My experience with Twitter and 10 great software marketing articles found on Twitter

After recently attending the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) I realized that a lot of people, especially marketers were on Twitter.  I didn't really know much about Twitter, or what real-world use it had - I'd heard Twitter referenced as the first source some of our recent major disasters have been reported from, but not much beyond that.  I decided that as one action item I would take home from this conference would be to start a Twitter account and see what this phenomenon is all about.  You can find me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/JaysonAG.


For those of you not familiar with Twitter, it's a web site that allows you to post messages of 140 characters or less - otherwise known as micro-blogging.  Other Twitter users are then able to follow you and view your stream of posts - you can follow others and see what they have to say.  These posts are called "Tweets."

I joined Twitter in February and the going was a bit slow, it took me a few weeks to understand the format and the use of the site.  But I soon realized that Twitter is a great way to find resources other people think are valuable or interesting.  It's also a great way to identify people who are talking about topics in my space.

So now I follow people on Twitter who talk about topics interesting to me personally and professionally - software marketing, online marketing, online demos, software demos, aviation, automotive, tech, etc.  I have gotten a lot of great articles and stories and also contribute and redistribute when I find something interesting.  It's really a great collective of "what's happening now."

I thought it may be interesting to share some of the most interesting articles I found on Twitter, ones that I feel software marketers, especially those not on Twitter might be interested in. (The urls are short urls generated to fit inside Tweets)

1. Gartner thinks SaaS could cost more in the longrun - http://tinyurl.com/czdata
2. The myth of social media transparency  http://bit.ly/3WAMR 
3. Social Media: Just 1 piece of the marketing puzzle. http://bit.ly/9Q6u9
4. Forrester: Sponsored conversation is here to stay (so get over it)  http://bit.ly/hB3wy
5. 10 measurements of social media success  http://bit.ly/Gxf6u
6. Want More Traffic? Blog more Often! http://tinyurl.com/8czbej 
7. Social Media's 'Gee-Whiz Factor' Must Die: Time to Get Down to Business http://tinyurl.com/apzl26
8. What Are The Steps Companies Need To Take To Get involved With Social Media? http://ping.fm/hnIF2
9. Here's 100 ways to boost your software sales in 2009: http://bit.ly/lsOQo 
10. 10 tips for higher search rank. http://bit.ly/2f7G2

Are you on Twitter?  Do you see any use for Twitter personally or professionally? Have any questions about Twitter?

The end of advertising?

Eric Clemons had a great post on TechCrunch laying out his case for why the Internet is destroying traditional advertising not just in print and broadcast media, but also on the Internet.

I find his arguments compelling, but regardless of whether or not push advertising eventually disappears, we can clearly see consumer behavior changing rapidly. Old patterns of passive consumption of media and content are being replaced by users who expect to interact and be in control. People want to do more research before making informed decisions as opposed to impulse or brand based purchases.

In the new paradigm, the most effective way to communicate with our potential customers is to make the information they want available to them when they want it. People who are actively researching products in your market are extremely receptive to learning details about your product. The more you make it possible to learn about the product quickly, the more likely they are to get interested. Simple, traditional marketing collateral built in a web accessible way with good search optimization is obviously a mandatory first step. For software products, online demonstrations are a natural follow on which gives users a painless chance to try the software out for themselves first hand. The only thing which has more impact than the opinion of someone we trust is our own opinion!

As we move from push advertising to pull marketing, one natural question is how do we generate buzz about a product, market segment or possibly even an entirely new market? If we can’t put ads in front of people’s eyeballs, how will they know our product exists to begin with? Here, social networking is the key. I still read traditional technology journals like ComputerWorld and PC World, but I have just as much respect for purely online news sources like The Inquirer and Tom's Hardware. Even for these sites, I find articles here through Google, my RSS reader, digg or delicious where I'm just as likely to find information from a blogger I've never heard of before. Jayson and Christina have lots of posts here on how to get the most out of social networking.

Cloud Computing – What does it mean to me?

Cloud computing is a term that covers the use of applications and data that are internet based. In essence, this means that you can access applications over the internet and that your data is securely stored and maintained in the cloud. SaaS is a subset of cloud computing, but it covers everything from websites where you may store some of your data to full application access like productivity applications.
There are many advantages to this type of computing –

• You don’t have to spend large sums on hardware, essentially you are renting space and capacity from the cloud


• Monthly costs can be low as large vendors can make more efficient use of servers and equipment, passing some of that efficiency on to you in the form of low pricing


• You rely on the service vendor for all infrastructure and their IT skills


• You can choose a vendor with a SLA to suit your cost / availability needs


• Rolling out new applications can be much quicker

Of course, nothing comes without disadvantages –

• You have to be confident enough to trust the cloud with your data


• Data backups are out of your hands, so you need to make sure your supplier meets whatever standards you need for data storage and retention


• Data Security comes down to how securely it is transmitted over the internet and how well your provider protects it. Laws like the US’s Patriot Act, the seeming abuse of National Security Letters and the uncertainty over how much of our internet traffic is searched and stored by governments worldwide, mean you need to be sure that you are OK with making it available…


• You are reliant on the Vendor – do you have a plan for what happens to your data and business if they go bankrupt?


• Do you trust the vendor to not look at your data? Some applications such as Google’s G-Mail claim to search your data to provide you with context sensitive advertisements. While they don’t use any results from this, what’s next?

So Should I offer my applications through the Cloud?
If you are an ISV, you have probably been thinking about offering your application(s) through the web in some kind of hosted rental model for some time. You have different choices – offering your existing Windows based application through the web using one of many technologies from companies such as Microsoft or Citrix. You could also go down the path that many companies try with mixed success; rewriting your application as a web application. With today’s “Web 2.0” technologies, you can make a web based application much closer in terms of functionality to Windows applications, but still not quite as good. So depending on your users expectations, a web based application may or may not work for them. Some companies like salesforce.com have been hugely successful with web applications and Cloud computing, but they may not work for you.
What does this mean for my Lead Generation and Product Demos?
It really doesn’t change much – sure, it’s easier for you to give people access to your applications through the web, but that doesn’t change the fundamental requirements for successful customer profiling, lead capture and demos.
You need to efficiently profile the customer while capturing their essential data without scaring them off and suffering a high drop off rate, then to actually benefit from your demo, you need to have meaningful sample data and contextually appropriate messaging / tutorials in the demo. Without these, Cloud based application or not, you won’t benefit from an online demo as much as you should.

Do you know who is talking about your brand?

With so many folks using social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter these days, its easier more than ever for the public to get the good, the bad and even the ugly on your company out to a mass audience. Having such tremendous access to others makes it even more important, to you as a marketer, to get actively involved in your brand’s social media conversations.

Here are some core things to keep in mind when conducting your own monitoring plan for social media:

-Make a decision on what you want to achieve. Have a clear goal on how you will measure the success of your monitoring program. For example that objective could be to increasing sales, address a percentage of negative comments, or increase the number of positive posts.

-Figure out what tools you want to use to listen in with. There are many sites that offer this service for free however if you want highly detailed analytics you want to look into services that require payment.

Some suggestions for free monitoring sites include:

http://www.trendrr.com/- tracks, charts and compares the trends of any keyword.

http://www.socialmention.com/- offers a snapshot of conversations surrounding your brand on blogs, Twitter, bookmarks, images and more.

http://www.backtype.com/- will monitor the comments that are related to your company regarding a blog post. This online service can also keep track of comments made by a specific person and alert you.

-Decide where you will go and what you want to listen to. It’s good to start out looking for social networks, sites and blogs where your target audiences are already having a discussion.

-Know when and how to respond to comments or posts and decide if what you want to say will actually help your brand’s online reputation. Sometimes not saying anything at all, can in the long run, be the best policy when it comes to unruly commenters.

-Don’t just wait around to respond to others that are talking about your brand. Get out there and make mention of new features on your product or thank others who have decided to make comments boasting about your brand’s product/service.

-Keep in mind that you not only want to give praises to your product/service on social media sites but you also want to display value so offer information readers can generally find useful.

- Monitoring social media is not just for the folks in PR and marketing, it’s something that the CEO, VP and other high level executives should also be taking part in. Their interaction will help present your brand with a bigger, more involved and knowledgeable voice.

If you know of other free or paid social media monitoring sites out there post them in the comments section below.

Online demos cost less and generate more revenue than CDs and downloads

 One item that all software marketing professionals must include in their marketing is a demo of their software.  It’s impossible to compete, or even show potential customers what your software does without a demo.  Some marketers have a good idea of what their demos contribute to their bottom line, some have no clue and just consider demos a cost of doing business.

It doesn’t have to be this way – software demos are a valuable software marketing resource and not all demos are created equally.
 
Ask yourself – do you really know what your demos cost you and how much revenue are they generating for you?

I’ve done some research to find out how much it costs to produce and deliver trial CDs, downloads and TestDrive online demos.  I chose these demo methods because CDs and downloads are the most common form of software demo and the cost is easy to evaluate.  I’ve used actual numbers from real producers/service providers to come up with the software demo cost.

To provide the conversion rates, I’ve used real Runaware online demo customer data and recorded conversion rates to compare how the different demos perform.  Keep in mind that these numbers are not set in stone and will vary by company but are actual observed numbers from our online demo clients.

We based our numbers on providing an average of 1,000 demos per month for a year for a desktop software package that sells for $150.

 

	CDs	Downloads	Online Demos
Production cost/CD	$0.98	$0.00	$0.00
Mailing Cost/CD	$2.75	$0.00	$0.00
Cost/Download	$0.00	$3.45	$0.00
TestDrive Setup	$0.00	$0.00	$5,000.00
TestDrive Hosting	$0.00	$0.00	$1,500.00
Cost/Demo	$3.73	$3.45	$1.92
Cost/Month	$3,730.00	$3,450.00	$1,500.00
Annual Cost	$44,760.00	$ 41,400.00	$   23,000.00
Average Conversion	5%	8%	14%
Annual Revenue Generated	$90,000.00	$144,000.00	$252,000.00
ROI	201%	348%	1096%

 While it may appear that the initial cost of an online demo is more, over the year it’s shown that online demos are less expensive per demo and cost less to provide overall.  In addition, the higher conversion rate of online demos leads further improves the ROI by generating more revenue.

One added benefit of incorporating online demos into your marketing is the account management that you receive from experienced marketers that help increase your conversion rates by using a proven customer profiling and lead capture system and improve the customer experience using best practices – ensuring a higher return.

Online demos are best used to augment other demos being offered, giving your consumers a choice and providing squeezing more value out of your other software demos.

Do you know how much your demos cost and what they are contributing to your ROI?  Do these numbers surprise you?