Selling Software via a Download

[BrightSparke]

Dear All:

Firstly, a Merry Christmas and successful 2006 to all of you.

I am hoping the members of this forum can help us understand how to improve the take-up of our software product.

Cortege is a personal/business networking accessory for Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. We currently distribute this via our website as a download. The software is compact and can be downloaded in a few minutes.

Our problem:

We have built-up a reasonable flow of visitors to our site of whom about 15% download our software. It is available as a 30-day free trial. However, the conversion rate from download to sale is poor. We extended the trial period from 10 days to 30 days earlier in the year, but this did not have the impact we had hoped.

We have changed the initial import dialogues several times, but without any noticable difference.

Customers who do purchase the software rave about it (literally), but too few seem to be making it through to this point.

What are we doing wrong?

For some reason - and despite our best efforts - I'm convinced we're putting people off for some reason. Once installed, the software imports (synchronises) with your Outlook contacts. We know (from customers) that this gave them "pause" - would it do the same for you?

Any advice gratefully received. We're now too close to the problem here.

FYI: The software is fully Windows compliant and can be uninstalled. We were just two points short of a 5 cow rating on Tucows (you can check) so please be assured it contains no adware of any kind. We also just won the "best in breed" from the ISTC.

The download page is located at https://www.personal-software.com/download.asp

We'd be happy to provide complimentary licenses to our software for those who take the trouble to give us some feedback.

Best Regards, Peter

[Robert]

Well I don't use Outlook as I have been caught out with viruses before. I use an email packages called Barca, which is excellent by the way.

Have you thought about having a free, "lite" version of the same software? Then maybe people will pay to have more features, or to have more than a limited number of contacts.

[Enigma121]

Have you thought about having a free, "lite" version of the same software? Then maybe people will pay to have more features, or to have more than a limited number of contacts.

I don't really agree with this approach. If your software is useful, some people will be willing to pay for it after the trial.

The bottom line here is the number of leachers and the number of genuine users is a pretty much fixed percentage.

Almost all major software companies have come across this phenomenon. Microsoft charge for pretty much everything. Linux distros gave it all for free then turned the thumbscrews.

If you are looking to increase sales, I'd suggest simply increasing exposure of the product. If you have a 20% conversion rate make sure it's 20% of 100,000 customers instead of 1,000.

[mattk]

For your site, it looks like a good bit of kit. How do you advertise/publicise your software? I'd never heard of it before now.

How about trying to get it reviewed in PC mags/online?

[crus]

Hi there,

OK I would suggest the following to capitalise on the downloads you have.

1. Split your product into a FREE version with reduced features to gain market share (before someone else does!)

2. Create a premium product, with a few additional features (the key ones) or limit free (no 50 limit on the number of contacts for example).

3. Add into your FREE version some revenue stream, please pm me for more info, but ads and paid search results work well.

This stratergy will increase the number of downloads and users of the FREE product, which will make some incokme from the embedded revenue streams. In time the conditioned users will not stray and will pay for your premium product as their use / requirement increases.

Hope this helps

D

[MichaelG]

It looks like a very nice software in principle - what you are missing is reach. You might need to increase your marketing budget.

You might also look at selling the application to a cmopany that already has the user base - you need to research - maybe start speaking to CRM companies.

[autolycus]

Maybe you could try getting affiliates to sell the product on your behalf, via Clickbank (http://divadani.reseller.hop.clickbank.net)....

You'll have to give away some of your margin, but it could lead to increased site visits/sales for minimal initial outlay ($50).

Dave.

[mr.steve]

Hello Brightspark

The software sounds like something a lot of people might be interested in. You just need to get out there and pitch it at the right people.

As autolycus say, Clickbank is a great way to sell. But be careful of going the affiliate route... for reasons too complex to explain here.

But try an Adwords campaign, and sell through Clickbank. Just make sure you set up the Adwords campaign properly and get a great piece of sales copy on there.

If the product does help people manage their mail better... and buyers are raving about it... there may well be a substantial market for the product.

Cheers and good luck

Steve

[Pebble Communications]

IT is something that looks as though it could be useful to me but I had to spend a bit of time on the site first to work that out. Your home page does not really show how you would use it. At first glance 'bring your contact list to life' combined with a big graphic of a whole screenfull of contact's photos just made me think it was going to just add pics to my contacts and make them take over my whole screen unnecessarily.

1) I have a couple of questions about the actual software
2)Is the price a one-off or annual sub?
3)Can contacts belong to more than one branch or are they strictly linear. My 'network' is a bit more complicated than that and people interconnect in several ways.
4) I already have several e-mail lists set up in Outlook so I can e-mail a group of people at the same time. I think a lot of people who would need to be able to do that, already are. The other benefits are not that clear?
5) Awareness. I agree that you will only ever get a small proportion converting to a paid sub after a trial. You need to increase the number trialling!
6) What happens aftger the free trial. Is it automatically uninstalled or are they able to go on using it in some way? Is there a way of getting round the free trial period end that you haven't spotted, so people are continuing to use it for free?

Fiona Bailey
www.pebblecommunications.co.uk

[SmallBizSoftware]

I have also donwloaded your software, why not it's free, but have absolutely no idea what the hell I would use it for ... hence will not be buying it.

Perhaps, like me (and I am an IT Manager so not completely illiterate) your target audience has no idea what to do with your software. You seem to be selling it on technical merit but not explaining the problem that it over comes IMHO!