Benchmark survey: registration card procedures.

BENCHMARK SURVEY: REGISTRATION CARD PROCEDURES Our recent survey questionnaire on registration card procedures (Soft.letter, 10/24/89) uncovered an unexpectedly hot topic. By our December 1 deadline, a total of 390 usable questionnaires had reached our office--the highest number of survey responses we've ever received.

Our goal with this survey was to look for two kinds of information about registration cards: First, what kind of response rates are typical for various product categories and price points; second, what common practices exist in such areas as card formats, customer information, return inducements, and internal use of data. We hoped to create a few statistically reliable benchmarks that managers could use for reviewing their own registration card procedures, and we believe the data provides such benchmarks.

* Response rates. One of the small mysteris of the software business is what kind of response rates are "normal" for end user registration. Overall, we found that about 35% to 40% of all customers actually register their software (median response for "most popular" titles was 40%, median for "second most popular" was 35%"). But when we looked at individual product categories and price points, we found that response rates varied considerably from one category to another. Buyers of vertical market products and programming tools tend to be much more responsive about registration than average; education and consumer buyers register at below-average rates:

One interesting trend we found in these survey results was consistently lower response rates for secondary products. We're not sure why this occurs, but our assumption is that these titles receive somewhat less marketing effort and management than their "most popular" counterparts.

* Procedures. Our survey questionnaire posed four questions about registration card formats, content, and handling procedures:

* "What format do you use?" The survey results showed a clear preference among respondents for free-standing cards, compared to bound-in or program-generated forms. When we analyzed median response rates for each card format, however, we discovered that program-generated forms seem to perform significantly better:

* "What information do you ask about your customers?" Our survey results underscored the importance of registration cards as a source of data about sales channels and hardware trends:

* "How do you persuade customers to return cards?" We ranked four suggested methods by frequency of mention and then compared average response rates within each group. Requiring registration for support seems to improve response rates by about 5%--but, surprisingly, tangible inducements like books and bonus software actually seem to depress response rates:

* "How do you use your registration cards?" Predictably, we found that registration card data is used most often for upgrade sales, market research, and tech support. Other income-producing activities--notably list rentals and telemarketing--seem to receive much less attention. Ranked by frequency of "Yes" responses, our results showed the following pattern:

As usual, we ended up with more data and more possible correlations than we could comfortably squeeze into a single issue. In case anyone wants to browse through our database files (which do not identify specific company or product names), we've put together a data disk that contains all of our survey results. This disk is available from Soft.letter for $25 prepaid; when ordering, please specify Excel or 1-2-3 format, and disk type (3.5" Mac or PC, or 5.25" PC).

ATARI founder Nolan Bushnell on the emergence of multimedia: "This new market is a mishmash of lots of old markets and carries with it all that extra baggage, so introducing the new technology seems kind of like herding ducks. [Nevertheless], this is one of those special moments when several pieces of technology have gotten good enough all at the same time to make a quantum leap at affordable prices." (Quoted in Fortune, 11/20/89)

NEXT president Steve Jobs on multimedia: "Multimedia could become the 'artificial intelligence' of the '90s. Everyone used the term 'AI' to mean so many things that nobody ever really understood what it was." (Quoted in Business Week, 10/9/89)

ALDUS Persuasion product manager John Testement on why his company is skeptical about Apple's efforts in promoting multimedia presentations: "There's a large demand for everyday, black-and-white overheads. That's where the big opportunities are. Eighty percent of our users only want to do black-and-white foils." (Quoted in MacWeek, 10/30/89)