5 Marketing Benefits You Should be Bundling with Software Now

by | Mar 19, 2015 | Marketing, Software

Software bundles are product suites that contain multiple applications. They are frequently used to combine multiple small apps, tools, extensions, or plugins into a single package. For instance, you could purchase a bundle of WordPress plugins or Photoshop extensions.

Since selling an individual plugin is often not possible, developers will often package multiple tools together in order to make a viable sale. While you can package your own apps and plugins together, it’s often more feasible to work with others when creating your software bundle.

Doing so carries a number of benefits that can give you edge in marketing and monetization.

How?

Here are 5 of the top reasons.

1. New Partners

No developer is an island, and bundles are proof of that. When you work together with other developers, you build connections with other companies and individuals who can be your partners in business.

In marketing there is an awful lot of emphasis on the competition, but sometimes not enough on non-competitors. Forming relationships and pooling resources is sometimes the best way to climb the ladder and become successful.

More successful companies are excellent resources that can help you further your career, while smaller fish help reinforce your own position as an authority in your industry. Besides, who knows how they could help you down the line?

2. Bigger Audience

Another benefit to partnering up and bundling is growing your audience. The more partners who are involved, the more audiences you’ll have access to. Since each partner will undoubtedly let their followers know about the software bundle, you’ll gain exposure to that audience as well.

Promotion is one of the primary reasons you should consider bundling your software. While many developers shun the idea if the bottom line won’t see a big enough impact, it’s often best to look at it as a marketing investment. It’s very unlikely that bundling will hurt your business in any way.

In fact, the opposite is usually true. If, for example, two developers pool their audiences, revenue-share programs can often earn more money for each developer, even if they charge the same price for their bundle as for the individual app. Why?

As mentioned below, a bundle enhances the value of a product. If you include two apps for the price of one and double the audience pool, you are likely to see more than double the number of purchases, due to this enhanced value.

The end result?

3. More Money

If you do your math right, the aggregated demand of your audiences combined with the enhanced value of the bundle will bring in a larger net income. In other words, if you create or join a bundle, you’ll be able to see a return on investment.

On its own, a plugin can be difficult to monetize, unless it has an extensive range of features and provides serious value to the customer.

Given the increased value and demand for a bundle, however, that plugin can potentially earn more money, in addition to the other marketing benefits and networking benefits mentioned here.

4. Portfolio Experience

For new and intermediate developers, extensions and plugins are ideal ways to get your feet wet. And a portfolio piece looks that much better when it has been included in a bundle along with product from other well-established companies. This way, you can point to the project and its reception: the number of downloads, the ratings, the revenue, and so forth.

It can be daunting and difficult to jump headfirst – or even feet first – into software development. And if you don’t yet have the technical knowledge, it makes sense to take baby steps towards that goal. But just because you start small doesn’t mean you have to go unnoticed.

5. Enhanced Value

A sole plugin has much less value than a suite of products. This enhanced value increases the likelihood that you’ll gain all of the above benefits, such as increased recognition and income. Products that are more valuable in a customer’s eyes will also reflect better on your company. 

It is for this reason that subscription models like Netflix are so successful. Despite the service’s low monthly cost, it has been able to outstrip the traditional a la carte model used by other movie rental outlets.

A Word of Advice

When you bundle your products, ensure that you are adding value to the complete package. Don’t include software that you yourself wouldn’t use or recommend. If, for instance, there is persistent or annoying software, this could have a negative impact on your business instead of a positive one.

Finally, it should be noted that there is another use of the term bundling. The other usage of “bundling” is almost synonymous with pay-per-install, where you include third-party apps with your main software program and earn income when users install those apps. This is also a common monetization strategy, implemented successfully by advertising industry leaders like CodeFuel.

 

Happy bundling!

Use Marketing Psychology to Get More from Your Bundled Software

by | Feb 18, 2015 | Monetization

Bundled software – software packages that contain several individual programs – are a great way for developers to increase their exposure, improve their portfolio, and earn more money.

So how exactly does bundled software appeal to consumer psychology? And how can you use bundles to get more from your customers?

Use Bundles to Control Supply and Demand

Supply and demand, the age-old economics terms, refer to the volume of available product versus the consumer’s desire for that product. Generally, supply and demand work together with the marketplace’s competition to set a product’s price –  in this case, a software bundle.

But, for quite a while, marketers have been manipulating the perception of supply and demand to alter the price of a product. If you artificially limit supply, then you can increase the demand and the price. And if you are able to generate demand, you can increase the price.

Software bundles are mechanisms that automatically make use of certain marketing concepts to manipulate both supply and demand. But by setting artificial limitations and by taking advantage of the benefits that bundling offers, you can affect both factors.

At first glance, supply may not seem to have anything to do with software bundles, since digital goods can be reproduced on-demand, ad infinitum.

And though physical supply, manufacturing, and the supply chain have no effect on the price of a product, demand – along with the production costs – do have an effect on the price.

Using Scarcity to Increase the Perceived Value

To get around this, marketers and advertisers have long been using artificial scarcity to affect the pricing and order volume of products. By placing a limitation on your product, you increase its perceived value, with the goal of increasing the demand for the product.

Short-term bundling is a tactic frequently used by companies such as Envato, a marketplace for digital goods. By discounting prices and only offering bundled content for a limited time, they increase conversions and revenue.

Here are a couple examples of limitations you can use to enhance the value of your bundle in the customer’s eyes:

Use deadlines. A limited time offer works, because customers know that the price tag will go up after a certain period of time. If you drop the price of your bundle for a limited time, or only offer the bundle for a fixed time frame, you’re automatically creating scarcity and demand.

Only offer your product in a specific bundle. Even if a smaller piece of software, such as a plugin or extension, can’t stand on its own, it may look more valuable if it is only available as part of another software bundle.

Only offer a set quantity. If you advertise a limited edition bundle to a set number of customers, then they are guaranteed something unique. The artificial limitation of supply and the principle of scarcity drives up demand, and can also drive up the price.

Play Up the Social Proof

In addition to scarcity, social proof is another marketing concept that affects consumer demand. Social proof refers to the idea that the reputation of a product, service, or company can be improved by the quality of the companies associated with it.

In the same way that a man is judged by the company he keeps, a company is also judged by the company it keeps. When you bundle your software, your software, your work, and your company gain the social proof associated with your partner companies.

Even if your company is completely new, you will gain a measure of authority, not to mention market exposure, simply by including your software in a bundle.

For instance, a lone plugin on a basic website doesn’t have as much social proof as a plugin that is part of a complete suite of products being offered by ten different partner developers.

The perceived increase in value, then, will warrant a price increase.

Exclusivity

Closely tied to the idea of social proof and artificial scarcity is exclusivity. By placing quantity limitations or limited time frames on your bundle, you will also promote the idea that your bundle is “exclusive.”

With this concept, consider the VIP table at a fancy restaurant or club. The VIP table or the scarce software bundle appeals to the self-esteem of the user, who wants to be part of the in-crowd. Limited editions, baseball cards, and so forth are all examples of exclusivity in action.

By creating a unique software bundle, in one sense you are automatically creating an exclusive product, simply by packaging together a handful of other products that already exist.

 

Bundling is a staple marketing and monetization tactic that every developer should test. With a little artificial scarcity and a bit of marketing finesse, you can use software bundles to work “supply” to your benefit, generate demand, and earn more money.