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Hi,
I have a piece of software/service that virtually every computer user would be happy to have (if is was for free). We already offer this on a payed basis from $5 per month and up, and things are going good, but I'd like it to be going super-duper-fantastic ;-)
Now this is where I would like to pick your brains.
I am thinking of offering the basic version of this software for free. The operational costs for this would cost us about $1 per month per user. One way of monetizing this, is to try and upsell those "free clients" to the more advances payed versions, but I think this model would break-even at it's best. To be clear: We would take a risk here as this is not just a free normal software package we give away, but it is a service we offer that costs us $1 per user per month in operational costs.
Now with this free version, we can show the users ads. To give you an idea: The user will use this software (and see the adds) once per computer session for about 1/2 to 1 minute.
With this knowledge, how would you warriors handle this?
I am thinking of searching niche groups, offer them this free software, and send them targeted ads.
For example: I advertise for the free version in a "green piano keys" forum, and everyone who subscribed via that forum I can send adds about green piano keys. I could sell the adds, I could sell affiliate products or I could sell my own products. (hmmm... I'm not sure how to make my own green piano keys products...).
This software also requires the users to receive a daily mail from us to get an overview of their service status. This is part of this software/service. (Sorry, i I'm sounding a little cryptical here). So I can also use this for targeted ads.
There are no tricks involved. You can compare it with the ads in the upper right corner in Adobe Acrobat reader. Also the mails are not a hassle for the users, but a functional requirement for this software/service (even the payed version without ads) to work.
Any ideas welcome!
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