The reminder email

First let me show you the reminder email I sent out on Saturday. It took me about 5 minutes to write.
And as you can see below, that was time well spent

Two days left to upgrade Music Collector for $14.95

Hi John,

Quick reminder:
There’s only two days left on the special offer for upgrading
your Music Collector license.

Upgrade to version 9 for Windows or version 3 for Mac OS X, for just $14.95:

http://collectorz.com/up.php?product=music&key=123456789012

On Monday May 17, the upgrade fee will be back to its regular $24.95 level.

Don’t miss out. Upgrade your license today.

Alwin
Collectorz.com, http://www.collectorz.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/Collectorz

The results

Here’s the results of my upgrade week in a nice chart. I have include some extra days from before the Upgrade Week, so that you can better see the effect of the offer.

• The first email caused a huge peak in upgrades. That day we sold about 30 times as many upgrades as in the days before.
• The quick reminder on Saturday, caused another peak that was exactly as high as the first one.
• The drop-off after the the 2nd peak was much less than after the first one, probably because Sunday was the last day (urgency).

If you are doing a limited-time special offer, don’t forget to send out a final reminder email 1 or 2 days before the offer ends. If you don’t, you may be missing out on nearly 50% of sales!

Here’s the email I sent out today, to all pre-v9 customers:

Upgrade your Music Collector for just $14.95 (6 days left)

==========================================================
Upgrade Music Collector for $14.95 :

http://collectorz.com/up.php?product=music&key=123456789012

( offer ends Sunday May 16 )
==========================================================

Hi John,

This is Alwin, with a great (but very temporary) upgrade offer for you.
But first, some news about the Collectorz.com online music database…

In February, when we lost Amazon, we added two new data sources to our
online music database: Discogs and MusicBrainz. This resulted in more cover
images (front and back!) and improved success rates for CD-ID searches.

But because of the added sources, the search results in the Add Albums
Automatically screen had become a bit messy.
This was particularly noticable for CD-ID and barcode searches. These had lost
the laser-targeted effectiveness of single exact matches. Not good.

So 4 weeks ago, we decided to fix all this once and for all.
Robbert and Dinh got to work and rewrote most of our search engine.

Their changes (released 2 weeks ago):
- CD-ID and barcode searches now give you single, auto-checked matches.
- Improved success rate of CD-ID searches: it now recognizes 91% of your CD-IDs.
- Artist/Title searches now return much less and better targeted results.

But we were not satisfied yet.
So while Dinh got back to his iPad project, Robbert focussed on barcodes.
After the loss of Amazon the “hit rate” on barcode searches had dropped to
about 45%. Ouch… But Robbert now has it back up to 65%.
Not good enough, I agree, but a big step in the right direction.

Anyway, why am I telling you all this?

Well, I guess what I am trying to say is that Music Collector is not a
stand-alone piece of software on your PC or Mac. The world (read: internet)
around us is changing continuously. Amazon goes, other sources appear, some
devices go out of fashion (classic iPods), new devices appear (iPhone, Android,
Blackberry, iPad), web-based software solutions are getting more popular…

And the 12-man Collectorz.com team here at the office is constantly updating
Music Collector, our mobile apps and our server-side software to keep you
connected (pun intended) to this ever-changing software landscape.

This year alone we will bring you: mobile apps for iPad, Blackberry & Android,
plus we will finally release the music edition of Collectorz.com Connect.

But you do need the latest version of Music Collector to enjoy our efforts.
And our customer files show that *you* don’t own that version yet.

Because I would hate to see you left behind, I have created a temporary
upgrade offer, valid through Sunday May 16 (that’s just 6 days from now):

* Upgrade your Music Collector for only $14.95 (regular upgrade fee is $24.95)

http://collectorz.com/up.php?product=music&key=123456789012

Need a reminder of what’s new? Go here for full info and screens:
v9.1 Windows : http://collectorz.com/music/upgrade.php?key=123456789012
v3.4 Mac OS X: http://collectorz.com/music/upgrademac.php?key=123456789012

And remember, once you have upgraded you get to download all of this year’s
minor updates free of charge.

This offer ends in six days, so don’t miss out.

Alwin
Collectorz.com

On Saturday, I will sent them a nice “two days left” reminder. Usually, that results in a huge peak in sales, bigger than the first day peak.

Don’t be afraid to keep reminding your “old version” crowd of your cool new version. Eventually they *will* upgrade You have spent too much time and money creating all those new features to just let people get away with not upgrading.

So after yesterday’s version 9.1 update, I sent out the following email to all owners of a v8 license (or older):

Hi John,

Three months ago, we launched Music Collector version 9.
Since then, we kept hearing two complaints from users buying or trying it:

* Why do I have to add my music files one album at at time ?
* Why doesn’t it support .M4A files?

These people were right of course. So we got to work.

First, we completely redesigned the Add Music Files screen.
It took a few iterations (Ronald programming, Mark and I demanding changes), but the end result is pretty cool

It now scans your hard-disk and automatically groups the found music files into albums. The new screen lets you tweak the grouping with a simple drag and drop system (e.g. to combine two albums into one multi-disc album).
And here’s the best part, you can then select multiple (or all!) albums and add them to your database in one go.

You can find a screen shot of the new screen here (first screen on the page):

http://collectorz.com/music/upgrade.php

When that was done, Ronald started implementing support for .M4A files.
Not an easy task, because Apple is not exactly “open” about its formats.
But he persisted and Music Collector is now able to read and write M4A tags.
So iTunes users can now finally catalog their M4A files too.

Time to upgrade?
==================

Checking our files, I found that you are still using Music Collector 8.
So I was hoping that the above changes would help your decision to upgrade.

Please do me a favor, and take a look at the full list of What’s New in v9:

http://collectorz.com/music/upgrade.php

Then, if you’re ready to upgrade, just click here to go Vee Nine (for $24.95):

http://collectorz.com/up.php?product=music&key=[LICENSEKEY]

Remember:
Once you have upgraded to v9, you will get ALL future 9.x upgrades FREE.
And we’ve got a lot of cool stuff planned for this year.

I hope to welcome you to the happy “Vee Nine” crowd today,

Alwin
Collectorz.com

Are you doing paid upgrades? Then make sure you keep reminding your old version customers of the new version. And keep telling them about all the cool stuff you are adding to the new version (and to that new version only).

In any case, don’t let them get away with not upgrading.

We have been using urgency with our offers for quite a while, but last week we tried adding some scarcity.

Creating urgency using offer end-dates and reminder emails

All our offers are temporary and we clearly mention the end date in the emails. Giving the offer an expiry date results in urgency, a reason for customers to act now. They will be less inclined to postpone their purchase, which will reduce the risk that they forget about it entirely.

Reminder emails
To increase the urgency, we always send out at least two short reminder emails about the expiry date getting closer, e.g. 5 days before the end date and a final “24 hours left” email. It’s amazing how many extra sales you can pull in with that “24 hours left” reminder. We have seen cases where we sold more on that final day than on the first day.
Worried about annoying your customers with those reminders? I can understand, I had the same fears when we started doing this. But this doesn’t seem to be a problem at all. Just keep your reminder emails short and to the point. Repeat the offer, state how many days are left, then give em the buy link again.

Increasing the urgency by adding scarcity

Last week we tried something different. We were able to buy a large quantity (850 units) of laser barcode scanners from Opticon, at a very good price. We decided to offer them to our existing customers at a discount. For this specific offer stock was limited, so I tried to use that scarcity to our advantage.

I created a special page about the promotion on our website. In the top right corner of the page, I added a live counter, showing how many scanners we still had in stock (or to be more precise, showing 850 minus the number of units sold).

Then last Thursday, on October 22, I sent out the following email to existing customers:

Subject: Get Your OPR-3201 Laser Scanner Before Stock Runs Out

Hi ~Contact.FirstName~,

Alwin here, with a special, and temporary(!) barcode scanner deal:

*********************************************************************
The high quality, super robust Opticon OPR-3201 laser scanner.
Retail price: $114.95, Collectorz.com price: $99.95, NOW ONLY : $79.95
This offer ends November 15, 23:59 or when stock runs out (835 left)
http://www.collectorz.com/opr3201-offer.php
*********************************************************************

Here’s what happened:

A few weeks ago, my friend Margaret from Opticon called me and asked if I
was in any way interested in buying 850 OPR-3201 laser barcode scanners at
an extremely low price. But I had to decide quickly because this batch had
to go before the end of September (something with the end of the fiscal
year, crazy Americans…).

I quickly ordered a sample unit to check it out… And we all love it!
This pistol-grip scanner feels great in your hands and it scans very well.

After some negotiation, we decided to buy the entire batch of 850 scanners.
They’re in our warehouse in Portland now, ready to be shipped out to you.

The OPR-3201 scanner has been available in the Collectorz.com shop for a
couple of days, and we have already sold 15 (for $99.95).
Of course we can just continue to sell them for that amount and make some
extra money, but I figured it would be nice to offer it for an even lower
price to our loyal customers. (I want everyone to experience the joy of
cataloging stuff by scanning barcodes.)

So here’s the deal:
For the next 25 days, up until November 15 – 23:59, I will let you buy this
scanner for only $79.95. This is a ridiculously low price for this
professional barcode scanner, which means that there’s a good chance we
will run out of stock before that date.

To take advantage of this temporary offer, secure your OPR-3201 scanner here:

http://www.collectorz.com/opr3201-offer.php

This robust laser scanner can only be purchased for the $79.95 price
through the link above, it will not be available on our regular website.
Please don’t give the above link to anyone else, it is for YOU only!

Again, don’t miss this opportunity, because when these 850 units are sold
out, the OPR-3201 scanner will never again be available for this price.

Tip: At the top right of the offer page you will find a live stock counter.
Keep an eye on it so you don’t miss out. Hit Refresh in your browser to update.

Currently there are 835 units left …

http://www.collectorz.com/opr3201-offer.php

Alwin
Collectorz.com

The results

We have done a similar scanner offer last year in August and in that month we sold almost 500 units (at $114.95). So I was expecting to sell roughly the same amount now.
(BTW: that August 2008 scanner promotion is a story in itself, now known as the “Cable Crisis”. I will tell you the full story later )

This time, with more urgency and a bit of scarcity, we sold 341 units on the first day. Today, 5 days after the offer announcement email, stock is down to 231 scanners, over six hundred sold.

Of course, I couldn’t resist using the increased scarcity to generate some more urgency. So in today’s October issue of the Collectorz.com newsletter, I started with the following news item:

** Get your OPR-3201 laser scanner for only $79.95 **

I was able to buy 850 units of this high-quality and super robust scanner,
for a very low price. And because I want all of you to experience the joys
of cataloging stuff by scanning barcodes, I will let you buy this scanner
for only $79.95 (regular retail price is $114.95).

This offer ends on November 15 – 23:59 or when stock runs out,
whichever comes first.

HOWEVER: since announcing this offer last Thursday, we have already sold
over SIX HUNDRED units. Currently, there’s only 231 scanners left.

So… if you want one too, you will have to act NOW. Go here, fast:

http://www.collectorz.com/opr3201-offer.php

At the time of writing, we’re down to 196 scanners left. So it’s likely that stock will run out before time does

Quick tips for using urgency and scarcity

• Always have an expiry date on your special offers
• Be clear about the expiry date in your emails and promotional pages.
• Stick to the end date. Resist the temptation to keep the promotion running and catch some more sales. Your customers will learn that you are serious about your end-dates, which will increase the urgency next time.
• Send out reminders. At least 2 or 3, maybe more if the promotion is running for a longer time.
• Don’t forget the “24 hours left” reminder, as it can pull in a lot of sales.
• Use scarcity to add urgency. Use fake scarcity if you have to (I know most of you are not selling stuff for which you may have limited inventory). Just tell your customers you will end the offer after 200 copies sold.
• If you can do it, display a live “items left” counter on your promotion page. This will not only increase the urgency, but it will also give your offer some credibility, as it shows that other customers are taking advantage of it already.

UPDATE (October 30, 17:42)

They’re all gone. 850 OPR-3201 laser barcode scanners sold in 8 days

For yesterday’s Collectorz.com newsletter, we decided to try something different: a “meet the team” video, showing a tour of the Collectorz.com office and introducing all members of the Collectorz.com team. Here it is:

Meet the team

Our newsletter subscribers loved the video. Some feedback we found in our inbox this morning:

User feedback

Congratulations on the video

Hi guys (and girls),

I just wanted to say thank you and congratulations for the video.
Really cool! Nice to meet you (virtually, at least).

I am really happy to have bought from you. Really excellent service and products.

Keep up the good work

great to put a face to the names

I really enjoyed the video of all the Collectorz family. It is great
to put a face to the names. Alwin’s alway mentioning everyone in his
emails. The shots of your town were beautiful, it looks like a great
place to live. Keep up the good work and thanks for the video.

BLEW ME AWAY

What a fantastic movie!!

You have always had a superior product but your little meet the people video—–BLEW ME AWAY!!!

thanks for thinking of us. The pictures of Amsterdam where great.
excellent work guys and girls!!

loved seeing everyone

Greetings from the Southern Hemisphere

I just received your newsletter with the link to the video of your
office. I really REALLY loved seeing everyone and knowing the faces of
the people who each have something to do with the fantastic prodect
you have developed.

Great job everyone!

more fun than I ever had

Thanks for the video, it help me better appriciate what a great little company you are. I’ve always envisioned a small, friendly “works well with others” type of organization, in a very cool office enviroment. I was right!

I worked in IT for 32 years, I programmed the IBM 1401, 360, 40xx series, Dec PDP-11 and VAX, and toward the end of my career managed networks and programmed PC’s. I had fun but I think you’re having way more fun than I ever had.

I wish you the best for continued success.

Dear Collectorz Team,
Loved the video! It is nice to have faces to go with the names and a view of what your office looks like.
Well done, friends!

Great video of your office & co-workers. It’s nice to see where you all work. Kudos to AJ for putting that together.

Thanks VERY much Alwin! I enjoyed meeting the team and the brief tour of Amsterdam.
(Very Satisfied Customer)

I emailed all customers who were still using an older version of our software and offered them to upgrade to the latest and greatest for free using TrialPay. Plus, I included an alternative “pay anyway” option with an extra $10 discount on the upgrade ($14.95 instead of $24.95).

My Email

Here’s the email I sent out yesterday. Be warned, it’s looooonnnngggg!

Subject: Upgrade to Movie Collector 6 for free

Dear ~Contact.FirstName~,

This is Alwin, Overlord at Collectorz.com.

One of my minions just told me that you seem to belong to the small
minority of users that is still using an older version of Movie Collector.

Which makes me sad, because it means that you are missing out on all the
new stuff that my team here has worked so hard on in the past 12
months. The programmers have improved the software, and the content guys
have pushed our online movie database to an entirely new level.

I understand that money may be an obstacle. Even with our regular
50% upgrade discount, we’re still talking about a $24.95 upgrade fee.

However, I have great news for you today: you can now upgrade to v.6 for free.

How’s that possible? Well, that’s a long story:

(Can’t wait? No time? Prefer the short story? Then just click here:
http://www.trialpay.com/productpage/?c=8f53c97&tid=9ahMBIh )

About a year ago, my wife Sytske and I were attending a software conference
in Boston, USA. We love going there, it’s fun to meet old friends again.

One of these friends is Edwin (you guessed it, he’s Dutch too), who happens
to be the president at WinZip. And Edwin told me that I should really go
talk to these “TrialPay guys”, as they had a brilliant system which would
let me give my software away for free, while still making some money.
Edwin was using TrialPay for WinZip too, and it had worked out great.

So I followed Edwin’s advice and met with the TrialPay people (they had a
booth at the conference). Really nice folks. I always like meeting people
face to face before I do business with them, so this was a great start.

I spoke with TrialPay’s Julia Pluss and she explained their system to me.
And Julia convinced me to try it for Collectorz.com.
(that took about an hour because I must tell you I was a bit skeptical …
… in my book, there’s no such thing as a free lunch…)

Here’s how TrialPay works:

* You try or buy one offer from one of TrialPay’s advertisers.
* You get the Movie Collector 6 upgrade for free.
* TrialPay then pays us a small amount, using money from the advertiser.

In the weeks after the conference, Julia helped me set up a “Get it Free
with TrialPay” option for our Standard editions (you may have seen it on
our website). And it was a huge success. Since then, thousands of users
have received a free Standard license for one of our programs.

So we figured, why not use the same system to allow our users to *upgrade*
their software for free? This way, you guys and gals can finally enjoy the
latest and greatest and we still make some money (way less than $24.95 but
I don’t mind).

You know what, I’ll even give you the PRO edition of version 6, even if you now
own a license for the Standard edition (two upgrades for the same $0 price!).

To take advantage of this free upgrade deal, click this link now:

http://www.trialpay.com/productpage/?c=8f53c97&tid=9ahMBIh

** What if you can’t find a suitable offer at TrialPay?

Mmm, good question. Let me think …

How about this: I’ll give you an extra $10 discount on the upgrade fee,
*on top of* the standard 50% discount. This means you can upgrade to the
PRO edition of Movie Collector 6 for only $14.95.

To get this special deal, use the following upgrade link:

http://collectorz.com/up.php?product=movie&key=123456789123

then, during checkout, use this discount coupon: CLZUPGRADE

** Worried about your existing data or about having to learn new stuff?

No worries! When you upgrade to the new version, all your existing data will
be preserved and automatically available in the new software.

And if you know how to use your current version Movie Collector, then you will
feel right at home in version 6. Basic usage is exactly the same, the new
features will in no way make it harder or even different to use.

** Here’s a reminder of What’s New in Movie Collector 6 **

* Synchronize your data with Movie Collector Connect:
http://connect.collectorz.com/movies
* Export your collection to the Clz Movies app for iPhone and iPod touch:
http://www.collectorz.com/movie/iphone-app.php
* Choose your own screen fonts and font size.
* Improved Movie Collector MCE viewer.
* Super-easy Add Movies Automatically screen, which uses the Collectorz.com
movie database only. Just search, select your movie, click Add.
* New Print screen with a simpler, easier to use layout.

More details and screen shots can be found here:
http://www.collectorz.com/movie/upgrade.php

Okay, that’s it for today. Thanks for reading my long story
I hope we can welcome you into the happy v6 crowd soon…

Alwin Hoogerdijk
Collectorz.com

http://www.collectorz.com/

The results

I must say I had no idea what to expect. The last major versions were released in December 2008 and we have been pushing the upgrades hard and often. So I wasn’t sure if there was any chance of converting the users who apparently had decided to keep using the older versions.

Now, one day (and few hours) after I sent the email, we have processed just over 130 TrialPay transactions, with an average of $15 per transaction. Not bad at all.
However, the alternative $14.95 offer was used 430 times.
This is after emailing about 50 thousand customers. Which is a 1.1% conversion rate, after just one day.

The numbers are higher than I expected, but what I am most surprised about is the number of users who opted to pay anyway.
Maybe they couldn’t find a suitable offer at TrialPay? Or they assumed that a free upgrade was too good to be true?

BTW: the above numbers are not final yet, at the moment I am still seeing a steady stream of upgrades. I’ll try to post the final results later.

User Feedback on TrialPay

Finally, here’s some examples of emails we received today, just for fun. Please don’t see these as reasons *not* to use TrialPay. I mean, email 100 people and there will always be one that complains.

sounds like a scam to fill email with spam and my computer with spyware

I got your trialpay offer email. I’ve been thinking I should upgrade
and get a scanner, so I followed the link to trialpay just to see what
is involved. But to be honest, it sounds like a scam to fill email
with spam and my computer with spyware. And I could not get past the
first page with out entering my email address, NO THANK YOU. If I
have to enter personal information, even an email address before I can
even find out the details of what is being offered, there is no way
I’m going to continue. I’ve managed to keep my email relatively clean
with this mentality.

wholesale ripoff

I definitely do not like this stupid idea of TrialPay. That is a wholesale ripoff.

is this ligit?

I recieved this email, and want to know if your
aware of this, and if this upgrade is free from you —with no strings
attached. I currently own the lic to movie 5.6 Pro version—Please
Read the following email that i recived to confirm. Is this a free and
ligit permanent update that you will back??

don’t lose your dignity

I love the program and respect the way you do business. Don’t get
involved with people like trial pay. I know times are hard the market
sucks for luxury software, but it doesn’t mean losing your dignity to
losers like Trial Pay.

Times are hard? Market sucks? Ehm… not here