Selling a service or a product online?

webdev · #1 (**permalink**) 07-30-2007, 07:07 PM

How would you go about promoting your site from which you sold some sort of service or product(s). For example, if i set up a website where i'm selling scripts and application or web software installation services, how would i promote my site? I want to get some quick exposer in the marketplace so i can make some customers fast and kick start my business.

The only reason i hesitate to build a software which i can sell online is, number one i don't know how i would go about promoting it online. For example, i could build a software which allows people to integrate web forms on their websites. I been thinking about doing this one for a long time.

How did companies like vbulliten become so popular. I'm sure there are forum software out there which better than vbulleten which we haven't heard of. Why? Because they couldn't market it as effectively as vbulleten did with their software. So what did vbullenten do to promote their software become so widely used around the world?

Likewise, i searched for companies who provide form widgets (for a fee) for people to use on the websites. Now some of them are successful while some seem to be struggling (you can usually tell through forum activity).

So, in summary, I want to build a software which i can potentially sell online. However, how would i go about marketing my company and software online?

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 07-30-2007, 09:37 PM

I'm not sure how vbulletin started promoting their product but once again the key is offering something other sites are not and your product would spread like wildfire. If you think about it, there are only about 3-4 popular paid message board scripts and they got popular because they offer features that other message board scripts don't provide. That's why they have no problem selling thousands of copies of a $150 product.

So if you think about a problem many developers have (or whoever is in your target audience) and you can create software that will help that problem and promote it in the right spaces (developer message boards, etc.) then your product will largely spread by word of mouth.

If you think about it, becoming successful with a product is no different than trying to make money with a content/information site. Know who you are targeting and create a product that solves the problems of your audience. Post in forums where your niche congregates (digitalpoint forums is a great example of a place where there are a lot of developers) and if these people start recommending your product to their audience, your product can get a lot of word of mouth.

You know your subject matter better than anyone. So what are the hurdles of PHP? Can you create a software program that can rectify that problem? Offer a limited/trial edition for free to get people to try your product and then offer a full version for a fee. To start, find develop forums and promote it in your sig file to get some feedback.

BumbleBeeWare · #3 (**permalink**) 08-04-2007, 07:48 AM

You ask the million dollar question, "how do you get customers?"

I launced my hosting company bumblebeeworks.com with google ads, newspaper ads, tv ads and radio ads. I ran radio spots every 2 hours on 4 different stations and spent $500 a day on google ads at about $0.25 a click. I ran daily classifieds in the newpaper business sections. It was a well rounded campaign.

Since you probably never heard of me, you can see how sucessful it was.

Then some guys makes a dancing babby video and it takes over the net, tv and everything else.

Some things just work and sometimes its luck.

It is much easier to market free videos on youtube than web hosting to businesses. The youth market online is active and vocal with blogs and chats.

If you can capitalize on a free download market, you can get big fast. But selling a business product like form builders will take much more effort and cash.

The market wont have the same accessibility online as something like napster.

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 08-04-2007, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BumbleBeeWare

You ask the million dollar question, "how do you get customers?"

I launced my hosting company bumblebeeworks.com with google ads, newspaper ads, tv ads and radio ads. I ran radio spots every 2 hours on 4 different stations and spent $500 a day on google ads at about $0.25 a click. I ran daily classifieds in the newpaper business sections. It was a well rounded campaign.

Since you probably never heard of me, you can see how sucessful it was.

Then some guys makes a dancing babby video and it takes over the net, tv and everything else.

Some things just work and sometimes its luck.

It is much easier to market free videos on youtube than web hosting to businesses. The youth market online is active and vocal with blogs and chats.

If you can capitalize on a free download market, you can get big fast. But selling a business product like form builders will take much more effort and cash.

The market wont have the same accessibility online as something like napster.

Great advice bumblebeeware and welcome to the forums.

webdev · #5 (**permalink**) 08-06-2007, 09:28 AM

Quote:

If you can capitalize on a free download market, you can get big fast.

I have seen his happen with my friend's website. He offers free download of TV shows for his Iranian audience. He bought the script for $100 and started the site about 2 months ago. He is already getting 1500-2000 visitors a day and making good money through adsense on his site.

These days with social networking and all, the young generation (mostly teens) are really active on the net and spends hours and hours on the net. If you can capitalize on this market, you can get big really fast.

ssmorgan · #6 (**permalink**) 08-08-2007, 03:01 AM

webdev,

Have you thought about packaging relevant scripts together and promote them using Clickbank? Clickbank is easy to use as an affiliate, but I think it's also simple to sign up as a publisher.

I am sure affiliate marketers whose websites are related to website creation will be more than happy to promote your scripts.

Would there be potential flaws with this idea? Would it be hard to accomplish this?

Sherif

webdev · #7 (**permalink**) 08-08-2007, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Would there be potential flaws with this idea?

The only way i can find out is by trying and i have to try this.

Quote:

Would it be hard to accomplish this?

Not really. I just have to make some more enchancments to my two free scripts i offer and try to sell those.

thanks for the idea sherif

ssmorgan · #8 (**permalink**) 08-08-2007, 09:29 AM

hmmm... are you thinking of having 2 variations of each script?

1 script free. The 2nd one would be more specialized, advanced, or improved that people would pay for.

I would offer the free one (and maybe you can get email addresses in return)... and that way you have an opt-in list in the process (do you know the success rate of opt-in lists in your industry?)... and then if they want a more advanced script, I think they would be willing to pay.

I think that's a good idea, what do you think?

webdev · #9 (**permalink**) 08-08-2007, 09:50 AM

Quote:

hmmm... are you thinking of having 2 variations of each script?

1 script free. The 2nd one would be more specialized, advanced, or improved that people would pay for.

Yep! that's what had in mind.

Quote:

I would offer the free one (and maybe you can get email addresses in return)... and that way you have an opt-in list in the process

What's a opt-in list? How does it work? And how would having email adresses help? I'm not exactly sure what you are saying.

I mean once they have the free script, off they will go. How does having an email address come into play?

ssmorgan · #10 (**permalink**) 08-09-2007, 01:01 AM

Opt-in list is a list of email addresses you keep of people who signed up to receive your updates. An example of this is a "squeeze page", which is a webpage that is used to entice visitors to share their names and email addresses with the website owner. The list of names and email address would be called your email list or opt-in list (because these people opted to receive emails from you).

When you develop future scripts or products, you can send an email to the whole list... and if you are selling something, you can get several conversions overnight.

If you decide to do this, I would research it first, because you want to do it correctly because a) you obviously want to capitalize and not abuse it's power, and b) if not done correctly, you may be crossing the line of spamming.

Hope this clears it up.

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