Sell More Software – Website Conversion Optimization for Software Developers – Book Review

Sell More Software – Website Conversion Optimization for Software Developers by Patrick Mckenzie is a collection of his blog posts on marketing, with a few new articles added.

Why would you buy this, instead of going to his blog? Well, I recently subscribed to his e-mail list and got a sample of the new chapters. Not only it was excellent, but I also find it much more comfortable to read on my iPad than on my computer, and unlike his blog it is much easier to make notes in the mobi version of the eBook.

So what does the e-book cover? It is divided in 3 major parts:

Selling your Stuff

• You should probably send more e-mail than you do: covers a number of reasons why e-mail is still important. It converts great, your list is your list (unlike in Facebook or Twitter, where it is really theirs and they can start charging per broadcast like FB did, and RSS tends to get ignored). Some of the click rates he mentions are amazing – 1% for a link in his blog, 15% of the full mailing list for an e-mail. E-mail also keeps leads warm and can help you get more revenue out of existing customers
• Does Your Product logo actually matter? – you can get 10% less or more of your conversion rate with a logo.
• Dropbox-style Two-sided sharing incentives – using referrals to get more customers, and how he implemented it.
• Two-Sided Referral Incentives Revisited! – continuing the previous article – didn't work for him.
• Engineering Your Way to Marketing Success – using benefits instead of features. Getting data from product usage for content generation and automated error detection and correction.
• Selling Software to People Who Don't Buy Software – make sure your program looks good, give good support and make it easy to buy.
• Increase your Software Sales – use analytics, do SEO and get links. Include a sidebar box listing synonyms for your key search terms (great example here, I plan to follow it). Blog – but try to keep it evergreen. Adwords.
• The Black art of Saas Pricing – how to charge for your service. Apparently, being cheap can quite frequently be a very, very bad idea – and the people who will only get the cheap version often need the most support. Also some great advice on price testing.

Increasing Conversion

• Stripe and A/B Testing Made me a Small Fortune – how he implemented Stripe (sounds like a great service, BTW). Interesting part on how to use git to test what version of a library breaks your application. Some testing on limits with great effects. 
• The Most Radical A/B Test I've ever done – how he tested dropping a downloadable app for the web only version.
• Keeping the User Moving Towards Conversion – short post on adding buttons to screenshots. Might try this myself.
• Practical Conversion Tips for Selling Software – monitoring your sales funnel and optimizing it.
• Minor Usability Errors in Checkout Funnel = You Lose Lots of Money – interesting look on how a simple cart UI logic caused him to lose 94% of CD buyers.
• 10-Minute Tweaks to Boost your Conversion – some simple ideas on how to improve conversion. Interesting stat on people not returning from thumbnail clicks – I wonder if it still holds true today.

All about SEO

• SEO for Software Companies – based on a presentation, pretty good if you aren't already proficient. Some great ideas on how to use/create content.
• Strategic SEO for Startups: more SEO stuff. Surprising stuff: people looking for [free bingo cards] convert at 5 times the rates of regular searchers!
• The Big Book of Getting People to Link to you
• Developing Linkbait for Non-technical Audience
• Why You Shouldn't Pay any SEO You can afford – interesting look on the economics of SEO.

Conclusion –  This chapter has a nice article on churn rates.

Some of the other advice I liked:

• If you have to worry about sales, marketing, etc AND coding, you are not a software developer – you are in business.
• You should talk to people BEFORE you build your product/service, and find at least a few who would be willing to pay what you want for it, or give up on this approach to the product and look for another.
• Getting a commitment out of someone before giving them your software can really increase conversion.
• Publish early: if you have no content, talk about the problem domain and the need of your customers.

My Own Conclusion

Patrick's advice is pretty good and the book is also a pleasant read – I recommend reading both the book, his blog and signing up for his mailing list – there is a lot of excellent content there.