A follow-up to part 1, make sure to read that first. These posts are mostly for Software Companies who are in the same situation as we are: We understand, speak, read and write English quite well. The problem is, “quite well” is not good enough.
A World Full of Choices
Yes, you are selling the best software in the world! It has unique features, performs great and has a nice dollar-to-bit ratio (cheap!).
The problem is, your website visitors do not, by some way of magic, understand this. You must first convince them to download or buy and for that to happen, you better make sure they don’t leave your site in 2 seconds. Back to Google where they have 200 other search results to look at. Other Companies, selling their own Great Software…
Your Website
Did you write the text yourself? Unless you are from the US or UK, I can assure you: it is one big bucket of spelling and grammar errors. If someone from the US visits your site, he will first laugh and then quickly press the back-button. One more lost sale…
Simple Solutions
Sadly, for this you must part with something you really love: Money. You need to pay Professionals to look at your website. They will rewrite your site and give you tips how to improve it.
A future post will talk more about my experience with Martin who is our main English Language Specialist (and very good & quick at it). He used to send us a Word document with his findings, but these days he just translates our English software to English using a tool you may know.
I believe the Sisulizer team uses the same kind of services offered by Becky at Epic Trends. We used her service years ago and were also very happy with it.
Rent Someone’s Brain
Another service we often use is Al Harberg’s Web Site Makeover. Al is a marketing expert who will make sure your website is as convincing as possible, making people “Want to Buy” your program.
He will create a very detailed report of his findings and suggestions and revisit your site after you made the suggested changes. This is an investment (just $159) you will easily earn back in sales. Just do the math:
$159 / ThePriceOfYourSoftware = HowManyLicensesYouNeedToSellToEarnYourMoneyBack
If Al’s advice helps even just a little bit, you see this is an investment you will earn back soon enough. For us, it was just 1.2 extra licenses we needed to sell. I really believe Al’s suggestions made us hundreds of extra sales the last few years.
Contact me (gert at gdpsoftware dot com) if you want to see the report Al made for this site a few years ago.
Sure, Free is Possible
Ask your current English customers to review your website, offer a free upgrade to them in return, make them feel “Special”. But remember, those people already bought your software, they already know its value. A fresh look by people like Martin and Al is much more valuable.
If you really can not afford to spend any money, make sure to read all Al’s old Newsletters and some tips from Martin. If you are stressed for time, please just read Al’s Famous 10 Tips to Sell More. I really like his quote
There are no gimmicks involved. In fact, each of the things that you need to do to sell more software has been cleverly disguised as work.
(but he probably stole that quote from someone else).
