Mind Your Language
I have been working in the Software Marketing Industry for close to 10 years and I still find most of the communication in the Industry incredibly boring and stiff. I don’t even have the energy to try to understand some of the Industry newsletters I get. What are they talking about? I am guessing that the goal of the fancy technical jargon is to put me in place and to show they know what they are talking about. The only problem is that “they” end up not reaching me at all.
You say: “But I am a B2B Marketer…”
If you are selling B2B software you may feel inclined to follow industry standards and use a somewhat higher flying language, and throwing in some buzzwords is never wrong, right? Well, I am here to tell you that you’re wrong. The difference between B2B and B2C is mostly existing in university literature and when it comes to selling software your end users and clients are people. And people are people.
How are you talking to your customers and clients? What language are you using communicating about your software? Take a look at this video, it will perhaps set off an alarm somewhere in the back of your head – Mind Your Language!
Also check out the guy 1:18 into the video. Find out why he switched software…
In fact, I felt that the message of keeping it simple was so brilliantly conveyed by Google that I immediately sent out an email to all my support staff asking them to check out this video. I also asked them to think about this when communicating to our software buyers. To make it easy to understand for everyone. The people in this video may very well be clients of yours and mine. Think about that.
Until next time 
Peter – Software Marketing Secrets
TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION: Ask your staff to “Keep It Simple” and ask them to check out this video:
http://www.softwaremarketingsecrets.com/sell-software/mind-your-language/
Thanks goes out to C Collins (see our Software Marketing Directory / Software Marketing Blogs ) for alerting me about this video.
Using Channels on YouTube
I just read a great article by Julie Perry on video marketing or more precisely Youtube marketing.
Video Marketing
Are you marketing your software via video. You should. And naturally you should be on the biggest video sharing site of all – youtube.
Julie Perry has written an interesting article filled with tips on how to effectively market via Youtube. Thanks Julie, we will be designing our own channel soon
I recommend you go check the article out, but here’s a quick summary of my takeaways.
1) When linking to your youtube videos, use the user portion.
2) Choose a relevant and keyword rich username for your youtube account.
3) Edit your channel
4) The channel description should be done like a mini-salesletter
An example of a professionally designed channel, see Youtube user horrorfest. You will not believe you’re still on Youtube.
And don’t forget to read Julie’s post on how to effectively market via Youtube!
Until next time
Peter – Software Marketing Secrets
PS. See what I’m up to on Twitter.
Naming Your Software
Hi! Autumn is here, kids are in school and the house is suddenly very empty and silent. Perhaps time to get some work done
So how do you choose an excellent name for your software?
I found an outstanding and free report on how to name your product and company and I know this is a question that is often discussed by Micro ISVs so I felt I must share it with you…
Software Marketing Directory Updated
We have added a lot of new links to our Software Marketing Directory.
But it is in no way complete and I would appreciate any suggestions to great software marketing resources online. It doesn’t necessarily need to be directly connected, just a resource that you as a software marketer has great use for.
If you have suggestions you can post them in the comments area at the bottom of this page or in the Software Marketing Directory section.
Check out the Software Marketing Directory
For you waiting for the articles about software branding, I am sorry that they have been delayed. I am writing on a few of them but as I want to have a high quality it takes time (in between all other work).
All the best,
Peter – Software Marketing Secrets
Six Reasons Why You Should Build Brands
Before we go any further looking into how we can build brands it’s important to understand why building your software brand is important.
I hope you have had a chance to check out the first part in this series; Software Branding: Introduction, and have an understanding of what I mean by brand and branding. To make a long story short I am not referring to the company/product, logotype or slogan. What’s really important is the brand identity, or the associations and expectations that are connected to a brand.
There are several important reasons as to why you should work with building your brand or brands. In this article I have included 6 major reasons why it is vital to build your software brands.
The reasons are…
Software Branding: Introduction
You can only do branding if you have a million dollars. Only big companies should brand their products and company. Branding is just about the graphic image or logotype.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Software Marketing for the Software Developer
Today we have a guest writer Cristian Dorobantescu, that has been involved working both with software development and software marketing. Here he shares some interesting insights in this sometimes bipolar landscape.
Read on to find out what Cristian has to say…
Benchmark Online Software Sales
You have launched your software and started selling it online. You are actively promoting and are getting visitors and leads from different traffic generating efforts such as SEO, PPC, Banners, Shareware sites, Word-of-mouth, Resellers and other activities.
But the visitors aren’t really converting into buyers, at least not in any satisfactory numbers. Maybe 95% are leaving your website without taking any action…
So how do you know you are doing a good job?
Read on and find out how you can benchmark your conversion rates…
Software Upselling
What’s the easiest and fastest way to radically increase your sales? Done right you can increase your sales to many of your clients with very little effort.
How, you may ask…
Online Video Advertising Conference
19th of July ClickZ is holding a conference on Online Video Advertising in NYC, NY.
It’s targeting Online Marketers, SEO/SEM Professionals, Media planners/Buyers and E-commerce managers among many others.
It should come as no surprise that this Conference is held now. It was just a few months ago when Nielsen released the interesting findings on Online Video Advertising. Nielsen/Netratings are of course also present.
Some interesting parts are ” Strategy: Determining if video should become a part of an interactive marketing and advertising strategy” and ” Online Video Advertising: The Future”.
Software Marketing Secrets will unfortunately not attend, although it would have been exciting.
Until next time
Peter – Software Marketing Secrets
