How to Sell Software?

One of the most successful and simple-to-establish companies is selling software, which may generate substantial profits. If you’re wondering why, consider that you don’t need to worry about managing inventory. However, there are other factors, and we’ll discuss them in the following sections.

Selling software online requires a golden strategy and effort to achieve a profitable business. If you don’t know where to start, just ask yourself the following questions to start the journey:

• Who are your customers?
• Which software product would you like to sell?
• How do you plan to reach your potential customers?

Remember that having an exceptional app or software never guarantees your success. Instead, the key to success is a powerful sales department that can skillfully introduce and explain your software products to potential clients.

A sales professional can supercharge your software introduction to come to the forefront and become a well-known solution among consumers.

What Are the Main Advantages of Selling Software?

Within the software industry, you will have several benefits unique to this type of business.

• Low overhead costs: No raw materials are needed to sell software online, and the main requirement is your knowledge and expertise to start marketing and selling software programs. More importantly, you don’t need to pay for storage and warehousing. High packing costs are not required, and delivery is very cost-efficient in selling software programs.
• Higher profit margins: An exceptional profit margin is one of the most appealing benefits of selling software tools. Physical materials and products usually need more overhead costs, resulting in low profit margins. When it comes to software products, there is an excellent opportunity to make cutbacks and increase revenue.
• Scaling up: Scaling up the software business is very easy, while it is problematic in the case of physical products. You can entirely concentrate on providing the highest quality because, for instance, you don’t have to worry about natural disasters heavily affecting your business.
• Adding features: Adding more features to a software program doesn’t cost much effort or money compared to physical products. So you can design a new plan and offer additional features to expand your business whenever you want. 
• Ability to work remotely: If you have decided to start a business in the software industry, you can get things done from the comfort of your home. It’s not necessary to rent or buy a physical storefront. If you want to expand your business, there is a chance to start an office in the future.
• Unlimited income: Starting to sell software programs is an inherently high-profit business. It doesn’t have a limit in terms of increasing income, and it’s up to you to have more revenue. You can choose from high-profit software programs and turn your efforts into a lucrative business.
• High demand: Online businesses, especially in the software industry, are growing rapidly, with increased demand for using software tools to optimize business workflows and have efficient processes. Nowadays, companies use software tools to make processes easier and faster.
• Enter popular sales platforms: Online platforms such as Amazon and eBay allow you to offer your products to customers and sell software on a million-user eCommerce platform. For example, as a software sales professional, you can sign up for Amazon and reach your potential customers in a few minutes.

Different Types of Software Products

One of the key benefits of the software industry is the wide variety of software solutions from which to select and start a successful business. Here we have formed a complete list of software products that provide high incomes to developers and sales professionals.

1. System Software

System software is designed to run a computer’s hardware or interact with hardware. Operating systems are the best examples of system software you can start selling. System software tools control a computer’s fundamental functions and workflow, so they are essential for any user to buy and install on hardware.

Want to start a profitable business and sell software online? Software as a Service (SaaS) is one of the profitable industry sectors. Delivering applications over the internet has become advantageous as it doesn’t require much effort and cost to deploy and deliver.

2. Gaming and Entertainment

The gaming industry has seen a significant rise in recent years due to the massive improvement in hardware and programming tools. Selling entertainment software is an exciting business as more users are willing to experience playing games on the latest platforms.

Note that the gaming industry is worth about $300 billion, and more than 3 billion people worldwide play video games. Simply put, you have an unlimited opportunity in the gaming industry to increase your income and access a never-ending business opportunity.

If you’ve decided to dive into entertainment field, take a look at this article on the best gaming website templates.

3. Mobile App

Can you imagine the number of mobile applications available on popular app stores? It’s good to know there are more than 2.8 billion apps available for the Android OS with over 6.3 billion smartphone users.

Working as a software sales professional on mobile apps is a fruitful business. It provides an easy working environment for you and actually doesn’t need many costs and effort to sell software.

When building a business, an essential fact is the monetization strategy. Fortunately, you can access a wide range of monetization options for mobile application tools.

4. Enterprise Software

The market size for enterprise and organizational software tools has reached the sky in recent years, and more businesses are shifting to make the most of technology solutions nowadays. You can make more than $100,000 a year by focusing on delivering the most effective software solutions to large businesses and enterprises.

Examples of enterprise software would be customer relationship management (CRM) Software, project management tools, and marketing automation

5. Engineering Software

Engineering software is a toolset that provides computational, analysis, and simulation features and focuses on delivering fast, efficient, and precise analytics to engineers. Most engineering companies run into trouble without software tools and generally can’t perform daily tasks.

Many engineering software developers worldwide offer their products with monthly or yearly subscription plans. More importantly, you will find a high-demand market for using these types of solutions among engineering companies.

In line with the rising demand, the market size is about to grow significantly as these software products have been integrated into almost all engineering projects worldwide.

6. Education Software

Education software refers to any computer or mobile program that facilitates learning and offers new solutions in the education industry.

Let’s start by explaining classroom management tools that have become an essential part of the education industry. It helps teachers and students have a high-quality learning opportunity and perform tasks as easily as ABC.

Additionally, you can focus on other sectors to sell software, such as language learning software tools. It is worth noting that language learning products are among the most popular and in-demand software tools, offering high revenue to retailers and developers.

Check out this article if you’re interested in how to sell online courses.

7. Website Themes and Plugins

Web development has seen remarkable market growth in the last decade. With the arrival of new web development technologies, we can now develop better platforms and integrate almost all features into a website using plugins.

It can be lucrative to sell software and website themes since many companies are switching to eCommerce solutions to expand their marketing frontlines. You can see examples of best WordPress themes and have they are marketed and sold by their developers.

What Are the Requirements to Start Selling Software Online?

There are certain requirements and preliminary work that must be done before starting online software sales:

• Test before releasing: After finishing the development process, your software product must be tested completely by you and real users. This will unveil many errors that were unexplored during the development process.
• Provide a highly detailed description: A well-defined description plan is of the essence for introducing a software product. You must underline your product’s main features and point out that there is a high value in buying this product for customers.
• Include screenshots: Screenshots make descriptions easier to understand. Let people see your software or application through illustrative screenshots and check its features before downloading.
• Pricing plans: Software providers have several pricing options, giving users licenses for monthly or yearly subscriptions. You need to specify the type of licensing to sell software, and it’s up to you to set different pricing plans, such as a base, standard, and premium plan.
• Offer trial version: It’s crucial to offer a trial version, especially for new software products. If you don’t provide a free trial, you’ll turn away customers interested in learning more about your product before making a purchase decision. You can offer an online version deployed on cloud platforms so customers can test your software and check all the features in a few minutes.
• Knowledge base: Offering a knowledge base and including more instructions about your software can increase sales and help potential customers understand the different features of your software product. You can make use of email platforms, webinars, phone calls, or forums to establish seamless customer support.

A Quick Guide on How to Start Selling Software

Entrepreneurs with no background in the software industry face significant risks by venturing into the field. The primary and most obvious reason for this is that if things don’t go according to plan, you could lose every dollar and hour spent on the project.

Here, we’ll show you the actions to take to start selling software successfully and expand your customer base.

1. Know Your Target Market

Let’s start by determining the audience and the market where you want to sell software products. Think about what software you can sell in the target market and which software makes sense to offer to customers.

Spend time learning about your potential customers since a software product tailored to a specific market may allow for fast growth.

2. Prepare a Professional Version for Market Introduction

The second step to selling software online is getting the software ready for sale. Define what makes your software product unique and why people need to buy it.

Answering these questions at this stage ensures you have a good customer base and your business sells well in the target market.

Note that people buy a product that solves their problems and adds value. So, before getting started, conduct thorough market research to ensure you’re providing the best solution possible for your consumers.

3. Pick a Trustworthy Platform and Launch Your Project

It’s no secret that every online business needs an eCommerce platform to introduce the software and start selling the product. Many platforms offer unique plans for entrepreneurs, so you can sign up and have your dedicated profile to manage your products all in one place. For this purpose, Amazon or other eCommerce platforms lend you a hand to start entering the digital market.

After starting your business on such platforms, you can take a step further and establish your online platform in the future. For example, starting to sell software online on Amazon is the best way to understand the market and create a better platform for yourself in the future.

4. Study Your Sales Performance

Analyzing performance gives good insight into how you should update or change strategies after a while. Therefore, monitoring performance and current results are essential to building a future-proof marketing plan.

No one has a golden strategy in the first step of starting a business. Instead, it comes when you focus on monitoring and optimizing your marketing and business plan details.

5. Create Your Own Website

You can boost your revenue and get an increased number of customers by creating a dedicated eCommerce platform. It’s time to know when you need to create such a platform to sell software tools and benefit from online marketing practices.

To introduce your business and products, you must consider a dedicated website and start selling software on your own platform. It’s because your business may fall behind compared to your competitors, and an online platform is essential to offer excellent customer support and additional features that can improve sales.

If are going to design your own website, here is our guide on how to make a WordPress website.

What Is Customer Service and Why Is It Important?

Customer service is the process of communicating directly with consumers in order to learn about their experiences and provide appropriate responses to their feedback.

Keep in mind that without good customer service, there can be no success or business. Customer service helps you offer great software tools and supports your customers before and after buying a product.

Moreover, good customer service creates loyalty, improves the brand image, and increases profit. Remember that all successful businesses have a unique customer relationship management service and define their pathway based on what customers say.

Understanding your customers points you in the right direction and leads your company to benefit from the enhanced satisfaction you could provide for your customers.

So, don’t forget to take a look at our article on the best customer service, support & chat plugins.

Get Ready to Design a Reliable Marketing Plan to Sell Software

To sell software programs, you need an effective and reliable plan that makes sense and guides you to success. Effectiveness means you profit more and deliver the best services to your customers. Remember that success depends on how you figure out the marketing plan and which marketing channels you use to introduce your products.

Here are some of the crucial questions you must answer clearly in your marketing plan:

• Which products do I offer?
• What are my marketing objectives?
• What is the detailed marketing strategy to sell software?
• Who are my potential customers?
• What are the estimated costs for executing my marketing plans?

A marketing plan should outline practical steps needed to reach success. All in all, there are five major components related to a good marketing plan to sell software tools online:

1. Do market research: Do good market research to understand which type of software tools are well adapted according to your goals. There are a wide variety of programs you can start selling online, but some of them provide more profit and don’t require much effort to get started.
2. Set clear goals: Your marketing effort must be based on clear objectives, which have been defined at the first step. Note that you shouldn’t be ambitious when defining your business objectives. Don’t daydream if you want success; define clear, reliable, reasonable, and realistic goals.
3. Think about different marketing channels: Take all marketing channels into account and scrutinize them to choose the most effective one. Connecting with your customers through different channels helps you expand your business and make the most of online marketing to sell software online.
4. Plan your budget: Marketing budgets are often limited, so you have to take stable steps and devise a wise marketing plan. You can specify the marketing budget for the most successful marketing channels and prioritize objectives. More importantly, monitor the results for better budget planning in the future.
5. Monitor results: Along with continuing to sell software online or offline, look out for results and check your business success. Tracking results help you identify how your business is working and what changes are required in the future.

5 Best Tools to Help You Sell Software Online

Online marketing needs digital tools to manage all tasks and sell software. By checking the list of online sales tools, you will find a wide range of useful software packages that help you sell software, providing marketing, delivery, customer support, and customer analytics strategies.

The following list includes the most popular software tools that facilitate online sales.

1. Zendesk Sell

Zendesk CRM platform is an all-in-one tool for managing customer relationships and making data-driven decisions.

Every sales manager should have a CRM tool like Zendesk that simplifies creating unlimited email templates and provides full insights into sales and marketing.

2. HubSpot Sales Hub

HubSpot Sales Hub is an easy-to-use platform for managing and handling customer relationships with many features.

This tool offers free and several paid plans that provide all the tools needed for building customer relationships.

3. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email automation tool that offers the most straightforward method for saving user emails and starting email campaigns.

It provides a full-featured platform to run ad campaigns and gives you all the tools for email marketing and selling software.

4. Salesflare

Salesflare is a user-friendly software tool for small-type businesses that is one of the best solutions for B2B selling.

It maintains contact information and integrates with the most popular sales tools, such as Mailchimp, and HubSpot.

5. Google’s Products

Google can help you make the most of marketing budgets and monitor almost everything after running an online campaign.

You can set up Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic and use Google Ads to set up and run highly optimized marketing campaigns. The unique value of these Google tools is in their data, which can be used to fine-tune marketing strategies and, ultimately, increase revenue.

Final Thoughts

Starting to sell software online is a profitable business with a few limitations, but it offers a wide range of possibilities. If you want to sell software and create an online business, there are a few considerations in order to achieve maximum efficiency.

Note that creating a business plan and marketing strategy is essential to succeed, and there is a need to make use of digital tools to generate more opportunities and get things done sooner.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much money can I make from my software as a business owner?

• This highly depends on the software niche and the idea behind the software. Still, with only one senior and five to seven junior developers working for you on a good software idea, you can expect to bring in between $35,000 and $71,000 each and every month.

What is the process of selling software programs to customers?

1. The software industry consists of different fields, and you need to choose the type of industry you want to focus on.
2. Your software program must solve the current challenges of customers and businesses to succeed.
3. As a business owner, the process starts with writing a foolproof plan, and you can then follow up with designing and coding the software.
4. You should offer a free trial to customers and provide a good customer relationship channel.
5. A good marketing plan is needed to introduce your software program to customers.

Is selling software programs a high-paying job position?

• Yes absolutely. There is a range of high-paying sales jobs, including software sales. If you want to sell software and make more money, consider the gaming industry, enterprise software tools, and security software programs.

How can I market and sell software programs?

• Marketing is as important as the development process, which needs much effort to design a good plan. Follow these steps to introduce your software in a good way:
  • Write a clear and accurate description of your product.
  • Make screenshots that demonstrate the main features.
  • Provide a free trial plan, or better way, a free-to-use version.
  • Create a knowledge base and well-defined documentation of your software.
  • Start using different marketing channels and be present on social media platforms.

What kind of software programs can I sell?

• Security software.
• Website themes, templates, and plugins.
• Games and entertaining tools.
• Tax programs.
• Children’s learning software.
• Video and audio editing software.
• Foreign language learning software.
• Enterprise software tools such as ERP, CRM, SCM, etc.