Plan for Chris Labombard

I recently wrote a plan about what makes a successful indie business. It was basically a rundown of an article. This is similar.

Another amazing article, which I have broken down into point for, and key notes. So I present to you:

"How to permanently increase your game sales by 50% or more."

Also known as "Registration Incentives"

www.dexterity.com/articles/registration-incentives.htm

And for the sake of Mathew Langley.. This one will have a picture, but it will be at the end, so Mat will read it and not just look at the picture then move on.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article will explain how you can raise you registration rate. If you can raise your registration rate from 1.0% to 1.5% all you are doing is getting 1 in 200 more people to buy your product, which really doesn't seem like a whole lot. But, it will increase your sales by 50%. 1.0% seems to be a fairly good indistry standard for registration rates amongst this community.

"Lies of success"

The lies of success are untrue statements. But if you accept them as being true you will have more success

1. You are selling the difference between the Demo and the Registered version.

2. The sole purpose of the demo is to close the sale
- Act as a direct sales vehicle
- Take the customer all the way to the point of purchase, with a few mouse clicks

3. The customers perspective is the only one that matters.
- Customers don't care how much effort it took or if you deserve there money.
- Assume the customers only concern is "What is in it for them?"
- Don't get caught in the trap of discrimnating between honest and dishonest users. Customers are customers. Don't limit your product.

4. Customers buy on emotion and justify with fact
- Become emotionally attached to an idea
- Become commited
- First, get your customer emotionally invested in the purchase (which the author admits is easier for games, generally)
- Second, give them all the facts they need to justify it

Putting all of this into action

Alright. The value of the article, is in it's implementation...

The 30-Day trial
- Selling unlimited future usage
- Easy to understand for the user
- Experiment with the amount of time (Doesn't have to be 30 days)

Offer an additional bonus for registering sooner. Suprise late customers with the same added bonus.

-Use time pressure to your advantage
- Disable features after so much time
- Free levels if the user registers before 10 days
- Entered into a free draw if they register before 10 days
- Feature limitation, without crippling the software
- Seemingly complete experience with additional features on top of that for the registered version.

Time based and feature based are the two most common methods of demo limitation. But the best results come by using both at the same time.

Once you have both, the next step is to address the user's perceived risk, by applying a risk-reversal strategy.

- Already reduced risk (try before you buy)
- Other possible risks ?
- End of the trial, still doesn't know if it will do what they want
- Additional features won't work as expected
- How to counter these fears ?
- Unconditional money back guarantee
- Show the user exactly what they'll get in the full version
- Show ALL levels, but only let them play SOME

- It's imperative to include a button that launches the default browser to your order form
- Be very liberal with the "Buy Now" buttons
- Should never have to hunt for the order link
- Use "Get Now" instead of "Buy Now", because Get is more positively associated then Buy... (Rule 3)
- The more methods of payment, the better the sales
- Printable order forms

- Difference between features and benefits
- Features describe your product
- Benefits describe what the user will get by using your product
- Clearly illustrate benefits in nag screen
- Make your offer irresistable
- So much value it is harder to say no then yes.
- Would you buy it ?
- What additional benefits would put you over the top ?
- What bonuses can you throw in ?

Is it over-crippled? Are the incentives strong enough ?
- Gradually increase registration incentives over time
- Delay time on nag screen increases each time it runs
- Disable features at set intervals
- All the way to disabling key functionality
- Don't just completely disable it when the time is up
- Gradually degrade it's usability
- See products through your customers eyes


So ya... that's the breakdown. i hope you guys find as much use in it as I have. As I did in my last article, I would like to do an analysis... Last article I gave a couple examples of what Garagegames, and our fellow Torquer Joshua Dallman are doing right...

Garagegames seem to have a lot of this down pat with there sales sytem. However, rather then praise them, I am going to be bold and offer a couple suggestions (hoping not to offend anyone)... I am an amature. I just want to show how even someone like GG has room to improve. So off to the MarbleBlast page I go.........

First thing I found was the following statement: "We accept VISA, MasterCard, Personal Checks and Money Orders" ... If I have American Express, or I only deal with Paypal, then I am not going to be purchasing Marble Blast from GG... I can't see it being that difficult to make more options for payment available.

Second thing, it took me 3 clicks to actually get the demo to start downloading.. That is very good. Perhaps the newsletter sign up form could be jumped to after they click the download button, bringing it to 2 clicks... as getting a potential customer to download the demo can be as difficult as closing the sale and the newsletter sign up can distract them.

I won't go any further then that right now. Later I will post a breakdown of the demo, from a customers perspective (I have never played marble blast before)

Wow, that was painful to write...

I was going to be posting a small demo to the GG community soon, but now I realize that it would defeat the purpose of the demo, as I have nothing htey can purchase. I will, however, be posting a trailer.

Here is an image of Mathew Langley playing video games when he was a kid:

Burn buddy, BURN! ....... I'm just kidding. Dont crucify me, please!