Learn More About Marketing, and Sell More Software

by Al Harberg, the press release guy from DP Directory, Inc.

ESC's Software Marketing Book Club takes the Pain out of Marketing

It's easy to find books that discuss the general topics of branding, positioning, sales, and marketing. It's harder to find the time to read even the best ones, and to translate their ideas into strategies and tactics that will help you increase your software sales.

In a perfect world, software developers could choose from a huge selection of marketing books about the software industry. Truth is, there aren't very many books about software marketing. You have to find the best general marketing books, and figure out how to apply their concepts to the software industry, and to your particular company.

Lessons from Paco Underhill's book "Why We Buy - The Science of Shopping"

Can we learn how to sell more software by learning how people buy products in retail stores? If so, the book of choice is "Why We Buy - The Science of Shopping" by Paco Underhill, published in 1999 by Simon & Schuster.

Paco Underhill has an unusual job. Retail stores hire him to observe and film their customers, and suggest ways to increase sales. Companies including Saks Fifth Avenue, The Gap, Hallmark, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and The US Postal Service paid Underhill tens of thousands of dollars each to learn how their customers bought products in their retail outlets.

Little changes to a store's layout can make huge differences in sales. Changing signs can increase or decrease sales. Lots! It stands to reason that the same principles apply to software developers' web site layouts, too.

Underhill is interested in everything about retail stores - "every rack, shelf, counter and table display of merchandise, every sign, banner, brochure, directional aid and computerized interactive informational fixture, the entrances and exits, the windows and walls..." The list goes on, but you get the picture.

His company has measured nearly 900 types of customer-store interaction. Change even the smallest thing, and people's buying patterns change.

I'm guessing that the same is true on the Internet, and that we can all learn a lot from Underhill's research.

Here's an example - Underhill was hired by a dog food company to find out how to increase sales. He discovered that mom buys most of the dog food. But dog treats are bought by children and grandparents. Dog food of all sorts is often stored on high shelves, where most adults can access it. But seniors and children have problems. By moving treats where kids and grandmothers can reach them, the company instantly increased sales.

That's what software developers need to do, too - Observe how people buy, and make it easier and more attractive for people to buy more software.

Don't Make Customers Uncomfortable

Underhill tells us that retail sales plummet when customers are made physically or psychologically uncomfortable.

"I can think of some ways that websites often make people uncomfortable," commented Rosemary West. In a discussion of Underhill's book in the Educational Software Cooperative's (ESC's) Software Marketing Book Club. Rosemary listed a half dozen examples:

"Unexpected sound (music or an announcer's voice) blaring out of the speakers. This may be just annoying, or it may be embarrassing, depending on where the computer is being used.

"Inappropriate images, such as overly sexy models that really have nothing to do with the product.

"Things no one should know. One example I can think of that I saw recently was a website trying to sell software to businesses. The site encouraged visitors to view a Twitter feed which was filled with very casual (and often irrelevant or incomprehensible) updates, including a note from one of the software designers confessing that she had designed the program's interface when she had a hangover.

"Attempted humor. This is very often misunderstood and therefore sometimes interpreted in a way that offends the visitor." I agree completely with Rosemary on this point, and have written an ESC Blog article on the topic entitled "Can Dogs Help Us Sell More Software?".

"Interjection of political or religious beliefs that have nothing to do with the product. Even people who are in agreement are not always comfortable seeing these issues discussed in a business context. Those who disagree will be turned off immediately.

"Consistently bad grammar or too many typos. These really do grate on some people's nerves."

Website Typos and Errors

The conversation in ESC's Book Club newsgroup went into more depth about Rosemary's observation about grammar and typos. For quite some time, I had observed that Americans and Europeans often have different attitudes towards web sites written in a developer's second language. Europeans are used to interacting every day with people who speak several languages, and they don't expect everybody to speak every language perfectly. By contrast, here in the US I can go for a year without being drawn into a non-English conversation, except for the odd Norwegian conversations at some family get-togethers.

When Europeans see a reasonably well-written web site in a developer's second language, they're impressed. By contrast, when Americans see a web site that was written by somebody who speaks English as a second language, the errors in wording, grammar, and syntax are often seen as troublesome. Instead of being impressed by how well you use English as a second language, many Americans mistakenly think that you've made careless or sloppy errors, and worry that your software might not be of the highest quality.

While it's not nearly as important when you sell to Europeans, you'll sell more software to Americans if your web site appears to be written by a native English-speaking writer. It's not fair. But it's true!

Crowds Can Hurt Sales

Rosemary had an ESC Book Club discussion with Kathy Salisbury, president of Great Mind Inc, a company that packages and retails computer software on amazon.com. Kathy commented on Underhill's observation that people - especially women - don't like being touched when they are shopping. "Women will avoid an aisle entirely if it is too crowded," Kathy said. "I know I do this!"

Rosemary added, "Pop-ups, animated banners, video presentations that start without being asked - These are some of the things that can make a web page seem too 'crowded'."

Branding is Losing its Power

Underhill believes that brand names are not the powerful force they used to be. Branding and traditional advertising continue to have some influence over people's buying choices, but it's not like before.

This is great news for small software development companies - it means that you can compete with the well-known, well-capitalized software companies.

Taking away from the influence of branding are things like signage, shelf position, display space, and fixtures. And each of these items has its Internet-based equivalents that software developers have to understand and use effectively.

Dan Foster of TopoGrafix, the creator of ExpertGPS and other GPS map software products, commented in the ESC Book Club "Mega-brands don't matter as much anymore. Looking at 10 detergents on a shelf, we don't consider which ones are from mega-brand Procter & Gamble and which ones are Unilever. I think we do still care about 'product brands': Tide has a higher perceived quality than Era, but most of us aren't 'Tide men' for life - we buy whatever of the 'name' brands is on sale that week.

"The other thing to remember," Dan continued, "is that in a retail store, we're comparing products side-by-side. Sure, products that pay more get the better shelf space, but it's still a fair fight. On the Web things are different. Search engine users only see products one at a time, and they usually stop after the first two or three results."

Shopping Time and Sales Volume

Two more important conclusions, also from chapter 1 of Underhill's book, have importance to software developers selling online:

• The longer a shopper remains in the store, the more they buy, and
• The more pleasant the shopping experience, the longer they stay in the store (and, no doubt, more likely return to the store, and tell their friends about the store).

Several of ESC's Book Club participants argued that the relationship between shopping time and sales might not be causal, or if cause and effect are in play, it may very well be that the additional sales caused the increase in shopping time, and not the other way around.

I tend to agree with Underhill. When my wife and I go to a book store, we can buy quite a few books if we stay too long. Hopefully, there's a way to generate this same "book store" effect when selling software online. For example, when you start putting books in your cart on amazon.com, you read messages that say something like, "If you spend another $8.47, you'll get free shipping". Perhaps there's a way to entice people to stay on your software site, and fill their shopping carts.

The observations above represent a small fraction of the discussions that took place in ESC's Book Club. And these comments dealt only with the first chapter of Underhill's book.

Soda Sales and Software Sales

Can developers learn to sell more software by learning how Coca-Cola sells soda? If the discussion in the ESC Software Marketing Book Club about "The End of Marketing As We Know It" by Sergio Zyman is any indication, then the answer is a resounding "yes". Zyman's book was the Book Club's February 2009 selection.

We talked about the need to measure and evaluate marketing campaigns, focusing on marketing results versus activities, marketing as an investment and not an expense, setting a marketing budget, the perishability of success, selling during an economic downturn, developing a marketing plan, analyzing successes and failures, questioning marketing assumptions, building brands, positioning products, differentiation, competing against yourself, defining consumer expectations, talking with prospects and customers, grabbing prospects' hearts and wallets, and dozens of other money-making topics.

The Bottom Line

• Join ESC, and take advantage of ESC's Software Marketing Book Club.
• Read marketing books. There are three dozen reviews of marketing and sales books in the archive of my newsletters on my web site.
• Build a library of sales, marketing, and business books that you can use for reference as your business grows.

Increasing your marketing skills will pay dividends for decades to come. Start now!