The profit is in the up-sell, the upgrade, or the annual subscription service, not the initial sale.
The more things that the item does, the less likely it is going to secure a repeat sale if you fail to show him how to achieve one major benefit in 15 minutes. Why? Because the more complex it is, the more likely he will give up. "It's just too complicated for me. I will never be able to learn how to use it."
The technician who developed the product is bedazzled by his own creativity. "Look at how much this does!" he thinks to himself. But the buyer does not care how much it does. The buyer wants the product to solve his specific problem, solve it easily, and do it within 15 minutes. Otherwise, he is going to return the product. If he doesn't return the product, because it's cheap or it's a free sample, he will never upgrade it. He will never do another business transaction with the company.
The problem is not the item. The problem is the fact that the seller does not focus on the most important single benefit that the item provides for 80% of the new users. He should focus on that one benefit, and he should make it crystal clear exactly how the buyer can put the item to use for that single purpose within 15 minutes.
Buyers are tired of complex programs that are not accompanied by "how-to" teaching materials, preferebly videos, that show them how to use the item. They put the item on the shelf, or else they return it. This kills the profit.
An engineer who buys a product is not so finicky. But most people are not engineers. They don't like dealing with engineers. They don't like dealing with technicians. Technicians are the bane of their lives, in exactly the same way that actual users are the bane of technicians' lives. The two groups don't communicate well. They don't think the same way.
It takes a salesman to get them together. But the salesman only knows how to sell. He does not know how to use the product. He certainly does not know how to show a new user how to use the product.
There has to be a fourth person in the transaction. This person has to be able to translate the user's manual into English. He has to be able to take the new user through his first use of the product to solve a problem. Technicians don't how to do this. Salesman don't know how to do it. The buyer doesn't know how to do it. The translator/teacher is the crucial person in securing a permanent customer.
Technicians don't believe this, and they have little use for such people. Salesman think of them as customer service people, not part of their responsibilities. Customer service people can explain things one-on-one on the phone by using a script, but they will not produce simple screencast teaching videos that would reduce the number of customer calls by 80%. The person in charge of the customer service department has no incentive to have his department produce such videos, because that would mean his department would get smaller.
A CASE STUDY
Five years ago, I wrote an article about a very good software product. Out of courtesy, I will not mention its name. But, five years later, it still suffers from the same problem.
The company offers a 30-day free trial. This is a unique 30-day free trial. It is not 30 consecutive days after you've downloaded. It is 30 actual days using the product. It is an inexpensive product.
The problem with the product is this: it has a steep learning curve. It really is intimidating.
When you sell an intimidating product, you should never give it away for free unless you have an extraordinary series of screencast videos that show a newcomer exactly how to use it. This company has never developed decent screencast lessons, and it has been selling the product for a decade.
The problem is this: the programmer who created the product knows it backward and forward. He goes online to show us how to work it. He demonstrates dozens of steps. He doesn't explain them. He doesn't break them down into bite-size portions. He just wows you with what the product will do.
The problem is this: no new user can use the product as well as the developer can. He has lived with the product. He is incapable of teaching anyone else how to use it precisely because he knows how to use it too well.
Here is what I wrote about the company's sales strategy.
There is a problem. Its designer does his own marketing. Because the program is so good, it is getting exposure. Because it is cheap -- under $50 -- it is selling, but not well enough to let him hire an assistant, let alone a marketer.
He has produced one YouTube video. That was in 2010. It is for the Mac version. It is for an obsolete edition of his program. This is his entire marketing program.
Only in 2013 did he introduce a Windows version. He has yet to produce a video for Windows users. Understand what this means. Windows has almost 90% of all operating systems for desktop computers. He regarded 90% of the market as an afterthought.
One thing is sure: he is not in it for the money.
His marketing could be brought up to date in about four hours. But the designer is a technician. Marketing is not part of his outlook. "Four hours? On marketing? Why, that's an hour a year. Inconceivable! I'm doing important work here! I don't have that kind of spare time to waste on marketing!"
SCREENCASTS AND SALES
He does not understand the use of screencast videos in marketing. There must be one screencast for each marketing step. For software, there are usually two steps. There may be three. Two are better than three.
1. Get a sale.
2. Get the user using the program within 15 minutes.
Why 15 minutes? Because if he doesn't find a way to use it profitably on one task within 15 minutes, he won't adopt it. For every day that he does not use it, the odds increase that he will never adopt it.
He has 30 days to ask for a refund, according to U.S. federal law. He may ask. Or he may just forget about it if the price is low. But he will never buy an upgrade.
The profit in software is in selling upgrades. The initial sale is not usually profitable. At best, it breaks even on advertising costs.
There is a second way to sell software. It almost never works.
1. Offer a 30-day free trial.
2. Wait for the user to order the program.
Camtasia Studio adopts this approach. But the marketing department does what must be done. It offers extensive training screencast videos to get the trial subscriber to use the product. These begin as soon as a user opens the program. It's a $300 product. It makes lots of money on upgrades.
[Company X] offers both approaches: buy or free trial. But it does not have an extensive library of screencasts to get the person using the product. It offers no technical support. It offers only forums run by volunteers. This is not a bad way to do it, given a $45 product. But the forums are not easy to use. I have found them counter-intuitive. In fact, the user needs a screencast to use the forums effectively. He needs a way to find out how to ask a question. I speak from experience.
Trial subscriptions are extremely dangerous, as I have said. A trial should encourage immediate use. The key to marketing by means of a trial version is to get the user to discover one major benefit within 15 minutes. You must addict him to the program. He must think: "This is easy to use. I already have gotten a major benefit. I will keep at this. I may get five more." Fail in this, and you will not make a sale.
If the program is not intuitive to use, it creates frustration. Frustration kills sales. The user thinks, "I cannot do this. I'll never learn this. I'm outta here." Forever. In this case, the free trial has just killed the sale. In almost all cases I have seen in 20 years, free trials kill sales. They do not get the user up and running within 15 minutes.
I got an answer from a volunteer. The answer was not intuitive. (Note: it was not this. "Click on 'Blank' on the left side of the dialog, 2nd option from the top.") Of course, from a marketing standpoint, it does not matter what the solution is or was. What is important is that problems at the beginning create frustration, and this kills sales. Technicians think: "There is a simple solution." Marketers think: "Don't allow problems that need solutions." Technicians think: "It's probably one guy in a thousand. I don't make big mistakes." Marketers think: "It's probably 80% of the users. They are mostly idiots, but they have money to spend. Fix the problem."
The correct response of the designer is to solve this problem in advance, not wait for an inquiry. The correct approach is to warn the user: "This program does not open the way you probably think it should. Here's what you must do."
The #1 customer support job of the designer should be to get feedback from the volunteers on what the main questions are, and then keep producing new screencasts to answer these questions before they get asked. This is the correct use of Pareto's 20-80 rule. About 20% of the problems produce 80% of the inquiries. The goal of tech support is to keep letting the designer know what the most frequent questions are. He must keep producing updated training videos to solve at least 15% of the initial problems in advance.
Let me offer this summary:
The primary task of customer support is not to provide answers. The primary task is to identify the most numerous time-consuming questions, and then notify the designer, who must then produce training materials to eliminate 80% of these questions.
If these initial questions are not systematically overcome by the designer, the free trial offer will lead to frustrated users who will never buy. They will also never download another free trial. They will never buy an upgrade.
1. THE "GEE WHIZ" VIDEO
A marketing video should focus only on the few features of the program that the designer knows for sure are the main ones that a new user will want. He has about 8 minutes to make the initial sale, which is a trial download, a sale, or a choice between the two.
Here is a rule of direct-response marketing: Every ad should provide reasons for the reader to take just one step.
He offers two choices: pay now or download the trial version. This is risky.
I think he should offer only one choice: either (1) download the trial version, or else (2) pay. He should test this before deciding which offer to make. Testing is basic to marketing.
If the offer is to obtain a free trial version, the user should be required to give his email. This triggers an autoresponder email: a welcome letter with a link to a page where he can download the trial version.
This contact will begin a series of follow-up emails that contain links to new screencasts to help the trial user discover great benefits. Day by day, he gets reminded.
This is nagging, of course. But it is disguised nagging. It offers links to videos that show him how to get wonderful benefits, one at a time.
To get him to download a trial version, the "gee whiz" video must demonstrate benefits. It must not show features apart from verbally described benefits.
Customers do not buy features. They buy benefits. Here is the rule of direct-response marketing:
"Don't tell me about your grass seed. Tell me about my lawn."
The "gee whiz" video must not show the user how to do anything. It should show him what the program will do for him. The narrator should verbally spell it out. Every step on the screen should have a voice-over: "With this feature, you get this unique benefit. . . ."
The goal of the "gee whiz" video should be this: to persuade the viewer to sign up for the 30-day free trial. Nothing else.
Get that email! Start the multiple sales pitches! Keep those benefits coming! Get orders! Sell upgrades!
Simple. It's easy as pie.
2. THE "EASY AS PIE" VIDEO
The second video must be a how-to video. A link to it is included in the email that provides the link to download the program.
This video has one goal: to get the user to achieve one major benefit with the program. It must persuade the recipient to use the program within the next 15 minutes.
There should be a very easy learning curve for this one benefit. The first exercise must not frustrate the user.
Trial software kills sales. Why? Because it does not get the user dependent on the software in 15 minutes.
The program sits there. What next? Where to start? The learning curve is steep. The user quits. He never comes back. "Been there. Done that. It's way too difficult."
The software includes a PDF of a 330-page manual. This manual says, loud and clear: "You can never learn this." Response: no purchase order.
The first how-to video gets the user to take just one step. This step is easy as pie.
The user is told that he will be sent one lesson a day. At the end of the video, there will be a link to one long video that covers a lot of benefits in 25 minutes.
The user must not be shown these videos before he downloads the product. They might scare him off. They should therefore not be posted on YouTube. The videos should be posted on Amazon S3 or some other inexpensive video hosting service that is closed to the public.
Instead, the designer has produced a long, intricate written presentation of how to get started. I doubt that anyone has ever gone through it.
He made the fundamental error of most people who try to explain a visual procedure with words. This is virtually impossible. I call it the shoelace mistake. Think of this task. Explain to someone how to tie a shoelace. You can't do it. Now try to explain to someone who is right-handed (if you are left-handed). You cannot do it. But if you produce a video, and you verbally narrate each step, you can do it.
The designer is trying to get you through a complex program with words. Yet few people will ever use more than 4% of any program (Pareto's law: 20% of 20%).
Example:
We first need to define some custom meta-data fields, though. Let's do that now:Click on the "Define Meta-Data Fields…" button (alternatively, you can choose "Edit Custom Meta-Data Settings…" from the menu that appears when you click on the gear button in the "Custom Meta-Data" bar, or select "Meta-Data Settings…" from the Project menu and then choose the "Custom Meta-Data" tab).
Click on the "+" button in the bottom-left of the sheet that you've opened, and enter "Date" into the row that gets added to the table.
Click on the "+" button again and this time enter "Characters". For this one, also click on the "Wrap Text" checkbox. Click "OK" to accept the changes and dismiss the sheet.
This needs a simple 30-secind video to make it coherent. Most of all, it needs a narrative to explain why it is important: a benefit.
He is good with his 2010 video. But he does not understand marketing. He does not understand that a series of short, one-benefit-per-lesson, easy as pie screencasts are basic to getting a trial user up and running. If the user becomes dependent on the program, he will pay for it. This is central to successful marketing by means of free trials. But the designer does not understand marketing. He is not interested in marketing.
I don't know how long it took him to create his hopeless written instructions guide. Days, I would bet. It was wasted time. He could have produced a dozen one-benefit screencast videos in two days, and he would have dramatically increased his order rate from the free trial downloads over the last four years.
Anybody can use Screencast-O-Matic to produce a screencast video. Screencast-O-Matic costs $18 a year. He also he needs a $15 USB lapel microphone. He hen can produce first-class screencast video almost effortlessly.
Here is a screencast I produced this week to show a procedure on my site. It took me under two minutes to produce it. A site member posted a question. Where had I written about Ludwig Erhard? Here is how I answered his question. It's a one-minute solution.
The teacher outlines a procedure. The script takes the new user through one procedure. It gets him able to use the product for one valuable service. Not two. Not three. One. He practices it once on-screen. Then he records the next attempt. He keeps recording them until he gets it right.
If it is a piece of software, it shows the user exactly how to open it and perform one procedure. The teacher verbally describes every step. Every step that he takes with his mouse he explains with his mouth. Every step. He skips nothing. He goes slowly. He shows the new user how to boot up the software and perform one useful procedure. Nothing else. One useful procedure.
Once the user has gone through one useful procedure, he is ready for a second useful procedure. This is covered in the next screencast video. Then there will be a third. Then there will be a fourth.
There is a separate screencast video for every procedure. Each screencast video follows the same outline. It narrates everything on the screen, and it goes slowly.
If the procedure involves the use of a document, the company should provide it online. It's then the same for everybody. Everybody downloads whatever the sample is. Do not assume that the user has a suitable document at hand. It should be available on the website. Everyone gets exactly the same document. The new user will be able to see exactly what he is supposed to see. There is no guesswork.
No guesswork.
No guesswork.
And, I might add, NO GUESSWORK.
THE CORRECT PROCEDURE
A screencast video should take no more than one hour to script and record. A one-hour investment in the screencast could solve the problem. But the technician doesn't know how to do it. He is incapable of thinking as a new user is. He's lived with the program for years, and he no longer has the ability mentally and emotionally to connect with a new user. The salesman doesn't know how to do it. He is too busy lining up the next sale. He has no incentive to do it. It's not his department. If there is a customer service department,the head of the department doesn't want to do it.
Nobody in the company has both the incentive and also the ability to do it.
Let's say a company does produce a screencast video. Then it should hire a series of beta-testers -- users who have never used the product. There should be at least three beta-testers. Each beta-tester goes through a video. The screencast producer stands behind the person, silent. He offers no advice. He watches. He will see where the beta-tester has a problem. He should take notes. Then he should re-shoot the screencaset.
Then he should take it back to the beta-testers.
One by one, he produces a series of screencasts that go through the 20% of the features that users will use 80% of the time.
Do small companies do this? No. Do they lose money? Yes. The money is there for the taking. But they do not understand the 15-minute rule. They prefer to overwhelm the new user with features -- features he will never use.
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