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More thoughts on micro vs macro donations and the turning point for donationware

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barney:
Marketers have known for centuries what psychologist have only recently discovered  ;D, to wit, all personal disbursement decisions are emotional.  Regardless the amount of intellectual investigation and research, the actual buy moment is an emotional, not rational, decision.

Many folk consider marketing to be somehow demeaning, not realizing that they use it on a daily basis.  (Every time you try to convince someone else of some concept you favour, you are marketing.)  Selling software, however it is done, is an exercise in marketing - and the success or failure is seldom based upon the efficacy of the software so much as the perception of the software.  (If you doubt that, consider how Windows and Office became the defacto standard for businesses and most of us mere plebes.)

The whole donationware concept is a matter of presentation and perception:  if marketed properly, it will succeed; poorly, it will fail.  Many good and thoughtful points have been raised in this thread, but the ultimate decision to part with lucre is an emotional decision on the part of the one who holds it.  As long as you bear that in mind during your presentation, you will succeed.  The only decision that needs making is the how of the presentation  :P.

steeladept:
I just like to point out that this is beginning to sound a whole lot like TrialPay in many respects.  Not saying that it is a bad thing that you are trying to do, but "buy it now for $xx.xx or do this and get it free..." sounds awfully familiar. In that light, I think you are very much on to something, but is it really the way you want to go? 

Just provoking some thought here.

mouser:
just bouncing ideas around at this point.. we don't want to do anything that would tarnish the nature of the site.. just thinking out loud about possibilities.

Paul Keith:
Sorry if this has already been mentioned:

I recently installed an app (I've forgotten which) that upon installation asks:

How many airline tickets have you bought this month?

Underneath are the options:

2 or more tickets (click here to pay x amount for software)

1 (click here for discounted price...I think - I really forgot the software and am not really sure)

0 (ok, here's the software for free)

It's probably a software recommended here but really I forgot which software this is for some reason.

Another thing about price labels: what I've read always lead to the simple statement that price label influences are always relative. They fail to seal the buyer on their own.

You can have the best coffee shop with the most expensive coffee but you're not going to be Starbucks.

Same thing happens in the web. When Reddit went premium, it didn't work because that's mostly a free crowd.

When Metafilter and Something Awful did it back then, it was considered revolutionary in creating a quality community that brings in similar quality users despite the subject of the community being highly receptive to noise and trolls.

It's not a 1:1 comparison though since this is about selling ware and the example is about community ware but hopefully it leads to more clues. I will say this, I believe more would donate to a pre-skinned pre-configured donationware with no additional features and no nagware than a quality software with a sophisticated macro-donation scheme.

nudone:
As Barney said, look to what is already done elsewhere with marketing. Perhaps think about how donating can be more fun or more rewarding for the donor. If you made it tiresome for someone to donate, they may decide they've paid enough in time - and so donate zero to balance out their effort. You could also annoy someone who was prepared to donate $200 and make them change their mind and donate nothing. Who knows; what does the history of sales tactics show us? I don't know.

Also, $100 doesn't sound realistic - I can't imagine anyone believing that price when most DC utils are similar to programs in the $20 - $40 range. And I don't think there's anything you can do to make the sale instant, literally, one click and it's paid for and downloaded. Isn't PayPal the quickest and most convenient method; and that requires several clicks.

I get how you need people to stop and pause to reflect on what software is worth - you could do that simply be saying the software is $20 and that's it; pay or go away. But this is Donation Coder so there must be donations involved; it really sounds like donations don't work form what is said above - well, they obviously work during the fundraiser and maybe that's the key.

People donate not because of the value they perceive, they donate because they believe in the cause, they want to see the thermometer rise, they want to see the joy it brings, they want to feel part of the DC community (even if they are just standing at the boundary and throwing money in), maybe they want to appease their guilt. This is the marketing issue. Make donating seem cool or fun - or even a way for a wealthy person to brag to their peers.

Have badges, be proud, stick them on your website or on your car bumper, or on your t-shirt: "I donate to DC", "I support coders", whatever, wherever. Make people feel part of something. We're in the "social networking" age, people want to feel part of something - and demonstrate that they are. Look how Apple does it, people pay over the odds so they can feel part of the Apple Gang - and display the Apple badges in the forms of iPads, etc.

That's my contribution: make it fun, make it something I want to be part of.

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