As an independent software vendor, you know your market is not limitless. With all the products available to your clients, you need to work harder than ever to stand out and continue to grow.
You should keep working to gain new customers, but acquiring market share and building revenue become your best growth paths. With that in mind, focus on these tips to grow in a saturated market.
1. Offer More
One of the best methods for growing in a saturated market is to offer more. If your entire business model depends on a single product or service, it becomes harder over time to build more. Work to expand the service you provide, and to bring in updates and complementary products that will provide more value to your customers—and increased sales for you.
2. Keep Your Focus
Expanding your products and services can do a great deal for you. But you’ll run into trouble if you neglect your core product. Even while you are looking at building revenue streams, you need team members who focus on maintaining and servicing the products your customers already use. The moment you slip is the moment someone else creates something to surpass and replace you.
3. Listen Better
No product or service offering is perfect. What sets the most successful companies apart is not whether there are problems that arise, but whether they address them quickly and effectively. You should maintain frequent contact with your customers to make sure they continue to be happy with what you are providing. Understand the concerns your customers have, and develop solutions that let them know you value their business and their needs.
4. Improve Integration
One key value you can provide will always be helping your customers use your software in conjunction with their other software and hardware systems. This includes integrating not only with their legacy software, but also with mobile technology and other services they use. No product operates in isolation, so the more you can do to make it work smoothly as part of your customers' internal systems, the more you can continue to grow with them.
5. Add Revenue Streams
As an ISV, one of the best integration options you can provide is a payment processing solution. This provides a built-in revenue stream for you, one that not only lies on top of what you already earn through sales and service, but continues and often grows for as long as the customer uses your solution.
The market is tightening for ISVs, so growth is much harder than it once was. Still, if you focus in on the above strategies, you have the opportunity to grow as a more mature, complete business. Your customers will benefit, and you will become stronger and more stable. Focus on growth strategies that do not depend solely on new customers, and you should see new opportunities continue to develop for your business.
