Marketing Your Shareware

Juwanna Kumiko — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 02:50:49 +0000

And the rules are *still* centered around marketing, no matter what your OS choice. The marketing issues include “are there enough people in this OS market for me to find customers?” and “market size aside, what percentage of these folks are qualified to buy my product — for instance, they don’t already have a competing application?” Shareware is just a distribution method; it doesn’t change the rest of the business issues you have to contend with.

I’m not sure that I’d go so far as to say that the majority of OS/2 users are not net enabled, but I agree that the online contingent is not always representative of the full marketplace. (Thankfully.
) For instance, a very high percentage of IBM’s target market for OS/2 — those corporate folks — do not hang out in an OS/2 newsgroup or putter around on Hobbes. Quite a few don’t know such
things exist. Now, when you *can* manage to sell your product to them, they’re apt to buy hundreds or thousands of licenses at a time; the guy who wrote the (shareware) OS/2 chron had a tidy little business for a while. Reaching those IBM corporate customers isn’t easy, though, and it isn’t going to happen without some kind of marketing.

In fact, that’s one of the many reasons for the WarpTech conference: to give OS/2 users, of whatever user type, a place to gather, and a place to learn about the OS/2 applications available. It’s called _an exhibit floor_.

Raising Money For Your Non-Profit

Juwanna Kumiko — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:50:02 +0000

Raising contributed income for non-profit organizations requires much more than selling commercial products and services to make money. Such programs have their place, but most organizations simply cannot generate enough income from them to meet all their needs.

I am made increasingly aware of the conflict many non-profit organizations experience when faced with choosing between raising the money they need using a traditional philanthropic process, and making a
profit from selling and endorsing commercial products and services.

The number and variety of selling opportunities presented to non-profit organizations, especially through the Internet, is growing rapidly. All too often, the advertisements for those products and services make outrageous and misleading promises of big and easy money to needy and vulnerable non-profits.

There is nothing wrong with selling a commercial product or service to help support a non-profit organization if: the profit gained is worth the effort; It neither restricts nor replaces the far more effective and time-proven philanthropic process; it is additional and complimentary to their regular fund-raising, not as a replacement or alternative to it.

In a new article just posted on my website, I suggest nine key questions which officials of a non-profit organization should ask themselves when considering selling a product or service. And should they choose to sell a vendor’s products or services, I further suggest that they insist the vendor provide them with the answers to five questions before they enter into a contract.

Marketing Lounge

Marketing Your Shareware

Raising Money For Your Non-Profit