Most of us see ‘software entitlement’ and think it’s just a ‘nice to have’ option.  You know what else is ‘nice to have’ and ‘keep’ – customers.  And we all know retaining customers is much more cost-effective than continually having to acquire them.

Just like a customer loyalty program, software entitlement provides data to better understand your customers.  In turn, allowing you to offer customers targeted, high interest, high value packages that are easy to obtain and consume.

Loyalty programs work methodically at gaining your customers’ trust by establishing a more one-on-one relationship with your organization.  Think about how a supermarket loyalty program works.  Consumers’ post purchases are analyzed and categorized by their buying behaviors. These identified market segments then dictate how many of one brand to buy over another, what times of year to carry certain products, and ways to cross sell and up sell other products accordingly.

Now apply this to your customers.   Imagine if you could segment your current customer base into various groups using the data obtained from your software entitlement program.  You could chart which programs and features were most successful according to your ‘newly’ discovered segments while avoiding bloatware.  By simply getting to know your customers better, you are opening up more possibilities on how your software is evaluated and deployed.

Similarly to how a supermarket uses coupons, you could entice niche customers and vertical markets by providing the perfect offering with specialized feature bundles, avoiding unsuccessful packages altogether.

Loyalty programs also reveal items that customers always rely on and buy.  Therefore, placing these items on sale is actually counterproductive.  Do you know the features your customers always use?  Leveraging these staple features with less well-known features might be a great way to highlight and test them in the market.

Here’s an example of what a security service company was able to do using Sentinel EMS, SafeNet’s software entitlement system:


  1. They determined their top 3 product offerings.
  2. Created bundles based on what they thought would be interesting to these segments.
  3. Each customer segment received information on how to upgrade to products that complemented their original purchase. 
  4. Customer desire for these products was confirmed through their purchases.  Moving forward these products were bundled together for newly acquired customers.

Having an informed database also keeps you abreast of what your customers’ value over time and better protects you against unexpected surprises from your competitors.

Software entitlement data provides a true reflection of a customer’s actions’ so you can be much more confident planning marketing strategies around what customers are ‘doing’ and not what they are ‘saying’.  Understanding your customers is the first step to truly becoming a software partner.  They may like you for what your product does, but they will love you if it’s tailored to the way they consume it.

While loyalty programs have become quite saturated among supermarkets, they are a fairly new concept when it comes to software rights management.  Plus, unlike supermarket loyalty programs, there is no need to reward your customers with points or other incentives in exchange for their details.  Capturing customer details is already baked into the entitlement process.  So, being able to differentiate your offering around your customers’ needs is reward enough!

Request a meeting with one of SafeNet’s Entitlement Mangement specialists or read more about Sentinel EMS.