Order page updates

1. Order form structure

The improved structure of the order form will optimize your conversion rate and increase sales, by simplifying the customer's shopping experience.

"Delivery information" will be displayed below the "Billing address" section in case your customer needs to specify a different address for delivery (see a screenshot below).



2. Coupons

Coupon mechanism has been improved to better handle the scenario of multiple coupon codes applied on the order page: the coupon with the largest discount will be applied to each product.

3. Customer trust on order pages

In order to provide the highest level of trust and security on the order pages we now use a VeriSign SSL Certificate. The green certificate is displayed in the URL address of each order page in order to increase customer's confidence.

Control panel updates

1. Product pricing

It is now easy to see our billable currencies and adjust your product's price to different markets according to the currencies we offer. These currencies are marked with an asterisk (*) in the product pricing section in the Control Panel.



2. Dynamic pricing for subscriptions is available

PayPro's recent update creates greater flexibility for subscription-based products; you can now dynamically change the subscription charges amount to make a quick adjustment without changing settings in your PayPro account.

If you would like to automatically change fees on a monthly basis, please contact us for PayPro API, a REST web service, offering great flexibility and advanced control over the ordering process.

3. Control panel access privileges

PayPro EasyCommerce provides 4 types of access level to the Control Panel. Using these you can grant you employee access to the Control Panel with control over what information they will be able to access. The following access levels can be added in the Permissions section in the Control Panel Profile: support, developer, manager and admin.

User name	Access restrictions
Support	Care Center and Store sections, can check orders
Developer	Technical settings, no access to Sales Data Center and Partners sections
Manager	Full access excluding profile settings
Admin	Complete control

The previous system update restricted support user's credentials: account balance, reports, graphics and last orders were hidden. Support user can now access Care Center and Store sections and check orders.

Smart Volume Discounting

In the January edition we demonstrated that a very basic feature such as cross-sales can be highly effective in online software sales.

In this edition we will discuss volume discount; different ways in which it can be done and how doing it right can increase your sales.

Factors to consider when creating volume discounts:

• Logic
• Visibility
• Optimization

Logic

Make sure that your product is something that makes sense to provide volume discount for. While any client will be happy to receive a volume discount, you need to think - will the client actually buy a larger quantity thanks to the volume discount? Sometimes it is better to provide a client with a coupon he can use on his next purchase, creating incentive to buy from you in the future.

For example, providing a volume discount on a car would make sense because of the slight chance the client will purchase another car. However, once he owns a car, providing a volume discount on the gas is definitely over doing it; you're basically giving away money, as he will definitely need to buy gas regardless of the discount.

A good volume discount must be offered for the appropriate products and the right clients.

Visibility

Why is making a volume discount visible so important? The idea of volume discount is to get the customer to purchase more than he or she would have purchased without the discount. Normally, people only give the discount to customers who they think are more likely to buy; but if they are intending to buy it anyway, it is just a waste of a discount, and might even hurt your business.

Make sure the value of the volume discount is presented on the website. If you are targeting home users, perhaps a "home license" type of presentation will be effective, as many people ponder the idea of buying an additional copy for the other computer they own.

On the order page make sure that the volume discount offer is near the product price area and that it is appealing, thus drawing customer's attention.

Once you have drawn the customer's attention to the discount offering column (meaning he's clicked on it) it is necessary to keep his focus on purchasing the additional copy of your product.

Here is a good example of keeping your client's focus on the volume discount offer:



Optimization

The 3 most important things to do when optimizing a product volume discount scheme:

1. Check how many items your clients usually purchase. If the norm is orders of 2 copies, then offering a volume discount for 2 copies will just make you lose money. On the other hand, if you start the volume discount offers on 3 copies or more, then you better the chances for getting good results.

2. Chose the right volume discount for you. We offer two volume discount options:

Regular - discount is applied to all purchased copies.



Progressive - you offer less discount and make more money as the discount is only given for the latter group of copies.



3. Provide a currency based volume discount. We provide you with the option of giving a volume discount per currency. Investigate the markets and offer increased discounts for the markets that have been proven to be more likely to seek volume discount. It may seem like a small change, but it actually increases revenues. Also, for expensive currencies you can give just a minor discount.

Public relations specialists make flower arrangements of the facts, placing them so that the wilted and less attractive petals are hidden by sturdy blooms.
Alan Harrington

Marina Maslovskaya is a director at SoftPressRelease, a PR agency offering comprehensive promotion services for web projects, software products and games via mass media in Russia, Europe and the US. Since 2003 the company has been recognized for its excellent work helping software businesses grow worldwide.

Marina is a very positive and cheerful person. We are happy to have had the opportunity to communicate with her.

- Marina, it is great you decided to share some tips on PR activities for software companies. Please tell us a little about yourself. As we know, you graduated from Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University. What made you choose the IT-industry over being a teacher?
Yes, you are right. I graduated from Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University, foreign languages department (at that time it was the best place to study foreign languages in Krasnoyarsk). When I was on my 2nd year of education, a friend of mine offered me a job at SoftPressRelease PR agency. Frankly speaking I was not familiar neither with PR nor IT industry. But I had a great will and interest to apply my knowledge of English language and learn new areas. Now I can say with certainty I made the right decision and I really like what I have been doing for 5 years already.

- In your opinion, what is PR for software companies and what is its role?
Public relations are the activities to create and support the positive reputation of the company. It is a promotion of products and services via different mass media channels to make consumers trust the company. Nowadays, IT-companies have to work on a market with strong competition and building a positive company brand plays a very important role.

- Could you please name the most crucial points any software business should consider when at first stages of PR activity?
IT-industry is a rapid growing industry and this fact has to be considered when starting out. It is important to constantly monitor the development of IT technologies all over the world.

There are a few questions that anyone would need to think about before starting PR activities:

1. Analyze the situation (where are you now?)
2. Define the goal (where do you need to go? What is your company sufficient for and what would highlight you among competitors?)
3. Think of a strategy (where will you go?)

These simple questions will help you estimate how much work needs to be done and plan your activities step-by-step.

- Could you please give advice on how to organize work with the press as it is also an important component of a PR campaign?
It is needed to know and consider specifics of a journalist's work. At first I'd like to tell what an IT specialist needs to do at the starting point of PR activities on his own - prepare a list of key mass media (printed and online). Carefully look through editors' contacts to ensure information is sent to the right people. It is recommended to regularly provide fresh information by distributing press releases, organizing press-events and interviews.

Don't send long press releases, editor won't read the complete text if nothing catches his eye in the 1st paragraph. Make sure text doesn't have any errors, use email instead of calling and quickly reply to the possible questions. Don't use the same message more than once. Try to build relationship with the press. Be open and polite.

- What components make a press release successful?
A successful press release is a combination of an interesting and original news item and a good-quality text.

It is important to choose the right news item and prepare it for a journalist - add an intriguing headline, text should be logical, have a good structure, and no errors. Text should not include any advertising content. Follow the requirements and for sure you will be noticed by the press.

- Besides press releases, what other PR tools should be used by software businesses?
Press release is one of the traditional PR tools. But don't forget about press conferences, press tours, seminars for clients and mass media, round tables. New tools include activities in the Internet such as web optimized press releases, company blogs, social communities, video presentations, and forums.

- When is the right time for a software business to start a PR campaign with a PR agency?
Before making a decision to do PR yourself or working with PR agency, try to evaluate your resources for creating targeted mass media data base, setting up relations with journalists, publication monitoring, and your writing skills.

There is an important note: PR specialists can't know more than IT-specialists about software products as well as IT-specialists don't know all the ways and tools for PR-campaigns.

- What are the common PR mistakes?
We have already talked about press release and its quality but I would like to highlight again that much attention should be paid to the text, don't send illiterate and illogical text.

There were examples when companies tried to distribute press releases with the same content within one month thinking that if the first try was not successful it would get better later. It is a huge mistake. Mass media monitors information to be sure it is new.

It is not recommended to distribute for instance press release in English if there is no localized version of the website. Foreign journalists won't spend time looking for relevant information.

Also, don't expect results right away. There is no way to make mass media accept the news. It all depends on them. The only thing you can do is to comply with the requirements and provide needed information.

Be active and you'll be noticed and talked about. PR is a set of activities that don't bring immediate results, plan your strategy, and be consistent and patient.

- I'm sure our subscribers would like to know about SoftPressRelease. Could you please generally tell what main methods are used, what tools have been proven to be effective in your practice?
Our services include not only one-time press release distribution but a complex work that we are doing for a few months or even years. It is a great pleasure to see the company's growth and popularity in mass media.

We offer services to distribute information about web projects, software and games in mass media of Russia, Europe and USA.

We create a targeted mass media data base for the project, write press releases and articles, distribute news items to magazines, news portals, websites. We also send information to bloggers, invite journalists to events organized by IT-companies, and interact with social communities. We communicate with journalists and regularly monitor the press. The work is organized in a way to ensure each journalist gets information the way he prefers.

- Is it possible to talk about an estimated result that can be predicted once you start managing PR activities for a company?
It all depends on the budget the company has for PR campaign and for how long and regular they partner with us. We monitor the press and even for a one-time press release distribution provide a detailed report. If the process is gradual, considering all requirements, providing interesting news items, you will be successful. We can't make journalists publish the news; we can provide the quality text to the right person and monitor how it goes.

Often experienced company leaders evaluate PR results in 6 months or even a year, and I think this is the right approach.

- Have you had any funny stories while working in the IT-industry?
We have seen many different stories and even have a special folder for this not to forget and loose these "masterpieces".

For instance, one client introduced himself:

"I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself - from Searchengines forum to Maul blog I'm Jork or some variations of this, in addition my cats also do blogging…" At the end he added, «Best regards, XXXX, P.S/ Wtke. d eirj», where he forgot to switch to the Russian keyboard :) IT-people are not boring :)

Or another story (we were doing press release distribution for a social network named Odnoklassniki).

A phone call:

- Hi, why do I have a strange pop-up on the Odnoklassniki social network?
- I'm sorry, who are you calling to?
- I need to resolve an issue with Odnoklassniki.
- Then you should contact Odnoklassniki support department.
- I see Marina Demidova, Polina Kondratyeva, is it you?
- Yes, but we are not Odnoklassniki. Sorry.
- So how to get rid of the pop-up?

These situations always made our day.

- Marina, what would you like to tell our subscribers?
We would like to wish all of you success in your promotion campaigns, interest to your company from press, constant contacts with journalists, more news items and events, publications, and of course patience while waiting for results.

- Thank you for your time and a great interview!