Marketing: take 'time-in-use' data into account in your demo period

[overhishead]

Greetings,

There are so much great applications on the market, but a lot of potential customers are part time hobbyists in the application's milieu, and therefore do not spend much time per week or per month on their PC 'making beats' for example.

Some protection schemes offer a 2 week demo period, which is the result of a great deal of evolution and marketing research, but it's been a turnoff for even myself to approach often quite deep software products in a brief encounter here or there to tweak a parameter or two, then when i remember the product out of the sea of competition, and the demo period expires by the next time I try it.

This forces me to (just for example) use my DAW's plugins to do a sound design task I might occasionaly wish to try on a demo plugin, when that plugin has said auf wi3ders3h3n.

My suggestion and point in this brief is to consider looking at "Time-in-use" based data in your protection scheme to give a reasonably proportional exposure time for your software to create its impression on the user.

(If this idea is not for you, please pardon me and thanks for your time.)

[camsr]

It's a good idea, but how might something like that be done?

[FabienTDR]

It's a good idea, but how might something like that be done?

Yes, the idea sounds like a mandatory internet connection or similarly "heavy" schemes.

I'd recommend something different. Rather than wasting time on features purely aimed to trouble the end-user, consider releasing a free standard edition together with a paid "pro" edition. A nicely working free plugin is a very intense "ad-space". And excellent PR.

The scheme works great for us and in particular, our users. We can spend most of our time with the interesting part of DSP.