I own a financial newsletter publishing company and years ago we paid about a million for our own email software. We have improved it a great deal would like to sell it to other companies but I know next to nothing about doing so. Any ideas? My IT guys are much too busy to try to sell it.
There are large, well-established competitors in this space but still room for you to succeed. Does your software specifically meet the needs of your industry or own customer base? You can carve out a niche if it does. Can you integrate it with other industry software? If so, that is another route to go. A long-time former client built a sustainable business on software they purchased and then perfected for their industry, and others have enjoyed similar success, so it is not impossible to do.
There are a number of email marketing software options available now - what does your software do, specifically, that is not fulfilled in the market?
Unfortunately, at first glance, I would estimate that technology has probably been made widely available at a low price point since you purchased what you have now.
Happy to discuss more privately to explore how you can sell what you have.
-Shaun
There might be a lot of competition but that shouldn't discourage you. The best way to go about selling it would be to follow these steps:
1.Spend a significant amount of time for researching your competition & understanding whether or not the market is big enough and if there's an actual need for your product.
2. You'll need to perform a SWOT analysis on your product and compare it with the other software products in the same domain.
3. If your product does have something of value, try and understand your target market, i.e. whether your potential customers are early stage companies, large corporations, etc.
4. Figure out a price point. Determine whether you want to sell it at a higher price point and have a few firms purchase and use your product or choose a lower price point in order to get customers and make a profit based on economies of scale.
4. Once you've identified a target audience, give the product out for free, in the form of a trial or single use demo. Always use a sign up form in order to collect the details of your potential customers.
5. Create multiple channels of sale. You can sell directly to the companies or have them sign up on your website, or both. You can use social media advertising to drive customers to your website (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter).
6. Find other potential markets based on geographical location where such a product is not available or not as good as the solution you're offering.
In case you have any doubts or queries, feel free to contact me anytime.
Try starting a Kickstarter project.
List differences between your software + competing software.
You'll likely be able to tell rather quickly if you have a winning product.
Tough market. Would need some really compelling features and capabilities in order to compete but hopefully that is the case with that significant an investment. If you would like to discuss the potential please reach out to me. Having been a pioneer in the SaaS space I've mentored / advised a lot of companies on bringing their software to market.
My advice is to download the community edition of MAUTIC, the open-source (i.e. essentially free) marketing-automation application that competes with commercial applications like Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, etc).
If you discover that your email software has some significant technological advance over Mautic, then continue your search for answers.
If it does not, abandon the idea and go back to focussing on your core business.
Email marketing in its entirety has three components, direct email, retention email and email placed Ads. The market is extremely competitive, so when you go about selling your own stuff keep your prices low. You can also organize a survey and try to gauge the demands of the customers and which companies’ services in this field are popular. Sell it to them. Email marketing is not as simple as sending out a single, standard email to thousands of people on an email list. It involves planning and designing on your part, and it also involves getting customers to read and act.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
