospect, Girard advises. Don’t back them into a corner. You may win the argument, but you likely won’t close the sale.

Joe Girard lists the six most common objections that you have to be prepared to answer. Again, his advice applies to Internet sales, too.

(1) I can’t afford it.

If you’re selling business software, explain how the software will pay for itself. If you’re selling entertainment software, tell your prospects that they deserve to enjoy your software – they’re worth it.

(2) I want to talk it over with my spouse.

(3) I have a good friend in the business.

(4) I want to shop around.

(5) Give me some brochures, and I’ll get back to you.

(6) I have a specific objection about your product or service.

Answer the objection, Girard urges us, and close the sale. When microISVs sell software on the Internet, Girard’s advice might be that you anticipate the objection, and include the answer in your product descriptions and in your FAQs.

– Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy from DP Directory, Inc.

Handling sales resistance online is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

Syed Kamall, member of the European Parliament for London, will open the 11th ESWC with a special message. Panel discussions and presentations from software industry professionals will fill the two-day meeting. All of the presentations are in English.

The conference focuses on topics that are vital to independent software developers. Seminar subjects include software marketing, fighting software piracy, software market analysis, application stores and the desktop/laptop market, content management systems, email marketing, Google Adwords, website conversion optimization, developing a trusted brand, software advertising, development and marketing of smartphone products, software update strategies, and turning website visitors into buyers. Many well-known, successful software developers will share their experiences and advice on marketing and sales.

This year’s European Software Conference will feature the sixth Epsilon Award, an annual recognition of outstanding software for Windows 2000, XP, Vista or Win 7, Mac, Linux distributions, Chrome OS and for all major web and mobile platforms. Nominations for the Epsilon Award will close on September 4, and voting for the nominated software products will remain open until October 27.

This year’s Epsilon Award winner will be announced at the conference. Prizes include a winner`s certificate and trophy of honor, press coverage of their product by the professional Press service of DP Directory, and entry into the Hall of Fame which means free full access for the winner to future ESWCs. Prizes of recognition for the first ten nominees include a nominee certificate by the ESWC e.V.

The registration fee for the two day conference, including lunches, is 175 Euros, or 80 Euros without lunches. Additional information about the Epsilon Award, and about the European Software Conference, can be found on http://www.isv-industry.eu/.

The conference is organized by the ESWC e.V., a not-for-profit foundation devoted to providing educational opportunities to software developers.

Conference sponsors include Avangate, Gate2Shop, Alwin Hoogerdijk, ASP, deal united, Digium, DP Directory, Globell, Software Promotions, Wibu, ESC, and Emurasoft. For more information about becoming a sponsor, visit http://www.isv-industry.eu/sponsor.htm

– by Al Harberg, another proud Supporting Sponsor of the European Software Conference.

ESWC Announces 2011 Software Conference and Epsilon Award is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

If this is true, then a good software marketing strategy would be to communicate the loss that prospects will suffer if they don’t make a buying decision.

* Rather than talk about how much money they’ll save by your software’s productivity gains, talk about their ability to stop losing money by not using your app.

* Rather than talk about the new functionality that your program offers, talk about the gains that their competitors are making by using it.

“Fewer than 5 percent of all marketers ground their product claims on benefits to the customer,” Fox tells us. “Fewer than 1 percent of all marketers dollarize the value of their product and sell with numbers.”

Fox believes that the best marketers quantify their product’s savings potential, and talk about the consequences of not making a purchasing decision.

I’m not convinced that this tactic is the best way to maximize your software marketing. This approach could lead to a very negative website. And all of that negativity could tarnish your company’s image.

I would suggest that you consider weaving a little of the “fear of loss” talk into the mix. But don’t let it dominate your sales message. Instead, sell a solution to a problem. Or sell the benefits that your software will deliver.

– by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy

Software Marketing and Fear is a post from: Association of Software Professionals