PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows marketing observation

In reading through posts on this forum, posts on forums for other music software, and advertisements for music software in general, I've noticed some trends that might be useful in a marketing sense.

In general, users of all products have conflicting attitudes about upgrades. On one hand, they want to be on the cutting edge, but they have limited cash for upgrades, and almost everybody who makes music electronically uses more than one program (each of which offers regular upgrades)

The dilemma for developers is that, unless they can retain the loyalty of their customers by offering new value (as perceived by the customer) at EVERY upgrade, there is a high likelihood that customers will divert their upgrade dollars to another product.

Best case is that your customers are so loyal that they upgrade every time.
Next best case is that they upgrade "regularly" to stay within a version or two
worst case is if the customer decides to get by with an older version and stop upgrading altogether.

So the KEY is to keep people current as easily as possible without forcing the question of whether they can afford to PAY to stay.

Having said that, I am intrigued by FL Studios "lifetime free update" plan. This approach completely solves the customer loyalty question, because once you're in you can always be current, and you'd be foolish to walk away from lifetime free updates by abandoning the product.

So the question arises: How to they generate new money? I think they do it by selling their proprietary plugins, effects, samples, instruments etc. They have literally hundreds of cash generating products that are highly desirable to people who own their core product.

A similar situation exists for PGMusic. You offer free DL patches which bring any previous version up to the current version already. People really upgrade to get the proprietary real tracks, styles and companion products.

If you were to offer lifetime free updates (and you already do for the core program, you just don't advertise it in those terms) it would accomplish the following advantages:

1) it would eliminate (or greatly reduce) the possibility that people would abandon the product

2) With smaller payouts, more people could afford to buy into the product, which would increase market share. It would shift the cash flow model from a reliance on fewer sales at higher amounts to more sales of smaller amounts, at whatever margin you choose. (If you want a million dollars, Its always easier to sell a million things for a dollar each than it is to sell one thing for a million dollars, because there are more people who have a dollar to spend than there are people who have a million dollars to spend)

3) The upgrade path would shift to ACCESSORY packages, that can be custom tailored to individual taste. People who were reluctant to pay for bluegrass real tracks when all they really wanted are Jazz real tracks would not feel like thay had to buy stuff they don't want. An EVERYTHING PAK might include all styles real tracks and accessory programs. A BLUEGRASS PAK might include all the country and bluegrass styles and realtracks plus the flatpick guitar licks etc etc

4) smaller transactions would make it feasible to deal mostly by download, which would eliminate the cost of the USB drives, except for new customers.

SUMMARY:
1) start advertising "Lifetime free updates" (to the core program)

2) sell newly released realtracks for approximately what you currently get for an upgrade, so your current cash flow would not change

3) emphasize the individual sale of accessory programs, effects and styles/real tracks, and also the availability of specialty packages to make initial purchase easy (bluegrass, country, pop, jazz, MIDI only, RT only etc. could all have a unique entry level package)

4) packages could come bundled in a variety of ways.. Jazz package could come with or without JABB, any package could come with or without FORTE DXi etc)

you already do ALL of this... the only real change would be to publicly say "lifetime free updates to the core program". I think the change in customer's perception of being a lifetime member of the PG community would have enormous implications. And offering a variety of low priced specialty entry level packages would get more people in the club. Those who buy in at a reduced package price would have many upgrade purchasesto make.

The forum creates a good excitement builder to make people want more than they currently have. It's human nature to want more pie once you've taken the first bite.