Category Archives: Marketing

Software delivery on CD

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Really, who buys software on CD nowadays?

Well, you’d be surprised… For consumer products, this is still important. Many users still like to receive something “physical” in the mail.

And this happens to be even more true for my collector-type audience. You know, the type of people that still buy real books, DVDs and CDs (remember those?).

So we decided to try and see if we could enhance that “package in the mail” moment, by designing a nicer shipping package for our Collectorz.com software.
(Of course, we were also hoping to sell some more 🙂 )
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Is there a market for Android apps?

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If you are developing and selling iPhone apps, you may have been wondering: Should I create Android versions?

Is there actually a market for Android apps?

Well, yes there is, but it may be smaller than you think.

In any case, if you are trying to estimate the potential market for an Android edition of your iOS app, do not just look at the Android market share in terms of devices sold.
And don’t even think about judging the market by the number of user requests. 2 words: vocal minority.

The average Android owner is an animal that is completely different from the typical iPhone owner, and not nearly as app-hungry.

Let’s look at some recent market share news and then at my numbers for the Collectorz.com apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.
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Revisiting Microsoft adCenter

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This week, Yahoo Search Marketing has finally merged into Microsoft AdCenter.

I was quite happy when this was announced. I have been using both for a couple of years now, using a few simple campaigns on both. The extra traffic that both can bring is nice, but is still very low compared to the amount of traffic (and sales) that Google Adwords is generating.

Which meant hat I could never afford to spend much time on optimizing my Yahoo or MS ads. I am hoping that this merged system, with combined traffic from Bing and Yahoo Search, will bring enough traffic to justify more tweaking and testing. More results with less work, can’t say no to that. Continue reading →

Top right

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Through the years I have been experimenting with many different landing page designs and layouts. And there is one factor that’s consistently proving to improve conversion rates.

Or, to be more precise, consistently causes a decrease in conversions every time I stop doing it:

Having my main call-to-actions (Try and Buy) on the top right of the landing page

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Moving my online sales to GlobalCollect

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Over the years, since 1996, we have been using quite a few different payment processors. I started out on Compuserve, quickly followed by: SWREG, Digibuy, RegNow, Plimus, eSellerate, PayPal and RBS WorldPay. PayPal has been a constant for many years, as we have always offered it as an extra payment method, through our own PayPal account.

In May 2006, we started using RBS WorldPay (called “Bibit” at the time) for our online sales. That’s more than 4 years using the same payment processor, a record for us 🙂 So… it’s about time we changed again. Continue reading →

Speaking at ESWC 2010, about “The Art of Testing”

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In about 3 weeks, on Saturday November 6, I will be speaking at the
10th European Software Conference in Vienna.

The session is called “The Art of Testing” and will be about A/B split testing. The focus will be on testing website designs, and I will discuss:

  • Introduction: Why you should be testing.
  • The tech stuff: How you can do simple A/B split tests and multivariate tests.
  • The fun stuff: What to test? What website changes should you focus on?

Two ten-year anniversaries

The conference in Vienna will be the 10th European Software Conference, but, as it happens, Collectorz.com is also celebrating its 10 year anniversary this November.

So we have decided to sponsor the “Pre-event meeting” on Friday night and all conference attendees are invited.

Drinks and finger food are on me 🙂

See you there!

CLZ Movies HD for iPad

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We’re on a roll here. Another new platform : the iPad.
Our first iPad app is now available in Apple’s App Store (after being in their review queue for about a week). Like our CLZ Movies edition for iPhone and Android, it’s a viewer app for movie collections created with Movie Collector for Windows or Mac OS X. Users can export their existing database to the iPad app and then browse their list in several cool looking views, including an “home-built” cover flow view.


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Collectorz.com software on Android

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We added a new platform to our already sizable list of supported platforms. Yesterday we released our first mobile app for Android: CLZ Movies. It is a viewer app for Movie Collector databases, similar to our CLZ Movies app for iPhone.

First day sales were good, but a bit less than expected. I was hoping for a higher number for the first day, mainly because the demand for Android apps seemed to be quite high. But maybe Android users just tend to make more noise 🙂 They do seem to feel a bit “left behind” because of most companies’ focus on iOS development.

I will post more sales results later, when I have more data.
I can’t wait to see how day-to-day Android sales compare to those of our iPhone apps and the upcoming iPad apps.

Software pricing : Standard and Pro editions

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Our Collectorz.com programs are all available in two editions: Standard and Pro. The Standard edition sells for $29.95 and is lacking a couple of “advanced” features compared to the $49.95 Pro edition.

We have been selling our software this way for a long time. Before we introduced these two pricing levels, we were selling our software for $29.95. Adding the more expensive Pro edition for $49.95 was a good way to increase the price without dropping the old price. After the change, about 80% of our customers started opting for the Pro edition, causing a nice jump in profits.

The presence of two editions also gives our visitors a choice. Price conscious customers can opt for the cheaper Standard edition. Buyers just looking for the best, regardless of price, can choose the Pro edition. The availability of choices helps to increase conversion rates.

As you can see in the image above, we have done something similar with our range of barcode scanners, a cheap CueCat for $19.95 as an entry level scanner, a deluxe laser scanner for $139.95, and a mid-level option for $79.95.

But offering multiple editions also has one drawback: it adds complexity. Continue reading →