What Is The Most Effective Way To Advertise Software On A Tight Budget
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For those who have been selling software, what have you found to be the most effective way to advertise your software. If you are using the web, what works the best? I live in the US and have software for small-midsize companies/banks that I have had a lot of succeess selling overseas before I moved to the US four years ago. I still sell quite a bit of it overseas, but mostly through my established contacts. The product range includes Enterprise Management (Accounting, Materials Management/Inventory, Order Processing), Banking and Electronic Payments, and recently have included back office software for managing GSM wireless airtime vouchers. The products are not cheap, and have been sold for anything from US$5,000 - $35,000 depending the modules selected. I don't mind paying someone to handle the marketing, but I need to know what works, and can be self-sustaining. I seem to focus all my energy on developing the products and not enough time or perhaps know-how on selling. I would appreciate any input, and would be glad to share my experiences with anyone who is interested. If you are interested, take a look at http://www.gaulles.com Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
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For those who have been selling software, what have you found to be the most effective way to advertise your software. If you are using the web, what works the best? I live in the US and have software for small-midsize companies/banks that I have had a lot of succeess selling overseas before I moved to the US four years ago. I still sell quite a bit of it overseas, but mostly through my established contacts. The product range includes Enterprise Management (Accounting, Materials Management/Inventory, Order Processing), Banking and Electronic Payments, and recently have included back office software for managing GSM wireless airtime vouchers. The products are not cheap, and have been sold for anything from US$5,000 - $35,000 depending the modules selected. I don't mind paying someone to handle the marketing, but I need to know what works, and can be self-sustaining. I seem to focus all my energy on developing the products and not enough time or perhaps know-how on selling. I would appreciate any input, and would be glad to share my experiences with anyone who is interested. If you are interested, take a look at http://www.gaulles.com Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
Step 1: remove the "under construciton" sign from your site. Step 2: Uploadthe Theme images Don't you "established contacts" have business contacts in the US? Be present at trade shows and other gatherings of potential customers. YOu don't need a booth, a Laptop with the software, and some sales tongue can work miracles.
skulls don't kiss for an explanation - wait for the vacation photos! [sighist]
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For those who have been selling software, what have you found to be the most effective way to advertise your software. If you are using the web, what works the best? I live in the US and have software for small-midsize companies/banks that I have had a lot of succeess selling overseas before I moved to the US four years ago. I still sell quite a bit of it overseas, but mostly through my established contacts. The product range includes Enterprise Management (Accounting, Materials Management/Inventory, Order Processing), Banking and Electronic Payments, and recently have included back office software for managing GSM wireless airtime vouchers. The products are not cheap, and have been sold for anything from US$5,000 - $35,000 depending the modules selected. I don't mind paying someone to handle the marketing, but I need to know what works, and can be self-sustaining. I seem to focus all my energy on developing the products and not enough time or perhaps know-how on selling. I would appreciate any input, and would be glad to share my experiences with anyone who is interested. If you are interested, take a look at http://www.gaulles.com Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
Have you seen the CodeProject media kit[^] :D cheers, Chris Maunder
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Have you seen the CodeProject media kit[^] :D cheers, Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote: Have you seen the CodeProject media kit[^] You pimp you! ;P BTW what is CP registered as in terms of a company? Non-profit, PLC, LTD... Or is it a JWIUTRALAWC* company? ;) * Just Winging It Under The Radar As Long As We Can
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaColin Davies wrote: ...can you imagine a John Simmons stalker !
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For those who have been selling software, what have you found to be the most effective way to advertise your software. If you are using the web, what works the best? I live in the US and have software for small-midsize companies/banks that I have had a lot of succeess selling overseas before I moved to the US four years ago. I still sell quite a bit of it overseas, but mostly through my established contacts. The product range includes Enterprise Management (Accounting, Materials Management/Inventory, Order Processing), Banking and Electronic Payments, and recently have included back office software for managing GSM wireless airtime vouchers. The products are not cheap, and have been sold for anything from US$5,000 - $35,000 depending the modules selected. I don't mind paying someone to handle the marketing, but I need to know what works, and can be self-sustaining. I seem to focus all my energy on developing the products and not enough time or perhaps know-how on selling. I would appreciate any input, and would be glad to share my experiences with anyone who is interested. If you are interested, take a look at http://www.gaulles.com Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
Ahhh..finally a question I can answer with 100% confidence. Our company makes service management software. We sell it via the net as shareware and our target market is micro to medium sized business (1 to 500 employees typically although we have some larger clients) so our model might not fit exactly what your doing, but the absolute most bang for the buck that we have got after trying just about everything is overture paid search engine listings. http://www.overture.com[^] It's perfect because you can decide what your budget is on an ongoing basis and the exposure and traffic you will get are just unbelievable. Be sure your web site is 100% perfect. If that's not your speciality, do consider paying someone to do it for you, it's hypercritical since it's going to affect whether people are interested or not. Overture will get them to your site, but if the site is not well done it's just wasting money. We tried paying for marketing, but you shouldn't even consider it unless you have $5,000.00US per month to invest. Overture is much cheaper and is an absolutely excellent way to get started. Be prepared to invest some time researching your keywords and some time each day adjusting your bids. We sell our license keys through Shareit.com (www.shareit.com) as they have offices in Europe and the U.S. and are able to handle payments from anyone around the world. The internet is the only way a smaller business can really afford to make a splash these days, once you get big enough you can consider other routes such as getting local distributors etc. (we get offers from time to time but are keeping it all direct). If you want to see it all in action: http://www.ayanova.com[^]
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Have you seen the CodeProject media kit[^] :D cheers, Chris Maunder
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For those who have been selling software, what have you found to be the most effective way to advertise your software. If you are using the web, what works the best? I live in the US and have software for small-midsize companies/banks that I have had a lot of succeess selling overseas before I moved to the US four years ago. I still sell quite a bit of it overseas, but mostly through my established contacts. The product range includes Enterprise Management (Accounting, Materials Management/Inventory, Order Processing), Banking and Electronic Payments, and recently have included back office software for managing GSM wireless airtime vouchers. The products are not cheap, and have been sold for anything from US$5,000 - $35,000 depending the modules selected. I don't mind paying someone to handle the marketing, but I need to know what works, and can be self-sustaining. I seem to focus all my energy on developing the products and not enough time or perhaps know-how on selling. I would appreciate any input, and would be glad to share my experiences with anyone who is interested. If you are interested, take a look at http://www.gaulles.com Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
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Have you seen the CodeProject media kit[^] :D cheers, Chris Maunder
Very good. Did you put it together yourself or hired some professional to do that. At what stage in the life of CodeProject did you do put it together. What was the initial reception? Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
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Ahhh..finally a question I can answer with 100% confidence. Our company makes service management software. We sell it via the net as shareware and our target market is micro to medium sized business (1 to 500 employees typically although we have some larger clients) so our model might not fit exactly what your doing, but the absolute most bang for the buck that we have got after trying just about everything is overture paid search engine listings. http://www.overture.com[^] It's perfect because you can decide what your budget is on an ongoing basis and the exposure and traffic you will get are just unbelievable. Be sure your web site is 100% perfect. If that's not your speciality, do consider paying someone to do it for you, it's hypercritical since it's going to affect whether people are interested or not. Overture will get them to your site, but if the site is not well done it's just wasting money. We tried paying for marketing, but you shouldn't even consider it unless you have $5,000.00US per month to invest. Overture is much cheaper and is an absolutely excellent way to get started. Be prepared to invest some time researching your keywords and some time each day adjusting your bids. We sell our license keys through Shareit.com (www.shareit.com) as they have offices in Europe and the U.S. and are able to handle payments from anyone around the world. The internet is the only way a smaller business can really afford to make a splash these days, once you get big enough you can consider other routes such as getting local distributors etc. (we get offers from time to time but are keeping it all direct). If you want to see it all in action: http://www.ayanova.com[^]
Thanks. Yours is the most encouraging response I have received so far. I would most certainly be look into www.overture.com, and would probably redo our web site. One thing that may be different, however, is how to pitch multiple products effectively on one site and yet manage to focus the message. Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
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For those who have been selling software, what have you found to be the most effective way to advertise your software. If you are using the web, what works the best? I live in the US and have software for small-midsize companies/banks that I have had a lot of succeess selling overseas before I moved to the US four years ago. I still sell quite a bit of it overseas, but mostly through my established contacts. The product range includes Enterprise Management (Accounting, Materials Management/Inventory, Order Processing), Banking and Electronic Payments, and recently have included back office software for managing GSM wireless airtime vouchers. The products are not cheap, and have been sold for anything from US$5,000 - $35,000 depending the modules selected. I don't mind paying someone to handle the marketing, but I need to know what works, and can be self-sustaining. I seem to focus all my energy on developing the products and not enough time or perhaps know-how on selling. I would appreciate any input, and would be glad to share my experiences with anyone who is interested. If you are interested, take a look at http://www.gaulles.com Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
If you're not keen on doing the marketing yourself, then you might want to try your local college and hire a part-time marketing or business major. Make sure that the college student really understands IT very well. Most business majors I know don't understand technology and are averse to having anything to do with it. I suppose it's also okay if they don't know IT but has demonstrated that they can quickly understand the technology. Also make sure that they have good communications skills (both written and verbal). Also check to see if they know how to do market research, write good PR copies, and are willing to cold call, e-mail, etc. target companies. Lastly figure out some questions to ask about their commitment to work. Many of them just like to party etc. An extremely high GPA usually indicates a good work ethic. Hiring a college undergrad to do the marketing would be both a cost-effective and time saving way given your situation. Just make sure that you do a very thorough interview and leave no stones uncovered or else you may regret hiring him/her later on.
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Thanks. Yours is the most encouraging response I have received so far. I would most certainly be look into www.overture.com, and would probably redo our web site. One thing that may be different, however, is how to pitch multiple products effectively on one site and yet manage to focus the message. Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
We've been making our living off of shareware that we develop and market ourselves for years now and tried just about everything, but Overture was definitely the best investment out of everything we did. In terms of multiple products, we have two main ones and we found it best to put them on their own web sites: http://www.addressinator.com[^] http://www.ayanova.com[^] That way we can track site hits by product and keep everything separate since they are completely unrelated products. One thing that is most important with Overture is that you include the keywords at the end of your URL. They show you how to do that there when you set up with them. That way, when you go through your web site stats you can see the referrals from overture by keyword phrase and it will give you an indpendant way to match up the number of hits you are getting with the number of hits that overture says you got. And what else that is important for is to see which phrases / keywords are working for you by watching visitors in your log to see how deeply they drill into your website. You know you have a good phrase when they drill in looking at what you have to offer and conversely you know you have a bad phrase when they only hit your home page and then disappear when they realize it's not what they wanted. Bad phrases cost you money for no reason so the first few months you will spend tweaking and adding more keywords. Also be sure to use as many different phrases as possible that are as relevant as possible so that you don't get hits from people looking for something else completely but confusing your keyword / phrase with what they are actually looking for. So, for example we make work order software, we would never use the phrase work order because we would get thousands of hits and have to pay for them from people merely looking for paper work order forms or whatever. Best bet is to find other web sites that advertise what your selling, take a look at their keywords on their home page (assuming they designed it properly) and that will give you some ideas. Just be sure not to use any of their product names or trademarks to avoid a lawsuit. (Overture is not supposed to accept competitors trademarks in your keywords, but be safe rather than sorry). Of course you have to follow through i
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We've been making our living off of shareware that we develop and market ourselves for years now and tried just about everything, but Overture was definitely the best investment out of everything we did. In terms of multiple products, we have two main ones and we found it best to put them on their own web sites: http://www.addressinator.com[^] http://www.ayanova.com[^] That way we can track site hits by product and keep everything separate since they are completely unrelated products. One thing that is most important with Overture is that you include the keywords at the end of your URL. They show you how to do that there when you set up with them. That way, when you go through your web site stats you can see the referrals from overture by keyword phrase and it will give you an indpendant way to match up the number of hits you are getting with the number of hits that overture says you got. And what else that is important for is to see which phrases / keywords are working for you by watching visitors in your log to see how deeply they drill into your website. You know you have a good phrase when they drill in looking at what you have to offer and conversely you know you have a bad phrase when they only hit your home page and then disappear when they realize it's not what they wanted. Bad phrases cost you money for no reason so the first few months you will spend tweaking and adding more keywords. Also be sure to use as many different phrases as possible that are as relevant as possible so that you don't get hits from people looking for something else completely but confusing your keyword / phrase with what they are actually looking for. So, for example we make work order software, we would never use the phrase work order because we would get thousands of hits and have to pay for them from people merely looking for paper work order forms or whatever. Best bet is to find other web sites that advertise what your selling, take a look at their keywords on their home page (assuming they designed it properly) and that will give you some ideas. Just be sure not to use any of their product names or trademarks to avoid a lawsuit. (Overture is not supposed to accept competitors trademarks in your keywords, but be safe rather than sorry). Of course you have to follow through i
Thank you very much for taking the time to provide some much useful details. I have noted your points and will be looking into each and every one. By the way, did you have a look at our website. I would appreciate your feedback. I looked at yours and was quite pleased with how focused it is. I would consider creating different sites for different products. Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
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Thank you very much for taking the time to provide some much useful details. I have noted your points and will be looking into each and every one. By the way, did you have a look at our website. I would appreciate your feedback. I looked at yours and was quite pleased with how focused it is. I would consider creating different sites for different products. Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
You're welcome! I've looked at your website, but you haven't really done much there yet so it's a bit early to ask for feedback. In any case I don't know your market or products and I'm not a web site designer by trade (more by circumstance than anything) so I wouldn't be able to help with any details, but in general: I would break out each product into a separate site if possible because in terms of marketing it's pretty hard to setup paid listings that all point to the same site for vastly different search phrases etc. You don't want to confuse your clients and web sites are dirt cheap these days. Put each product on it's own site but cross link them somewhere because the more sites that link to a site the higher it gets in the search engine rankings. An important thing to do when designing a site or anything else is to completely put yourself in the shoes of the person who will be reading it. We have found time and again be it in documentation, program error messages, web pages, you name it that most people absolutely hate reading. Most people that come to your site are completely incapable of reading more than about 2 paragraphs of text at a time unless they are specifically looking for something. Break it down into small easy to digest chunks that get to the point immediatly. You have to clearly and concisely tell them exactly what you have and what it does in as few sentences as possible, then invite them to look into more detail if they are interested with links to other pages that in turn contain as little information as possible. Our home pages break that rule a bit in that we added a lot of text at the bottom to help us with search engine listings (they are mostly written with web spiders in mind), however the top parts of the pages are what is key for human readers and most people likely don't even see the bottom part but search engine robots do. The rule of thumb is to put no more text than a person could read very quickly on each page. (Under a minute). People really like to see screenshots or some sort of graphics that help them understand what you offer so be sure to include that as well. That's one of our most highest hit pages. And be sure to put in references if you can or at least a partial client list. What your doing is not only selling your product but overcoming negative pre-conceptions. That is very important, keep it in mind at all times. In other words you must sit down (with other people preferrably that are not involved directly) describe
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Very good. Did you put it together yourself or hired some professional to do that. At what stage in the life of CodeProject did you do put it together. What was the initial reception? Gaul http://www.gaulles.com
I did content, a graphic designer provided the framework. The reception has been fantastic. We get a lot of compliments on the kit. cheers, Chris Maunder
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Hi Chris, did you know there is a typo on that page: "...amazing array or of IT products ..."
:-O