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?
I would not say that technical persons are not interested to fulfill the needs of persons, who will in the end pay their salaries. Also, implementing features requested by customers does not mean that you cannot face challenges and innovate, when you are implementing them. The problem here lies in the communication between technical persons and customer, because the are speaking "different language". That is the reason, why big companies have got a different persons for that purpose. However, you have got a point, because in my mind a great developer can interact fluently with customers and still obtain excellent technical skills. You are partially correct, but you should not forget that customers only buy something, if they feel that the product improves their current situation. Solving problems does not really help, if customers have already got similar product, which solves their problems as well. So do your homework and study your competitors. Make sure you offer something that they are not currently offering. The best product is the one, which is easy to use, looks stylish and solves customer's problems better than the existing products. However, instead of marketing the look and I feel, I would concentrate my marketing efforts by describing what the product can offer to the customer. Almost every player in the software market is claiming that their product has got a nice user interface, but the customers wants to hear how this product will solve their problems and improve their status quo. Also, especially in the B2B market, customer sees software as an investment, so be prepared to do your math and use the reimbursement time of investment in your marketing efforts.
On the internet, one of the biggest problems for software developers is how quickly software becomes outdated. No sooner a software is released, someone will quickly produce something a little better, and charge less. Then the next person will offer something similar and give it away free to build their list. It appears to truly make money as a software developer on the net, you probably need to issue rights with your product (PLR/MRR) and keep developing new in demand software regularly.
· Website Hosting and Hardware · Supplies, Travel, Entertainment · Advertising, Online and Off · Marketing and Networking · Research and Development · Bug Fixing · Licensing and Legal · Customer Support These are essentials in Successful Software Promotions for software developer.