12Sep/080
Internet has revolutionized the marketing of software products
A recurring theme in this blog is that the Internet has transformed the marketing of technology products and in no industry has been so evident as in the software business. The software is a product unique for several reasons:
- Costs are dominated by the first unit, with marginal costs that can be negligible, even if they customize the product.
- Facility for collaborative development, including teams from loosely coupled, and that has led to the open source phenomenon.
- In many categories of software phenomena commoditization and availability of free products that make the users are less willing to pay for it.
- High product complexity, which makes it difficult to learn, use and communicate their benefits and that may impose barriers to the adoption and change.
Long, the challenges of selling corporate software (difficulty in quantifying the value, long sales cycles and an intensive sales force specialized and expensive) to have the mother of invention marketing professionals. According to the study "B2B Marketers Can Learn From Software Firms' Forrester marketing software exceeds that of other B2B products in several aspects:
- Criteria and robust qualification processes leads.
- Sophisticated rules on when and to whom to transfer leads.
- Processes action-loop closed.
But if there is one factor that has changed the rules of product marketing software, internet and this has been a whole series of events catalyzed by the Network (open source, SaaS, communities ...). In "8 Ways The Internet Changed Marketing Software" Jon Miller provides some ideas on this phenomenon which we summarize below (together with some other home-grown):
- Communication and demand generation. In the age of Internet buyers are those seeking information for themselves and filter unwanted marketing messages. Search engines, blogs, forums and communities are the starting points of this search. It is necessary to move from one breakpoint to another marketing attention: being present where the customer searches for and participate in the conversation is taking place.
- Segmentation and targeting. Where is the customer who is the supplier is more difficult to concentrate on pre-defined segments: the demand may come from unexpected buyers. It is essential to define easily segmented offerings for various sub-markets. The ease inherent in the software to create versions of a product specific to different types of users (in line with what Shapiro and Varian raised in "Versioning: The Smart Way to Sell Information") allows customers self-segment.
- Cultivation of leads. Buyers prefer to be autonomous in their process of information gathering and evaluation of products and want to decide when a face to face meeting with a vendor. It is imperative that facilitate learning and initiate dialogue at any time by providing content and formats (papers, webinars, podcasts ...) more useful for every stage of their buying process.
- Test the product. Typically one of the key moments in the sales process was a show (more or less default) of product, but since the demos are expensive provider only to be reversed when a clear opportunity to sell. Yet the key is to try to eliminate the uncertainty of the buyer and to encourage the adoption of a new product. Internet has raised the bar on user expectations regarding the evidence: it is assumed that any product that you can not download or test it online because it is probably too complicated or poorly functional (and often true). Buyers are no longer satisfied with passively attend a demo suppliers enabling them to decide when and how to experiment with the product will come a long way to reduce fears and build confidence.
- Sales. One area in which the Internet has not changed things is that in a B2B scenario buyers still need a human contact with suppliers. However, the Internet itself has changed the role of seller: Although there will always be a role player for the business to close operations on large customers, is now also necessary to figure the inside sales. Thanks to the skills of communication, demand generation and lead cultivation Internet Marketing generates hundreds of leads that need human contact. The inside sales can qualify these leads for when transferring to sales and even (depending on the product) to close many of the operations.
- Market research and product development. In many respects, the new Web is transforming the market research by techniques such as surveys or other online communities designed for that purpose or the monitoring of and participation in blogs, forums and social networks (see for example "Will Web 2.0 Transform Market Research "Forrester). Moreover, the immediacy of the development cycle-launch-deployment-feedback based approaches facilitates rapid inroads into the market and to improve the product (which sometimes remain in a "perpetual beta") in contact with customer needs . It may be easier and cheaper to launch the product and see what happens to conduct a costly investigation to uncover customer needs. This approach promotes products of low complexity, easy to test and provide tangible results.
- Delivery and post-purchase. The possibility of providing Software as a Service (SaaS) tilted the balance of power on the client side (which may stop using the service when you want) and makes the satisfaction and success of the user are critical. This forces suppliers to offer a design intended for long-term satisfaction of the client (e.g., easy to use and service not only easy to buy), for excellence in support and develop processes to prevent and avoid abandonment of clients (as in other sectors, e.g. telecommunications).
- Promotion of the ecosystem and impact of positive feedback. Internet greatly facilitates this type of dynamic pricing strategies to facilitate penetration and diagrams "try-and-buy" and enabling the creation of communities of users (who share best practices, ideas for product improvements, etc.). And developer communities (which provide complementary products and applications), all of which contribute to contagion effects and generate positive feedback.
Ultimately, the Internet has given more prominence and power to the user of business software (greater control over the purchasing process, lower costs of change ...) and only vendors who are able to participate in this new dialogue will be successful.
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