Last week I did something I swore I’d never do again. As an experiment we made a single computer license of WinPatrol PLUS available for 99 cents. This is commonly the price you pay for apps on your phone so I wanted to find out how expectations of price have changed.
The last time I tried this experiment the number of upgrades was more than expected and our ability to handle the rush of new members wasn’t adequate. This time was a little better although I am still spending the week making sure everyone received their code and answers to questions.
The Emails I received have been some of the most positive I’ve read. We apparently have had a lot of loyal users of WinPatrol FREE Edition who welcomed this great opportunity. I also heard from a number of new fans who had never heard of WinPatrol and wondered why they missed such a useful tool. There were a few over excited fans who didn’t understand that each 99 cent purchase generated a single code which I tried to make clear in the original offer description. Everyone agreed this was a great deal and many took advantage of the discounted Family Pack license.
One of the good and bad changes in this experiment was the use of alternate download sites. To reduce the stress on WinPatrol.com I pointed our downloads to trustworthy download sites which had our current setup program. While it helped reduce the problems of our last experiment, these download sites can be confusing and some might say deceptive. If you’re not careful it’s easy to download one of their paid advertisers instead of the program you want. The sites I chose were some of the easier to use.
Special thanks to everyone who spread the news of the sale. Our biggest rush resulted from an article by CNet’s “The Cheapskate” Rick Broida who wrote, “it gives Windows tinkerers a robust set of tinker-tools, yet has a footprint of less than 1MB. Also, creator Bill Pytlovany comes across as just a regular guy who wrote a program, not some faceless developer.” Thanks Rick. I should explain that our “goofy, Windows 95-era interface” is designed not only for performance but mostly to support accessibility devices like screen readers. I am guilty and not proud of the “Internet 1.0-era Web site” because we don’t have the revenue of even rogue software developers who can afford to hire real web designers.
Thank you to all our 7000+ new WinPatrol PLUS users. It seems 99 cents is a price people accept. I hope WinPatrol exceeds your expectations and Scotty takes good care of you. If you’re happy and you know it, feel free to tell your friends.
0 comments:
Post a Comment