You’ve got a great idea, and you’re hoping to get the most money out of it. However, even with the best software package in the world, you won’t be earning much if you don’t follow a few basic pre-launch steps. Here is a software pre-launch checklist — six things you have to do.
In today’s world, being well-prepared is everything.
Here is what you need to take care of in order to get the big bucks.
Who’s Who
There are three factors you have to define:
- Your target audience — who is the product for? How old are they? What do they do? Why do they want it? How is it going to satisfy their biggest need?
- Your competition — can you learn something from them? What do you have that they don’t?
- Yourself — define your image and your brand. Today, a well-defined brand makes or breaks a business. Millennials are the most brand-loyal generation we’ve seen so far. Sure, the quality of the product is what makes the customers stay, but you have to attract them first.
Early Domain Bird
Think about the ideal name for your software and reduce the options to a couple. Conduct some market research to find out which name resonates best with your audience. Once that is done, hurry up and get your domain and site ready and working online.
You should have your domain secured and be checking it off the list — even if the official launching day is still far away.
Testing, Testing
Quality assessment can be done in several ways. For example, you can outsource to a software testing company to conduct manual testing of your product. You might discover that you’ve overlooked some details — or your targets may praise some qualities you didn’t think of promoting in your marketing campaigns. After testing, you’ll know the right things to put in your software.
Testing is just one of many QA strategies that you could employ, and it’s not all about the customers or parts of your software. You should establish a quality culture among your workers as well. Find ways how to motivate the employees to dedicate to delivering the highest quality.
Train the Team
Depending on the software you’re creating, informative client support can represent the turning point. Some software options are taken for granted and customers mainly decide on the price and a couple of features offered.
The big players, however, wish to know much, much more. Educate your team to be able to answer all the impossible questions. Your team deserves to know all the details, advantages, and downsides, in order to be able to provide the best arguments.
Marketing Matters
How can you attract new clients?
Think special offers and free trials to get the word out. But first, your software package must seem appealing. Work on your logo and employ the best designers. As we have said before, branding is extremely important. Apple’s logo is not just a lucky coincidence.
Font psychology is nothing to be sneezed at. The shapes and colors send irrevocable messages.
Strategic Plan
Don’t wait to see how things turn out for you. Just like planning the launch, you should also have a plan ready for everything that follows. Whether the sales go up or down, you should know how to react.
For instance, if the sales are doing extremely well, how are you going to invest the money? Conversely, if the sales are down, you must have new sale techniques ready in advance, or perhaps calculate the time needed to make alterations to the software package.
Final Words
As you can see, there’s a lot of work ahead of you. Get down to it, and start checking things off our list as soon as possible. Make sure you check all of the items on your list. Ask other people’s opinions and consider them.
Have a solid business plan and follow it. Skipping a step can only backfire. Don’t lose the game of your software in the pre-launch — even before you started playing.
