However skilled or innovative you may be as a programmer, you need to find clients if you want to earn money from the program you have built. Understanding how to market your software, whether it's selling off-the-shelf programs to those who need them, or finding a niche market that has needs your program can meet.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Selling Ready-to-Use Programs
Step 1. Identify the class of problems your program solves or why it is worth buying
It could be an RPG (RPG) for a smartphone, a simple no-nonsense spreadsheet program, or some other type of software.
- If you created the software yourself, check the Terms of Service for the websites you uploaded it to or registered for sale to make sure you still have the rights to sell it.
- If you have purchased the rights to resell the program, please read all of the terms to make sure you are familiar with all rights and limitations relating to the sale of the program.
Step 2. Find out who would be interested in your program
A fan of quest games using a smartphone might like your RPG. Meanwhile, a small business owner who just wants to record his income might prefer a very simple spreadsheet, without those frills he might get bogged down with using one of the commercial spreadsheets.
Step 3. Prepare a marketing plan that will help you target the market segment that may be interested in your program
Are there any websites that people frequent that make up your target market, which might allow you to post a comment on your program, or someone who writes reviews on the type of software you have programmed?
Step 4. Examine the market
You need to know the competition and the prices they charge.
- If there are no programs similar to yours to refer to, evaluate the costs of the program in relation to other software similar to yours, even if related to other sectors, if any.
- If your program is the simplified version of another, take into account the price of the full version when deciding the price of yours.
Step 5. Decide how prospective buyers will receive the program files
Do you want to sell the software from your website so that they can download it? In that case, your site will need to have adequate bandwidth from the moment the program begins to gain public acceptance. Do you prefer to rely on another site to distribute it, with the risk that some potential buyers, irritated, choose not to buy it?
Step 6. Prepare a website that uses a shopping cart through which you will sell your program, allowing buyers to choose whether to download it directly or perhaps receive it on CD-ROM
Step 7. Get to work and start implementing the marketing plan that will allow you to market your program
Method 2 of 2: Plan the Program to Sell
Step 1. Examine the target market
Who is it made of, what does it want, what does it want, and what does it need?
Step 2. Develop a marketing plan for the type of market you have identified, for the people you will be targeting, and for the needs that a program might meet
Step 3. Build the program or procure the rights to sell software that meets the needs of the market you have identified
