So, I’m the marketing guy here. And that means that I’m supposed to find all sorts of ways to advertise and promote us and toot our horn, so that we can sell more software, and stay in business. But really, most days I kind of feel like a fraud when I think about that.
See, most of our customers have found us, and paid for annual plans, not because I told them how great we were, but because other customers of ours recommended us. In most school districts where we have one customer, we usually have 6 or 7 schools, plus a couple of other non-profits, and they all know each other, and these clusters were created by auction chairs there telling other auction chairs that they had a good experience with our software.
This is incredibly flattering, but not something that relies on my copywriting or media-buying skills. Still, it’s an amazing phenomenon, so we try to do whatever we can to stimulate it. A while back, we implemented a dual-bonus referral discount - so that if one of our customers recommends us to a new organization, and they become a customer, then each of those two customers gets a $100 discount - the existing customer can use that on their next renewal, and the new customer can use it immmediately, on their first-year annual plan. This has been incredibly successful; many of you have taken advantage. So now we’ve released a new tool to help make that easier - a Referral Wizard at the top of your auction-website’s Dashboard page that you can use to generate a promo code and email it to another auction chair you know. If they sign up and become a paying customer, the system will automatically send you your code when they do.
We also try to list our software on websites where real customers can go and review it, for other customers to read.Capterra is one of these; many of you found us through them. If you have a moment, would you also be willing to write a review for us? If so, we’ll thank you with a free rental for a box of card-readers for your next auction.
Thanks!
