@3 MARKETING YOUR PRODUCT @2 PART FOUR STEVE BYE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ @1 In this final instalment of Marketing Your Product I am going to take a look at selling your product on your own. This of course means you will have to deal with everything from designing and printing your label/manual/packaging, coughing up the dosh to advertise your product, dealing with the orders, keeping a record of sales for the taxman, dealing with users problems, copying the disks etc. It's a lot of work and means you will probably not have much time spare to start coding your next project. Of course there are no written rules that state you have to have a printed label or manual, a good ASCII doc file on the disk will do,, remember, if your program is complicated a lot of users will want to print it out so set up the disk so your customers can click on PRINT (from PPmore for example) to get a copy on to paper. @3 THE LABEL: --------- @1 The label isn't that important unless you are intending to release more titles. In this case I suggest knocking them up on your printer using one of the many label printing utils in the PD. It is possible to knock out some good one's even on a 9 pin dot matrix If you are going into the market in a big way you will want some professionally printed labels. When I started phoning printers all around the country I couldn't believe the outrageous prices they charge! Most printers charge for design and the making of a "Plate" this can cost anything up to £130 before you have a single label printed! Then there is the matter of colours, the more the merrier (for the printer) not for you! My advice is to look in your disk box for a nice quality printed label on a PD disk and give the library a ring and ask nicely where they get them done. This is what I did and I luckily stumbled on to Pete Topping of Your Choice PD, who also happens to be A.) An F1 distributer and B.) A printer as well as a PDL I can't quote a price but he will give you one of the best deals in the country! Call Pete on (061)881 8994. Another important factor is the disk itself, or more precisely how much you are paying for it. If you intend charging £15 or more for your product then you should use good quality disks, but if you are in the less than £15 range I would recommend getting disks from the cheapest place on planet Earth (as far as I can find anyway) The place to contact here is Direct Software, who deal in recycled coverdisks amongst other things. Now I half expected to have loads of labelled cover disks off unsold mags, but no, the disks appear to be brand new and have no labels on them. Admittedly this is not always the case, a few times I have had Ex-software house disks, once I had 100 copies of Silent Service on the Atari St! but now days when ordering I always ask for disks with no labels on and always get just that. The price of the disks at time of writing are 18p each if you buy 250 disks, and on your next orders you will be offered a freebie game (though they do not always honour it I am afraid, I have claimed 6 free games and only got one so far) If you want 100 disks you can get them for 20p a disk (£20) The disks are post/packaging free and come with labels. Phone Direct Software on 01908-379550. If you know of anywhere cheaper let me know. I doubt if you can though because I have scoured every advert in every mag I could find on the P.C/ST and Amiga. Don't forget Direct Software include all overheads in the price ie. P+P/delivery and VAT. Don't be fooled by some adverts that say 14p per disk then at the bottom in very small print "Exclusive of VAT+ delivery" or similar. @3 WHAT NEXT? @1 OK you have written your program and manual, sorted out your label and disk supply the next items you are going to need are stationary. for example: Jiffy bags/envelopes/compliment slip/flyer/stamps. Up until recently I have been getting jiffy bags at a silly price from a local warehouse that sells off insurance/fire damaged goods etc. For a jiffy that costs 35p in the Post Office I was paying 7p, that was until they ran out I stocked up quite well but we are starting to run low so I am scouting about for a similar deal locally and in the mags. Don't kid yourself, you will need jiffy bags as a disk in an envelope often gets mangled in the stamper, (doesn't it Mike!!) as I have found to my cost. So use a jiffy bag because you will have disatisfied customers sending back faulty disks, which is not good business, some may even ask for a refund. Not only that it will cost you in time and the expense of more disks/stamps/envelopes etc.So in a nutshell, shop around for cheap jiffies and don't use envelopes to send disks as they could turn out to be a false economy. You will be needing some envelopes though to send info to enquiries from potential customers. A lot of people will want to know more about your product and so you will have to have a flyer or info sheet ready. You can knock this up on your printer no-problem maybe even include a few b/w screen shots! Keep the info to one page though to make it easy and cheap to photocopy. Some people may have access to a photocopier at work or school (lucky barst's) If so, take advantage of it, as long as you won't get in trouble (Public service warning kids!), I am not even going to mention franking machines! While you are at it you may want to put a compliment slip in each customers jiffy, you don't have to but I think just a solitary disk as a reply isn't very nice for prospective future customers. On your printer you could print out a small slip like this: @3 Thankyou for your order, With Compliments @1 And sign it, you could put your company logo on it and use a nice font etc. to brighten it up. You should be able to fit about 10 of these slips onto an A4 sheet which can be copied and cut out, cheap and cheerful, yes, but can you afford to get them printed proper? Another point to consider is the taxman. If you are selling a one-off product and not likely to make much I doubt if you will be hassled, but I still think you have to declare something if you earn more than £60. I could be totally and utterly wrong here so it's your responsibiltiy to find out. If you are starting off a company and open a business account then you will be liable for taxes or at least to be scrutinized by them or through your accountant. Accountants are another commodity than can be shopped around for, the best accountant I ever had cost me £100 a year (mainly because I gave him well kept records) and he saved me a small fortune at the time. Just remember whenever you see an advert that says "cheques made payable Rab.C.Nesbitt" or whatever people know that you are not a proper company and so does the taxman. But to be honest I don't think you have to worry too much. Right then we have a product, we have the materials to deal with orders now all we have to do is let the punters know what we have for sale. First of all let's cover free publicity: Knock up a demo version and send it to all the big PD libraries, especially 17 bit. Send full versions to all magazines that review your type of product. If it's a game, send the demo to the Asassins, if a util to Fred Fish, (See Marketing part 3 in issue 3 for more details and addresses) Try and get into the news sections of mags, with "NEWS" of your new release. This is hard but I did it once with F1 in Amiga power and Amiga Format and the response was better than from our early adverts. Try to get your demo version on to bulletin boards (through a friend or college etc. if you don't have the kit) Etc. (see issue 3, I covered all this then) Then comes the hard bit, putting the dosh where your drive is! This is where any newcomers faith can waver tremendously. Pick up the phone and call the advertising department of all the Amiga mags and ask to be sent advertising copy dates and rates. The person that will answer (usually a woman) will be your best friend they will ask how life is for you and probably give you friendly "advice" play along and be nice because you will probably get some freebie mags sent to you but DON'T and I repeat D O N ' T agree to anything yet, your best phrase to use is "I will think about that!" Let me explain, the sales people at these mags are highly skilled experts in manipulation, if you are weak they will have you signing a years advertising in no time. I don't hate these people, most of them are genuinely nice, but their job is to sell advertising space and once you let them know who you are they won't let go. I had to tell a certain mag to "bugger off" once as they were phoning us up and badgering us all the time, they even said I had agreed to certain things I hadn't, things I would not of even been interested in doing. So just be careful what you say. but My main piece of advice here is that you: NEVER PAY WHAT THEY ASK FOR you can ALWAYS get an advert cheaper than what they offer it for. Sometimes I have had as much as 70% off, so barter and make out you are not bothered, you shouldn't be as there are plenty of Amiga mags about, and they know it! Remember also that most mags deal in prices excluding VAT which to us small timers means another 17.5% on top, £100 isn't the same as £117.50 if you could just afford the £100 in the first place. OK I won't go on about the advertising people too much as I have to deal with them sometimes, but I must say that Amiga Format are the most generous with freebies, charge the most for their adverts, are the hardest to knock down, BUT you get the best response. So, you have placed your advert(s) and done your promotional work. This is the point at which it all goes quite and you think you have made a BIG mistake, let me tell you, you may as well get on and start designing/coding your next product because it could be up to two months before anything happens as the magazines advertising deadlines are outrageously long. When your advert does enventually appear don't expect floods of orders because it is extremely unlikely. What is more probable is a slow trickle of 2-6 orders a day. Even on F1's best reviews we only get a trickle of orders in. I must admit when I placed and first advert in C.U Amiga I thought we would get 20 to 100 replies a day, I am afraid that was not the case, in fact I was ready to jack it all in until I talked to some PD libraries who said a trickle is the most likely result of a new advert by a new person or company. So, there you have it. In this series of four articles I have given you my OPINION on how to go about getting getting your product out there in Amigaland. Note that these articles are just they way I do things and are not necessarily the best or even correct way, but my way (sid!) I can accept no responsibility for anyone silly enough to take any notice of these articles or anyone who wears flared jeans or fluffy tank tops. If you feel you would like to add your experiences/tips/advice on this subject then this slot will be free next issue for your comments, so write in. @3 KEEP CODING DUDES.....Steve Bye.