What is Software Bundling and Why it Can Boost Your Sales
Creating your own software can be one of the most beneficial things you do for your business. Instead of recommending useful software and other technological tools to help your clients meet their business goals or make their work more efficient, you can create software that is specifically designed to meet their needs. If anyone knows what your clients need, it’s you. In fact, you’re are an expert on what they need, so you’re in a good position to create a powerful tool that delivers the solutions to help their business grow.
Just like with any product, you have to design an effective strategy for marketing your software and getting it in front of your target audience. You may know that it will innovate the way your clients do business, but they don’t know that until they try it. The key to your success is getting them to try it in the first place.
Software bundling can help you get your software in front of more people and meet your marketing goals. The way that software bundling works is that you identify another company with a recognized brand name or an innovative (but not competing) software product, and create a partnership. When clients download that company’s software, they also get yours – or vice versa. In the process, they get a great deal on two products.
Here’s how software bundling benefits you, as well as your clients:
More Downloads
By linking your brand to another brand that already has an established client base, you can help drive downloads of your software through bundling. The other company will be conducting its own marketing campaign to promote its software, which you will benefit from by being linked to the software. You’ll automatically get more downloads thanks to the joint efforts of the other company in promoting the bundle.
You’ll also get more downloads because your clients will feel incentivized to purchase thanks to the bundle pricing. In most cases, the bundle will offer the software package at a lower price than if the two were sold separately. If not, then additional features can be offered. Either way, the promotion encouraged clients to download since they will be getting something they wouldn’t if they limited themselves to individual purchases.
More Exposure
Even though you won’t convince every single client to download your software, creating a bundle will get you more exposure with every person who sees it. Partnering with the other company ensures that you maximize your exposure by getting the software in front of a whole new client base. Your software will go out to the other brand’s email marketing list, social media channels, blogs and maybe even their direct mail list. That’s a significant number of new clients you could be reaching with the partnership.
And the benefits don’t end here. You will also reach a wider general audience with software bundling. The excitement behind the bundle will help you to reach more people, who can all become potential clients. Even if the exposure doesn’t translate into immediate sales, it does create top-of-mind awareness that can make it easier to close a sale when you reach out to those same people in the future.
More Sales
Obviously, more downloads translates to more sales of your software. In addition, the increased downloads and increased exposure that you get from software bundling can also lead to more overall sales for your company. Hopefully, those who download will now have a favorable view of your products and your company, and will feel more encouraged to check out your other offerings and buy from you again. They may buy your other software, or they may give your other products and services a try.
Those who become aware of your company through exposure to the bundle deal will be more likely to buy from you in the future. The more often a person sees your brand, the more likely he is to trust your company or see it as an authority (assuming that what the person sees isn’t negative). That means that person is more likely to do business with you in the future. Future sales might include the software you are trying to promote or your other products and services. Either way, it’s a win for you.
Software bundling may not be the first thing you think of when you plan your marketing strategy. However, it can be far more effective than traditional means of advertising. You get more results, which means that you can spend less while getting a greater return on your investment. Software bundling doesn’t just translate to immediate downloads and sales. It also creates a partnership that can lead to more exposure now and in your future endeavors, all of which creates more authority for your brand and helps you generate more sales long into the future.
