Educational Software Cooperative 4/Educational Software Cooperative 4.iso/mxdb/software/extra/mxguide2.txt

Text File | 1995-05-31 | 5.5 KB | 108 lines

--------------------What is the Majority Market ?----------------------

The purpose of the MX shareware database is to expand your market.  Not
so much by increased distribution of information, although this will
happen, but by giving you the means to present the KIND of information
the MAJORITY of the market needs to make a buying decisions.

"Crossing the Chasm", by Geoffrey A. Moore, is an eye opening book on
high tech marketing.  He explains why failure follows success in
technology markets.  Using his work, we will see how the market can be
segmented by the type of information each group needs to make buying
decisions.  It will become clear why current shareware information can
only hope to reach 3% of the public.  LetÆs find out how to reach at
least 50%.

---------------------------Segmented Markets--------------------------

"Each group represents a unique psychographic profile - a combination of
psychology and demographics that makes its marketing responses different
from those of the other groups."

<1>  Innovators
"Innovators pursue new technology products aggressively. They sometimes seek them out even
before a formal marketing program has been launched."

This is a very small group, perhaps no more than 3% of the market.  I
place those that browse on- line shareware resources and randomly try
shareware in this group.  These people are largely responsible for
phenomena where a new shareware product sees many early downloads but
virtually no sales.  Little money will be made even if you successfully
sell to a large portion of the Innovators.  Of course, Innovators are
key people in getting word out about new products.


<2>  Early adopters
".......  Because early adopters do not rely on well-established
references in making these buying decisions, preferring instead to rely
on their own intuition and vision, they are key to opening up any
high-tech market segment."

The above quote is phrased in terms of technology adoption.  For our
purposes it refers to those willing to adopt a software product without
someone else giving it the green light.  This group may represent the
core of existing shareware market.  Innovators and Early adopters
together represent about 6% percent of the market.  Since shareware can
only hope to reach half of the total market, they actually represent
12-14 percent of the potential.  You have a reasonable chance of selling
to this group if the product is sound, meets a real need and manages to
get noticed.

<3>  Early majority
"The early majority share some of the early adopter's ability to relate
to technology, but ultimately they are driven by a strong sense of
practicality.  They know that many of these newfangled inventions end up
as passing fads, so they are content to wait and see how other people
are making out before they buy in themselves."

Again, this quote is geared to adoption of new technology which is a
different issue altogether but it does represent a market segment frame
of mind.  This group is heavily dependent on perceived previous success.
They will have to see mention of a product in several places, perhaps
over years, and repeatedly hear others say a particular product is the
way to go.  This market, plus the previous two, comprises 50% of the
overall market and probably 100% of sharewareÆs potential.

The remaining two segments, Late Majority and Laggards, represent the
other half of the market.  The Late Majority will only adopt the
industry leader and Laggards want nothing to do with new technology at
all.  This half of the market is effectively out of shareware's reach.
Only PKZIP, to my knowledge, has penetrated the Late Majority by its
market leadership.



The book, "Crossing The Chasm", points out that you CAN NOT reach the
next market segment in the same fashion as the previous ones.  You must
address each market segment on its own terms or fail.

There is resistance to accepting this.  Programmers are probably in the
early adopters segment.  You understand software and therefore
comfortable making your own decisions.  It's hard to understand why the
majority of the market isnÆt the same.  Keep in mind the majority market
is not comfortable making their own choices.  The farther one moves down
the Technology Adoption Life Cycle bell curve, the greater the need for
assurances.  The more effective your promotional materials are at
providing assurances, the larger the market.  Simple right ?

Current shareware information services do not provide enough information
to accomplish much of anything beyond announcing your product's
existence.  The MX shareware database helps you reach the full market
potential by providing you with unlimited space to represent your
software.  The database gives users the search tools to quickly locate
those products with good information so your efforts will not be lost
amongst the masses.

Currently, no such service exists outside of this one.  This has serious
consequences for the industry.  The majority market segment will dismiss
the whole shareware industry if no resource exists providing the
required information for buying decisions.  Our marketing task is to
provide the information necessary to assure the majority market that our
software is the right choice.  The majority market needs a degree of
ease and comfort we are not presently giving them.

In the next article I will detail what we can do, information wise, to
provide the majority market with the comfort they require.