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How to introduce a new software with custom development?

Background

We are a relatively new (i.e. not well known) IT and accounting firm. We have developed an accounting software and related software like CRM for a particular country’s Small Businesses. We developed this system to cater for our clients.

Competition

The market already has some big name listed players servicing the target market.

Competitive Advantage

The difference between our system and all others in the market are:

  1. We can customize the system to suit clients needs. This is not about customization via front-end. What we can offer is customization using custom software development.
  2. Since we are accountants as well, we can drive business process efficiency to our clients using our software and custom software development than anyone else.
  3. The clients will deal with the same contact for their accounting and IT issues.

Goal

To increase the customer base (either/or accounting and Software development) and therefore increase the sales and profit of the company.

Issue

How do we introduce this product/service to the market?

Potential Solutions

  1. We could offer free software licences (or introductory offers) to new accounting clients to increase publicity. Not sure if it will decrease the perceived quality of the solution.
  2. Sell the software licence at a premium, bundling the accounting services with the software. We might miss out on clients who haven’t been sold on the idea.
  3. Offer desktop software in addition to the cloud version. This will delay the release by around 1-2 months, but might be worth it if the clients don’t want to move to cloud.
  4. Offer free accounting services/software to all referral parties.
  5. Work with a bank (or another service provider who targets the market with a non-competitive product/service) to tie the software to their products and use their marketing power to expand. We haven’t approached anyone yet and not sure if the banks would be willing to work with someone unknown. Also need to explore if this is ethical professionally.

Question

Which of these options will get the desired results quicker? Or Is there a better way to approach this?

No Answers

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