How to Use the Download Reporter™
The statistics in the Download Reporter™ can be used to determine the factors that contribute to the success of some software titles and the failure of others. While the features that can be measured on Download.com represent a small subset of the universe of information regarding a product, they supply a basis for controlled and objective comparison and analysis.
Have Realistic Expectations
Don’t expect to sell 20,000 copies of a product if the average weekly download count in that category is 100 units. Don’t expect to price your product at $1,000 if the CNet average is $79 and the average in your category is less than $200.
Use the statistics to form a baseline of anticipated product performance and economic value.
If nothing else, the Download Reporter™ reveals average performance within a category. While it is essential as an entrepreneur be optimistic, it is also important to plan for scenarios that encompass high, medium and low performance within an industry category.
Listen to the Numbers
- Use Average and Hi/Lo performance to estimate scenarios for your products download count.
- Knock out examples that skew the model. For example, the inclusion of mega-hits such as WinZip, ICQ or Morpheus will distort the numbers within a market.
- Test your market assumptions by looking at additional performance data, such as 10K and Annual Report filings for publicly traded companies within your market sector.
- Go to the websites of the best and worst titles within your group. Think about what the winners do that the losers do not.
Try the Products and Form Your Own Opinion
Download the best and worst of your competitors. Never forget the software publishing is about the entire customer experience.
Do Your Own Content Analysis
Carefully read the titles, short and long form descriptions of the best and worst products in your category. Think about the features that are stressed by the strong products, versus those that are mentioned by the weak ones. Use statistical tools like histograms of word usage to discover key words, phrases and product features. Verify that your products looks and sounds like a winner.
Look for Correlated Success Factors
What do you think about when you look for a product on Download.com?
- Is the software popular? What is the weekly download count?
- Is the software fresh? When was the title last updated?
- How many reviews does the title have and what do they say?
- Is there a fully functional free evaluation version?
- What is the buy price, especially versus other titles in the same group?
- What is the file size relative to the average in that group? Less is more, and what may be OK for an HTML Editor might be unacceptable for a utility.
These factors represent a sample of the product features that may be important in your software category. Look for correlations that tend to separate the high performing titles from the low performing ones.
Our title level detail report includes the product description, so a fair amount of content analysis is possible using that report as a starting point. Again, once you identify the winners and losers, it is possible to do a marketing analysis to find the correlated factors that push them apart. The product page URL is also included in the Category Detail reports, so its possible to drill down from the Download Reporter™ directly to the CNet product page.
Putting it All Together
Choose Your Market
Look at Your Product and decide what categories it could possibly fit in - then develop an opinion of expected success rate, i.e., download count, based upon averages and hi/lo's in those categories.
Find Your Competitors
Next search for the titles in those categories that are closest in product type to Your Product.
Sound Like a Winner
Now do a content analysis of those products to deduce the important keywords or phrases.
Identify the Success Factors
Do not fail to include a correlation to the other factors that make the winners successful, i.e., price, file size, time at market, quality of product, etc.
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