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The first three items on your list are what I would consider a bad idea. Have you seen AdBrite traffic? The guy is marketing an HR product; classic business sof

by mahmud 16y ago

The first three items on your list are what I would consider a bad idea. Have you seen AdBrite traffic? The guy is marketing an HR product; classic business software (might be much better off with adwords, specially for gmail; HR trade publications, and finally direct marketing to big companies.) ReviewMe? Glorified link-building. He is better off pitching $500 to sponsor an HR conference, and get his name published for free by the industry, and his brand shown to actual attendees. Or similar gimmick. text-link-ads.com? Just guest-write articles for industry magazines and blogs. If anything, that will force him to think about the product more seriously and research the industry. Marketing business software is not for the lazy.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
gscott 16y ago
Adbrite is great, costs 1/4th of Google. I spend about $500 a month on Adbrite and about $14,000 a month on Google Adwords for the company that I work for. Will I ever spend more on Adbrite then Google, of course not but sales are made from Adbrite ads and at the end of the day money talks. The poster mentioned being in a competitive marketplace. You have to pull out all of the stops if you want to come up high in the same searches as long established competitors Am I saying don't sponsor some event? Sure go sponsor an event. But what you need is the phrase you want to come up highest in the link text that people are linking to your site on, it is really the best way to displace other links. Since 1996 I have done a lot of different things for marketing but really when you are in a pinch tightly focusing on just the things that will raise your actual ranking quickest is best then go back and underpin that rise in rank with more long term items. Also, I love Amazon Mechanical Turk. I have spent about $800 on tasks at .05 to .10 cents each and it is huge. I have nailed number one rankings so hard I am pretty sure they will never go down.
- mahmud 16y ago
  You obviously know your stuff, but for selling business software, and by that I don't mean a <$500 shareware, it really doesn't make sense to waste money on peripheral advertising when you can go for the jugular and sell to your firms directly. For HR software, go to Monster and Indeed and build a list of companies advertising more than 5 jobs and not using a recruiter. There. Done. Now sit down from 9AM to 2PM and call them, one by one. 2PM - 5PM you do emails and follow ups. Incoming links and pagerank do jack squat for you if your clients have a habit of purchasing software solely through trusted vendors and relationships. You really are better off offering a 40% commission to mid-sized computer support companies and focusing on one city each month, instead of getting 100 blog articles written about you. At least then you can develop a training/certification program and allow support companies to call themselves "Licensed $FOO Vendor"; your buyers wont worry about support, since the guys in their neighborhood can help them with the HR product, and you might even get link-backs from the support companies themselves. Btw, I really urge you to blog about your marketing experience. My ex-employer's budget was $4k/daily, and I don't think they got much out of it (it kept the business solvent, and they made the money back, but not by much.)
  - scottmagdalein 16y ago
    So you know, my software will cost $50-$500/month and be offered as SaaS on a per-position basis aimed at medium- to large-sized companies. Does that change how I should market the product?
    - mahmud 16y ago
      Yes it does. Your leads will not becoming from HR department heads and managers only, but developers tasked with the development of HR-related application. Which is good, because the dev-segment tends to be more vocal in plugging good software, and you would be a shoe-in if you can give them what they need. I can give you two pieces of advice: research, analyze and reverse engineer the business operations and historic growth of successful B2B SaaS providers, such as SalesForce. You are in for more interesting times than you can imagine at the moment. My second advice would be to find and follow successful "community ambassadors" and founders of SaaS companies, watch what events they speak at, grab any presentation decks you can get (I will highly recommend Mashery and their macho CEO Orin Michels; that's a cat worth emulating, imo.) Walking around with money in hand is a surefire way to lose. The more DIY and stingy you are the more successful you will be selling this. You need to indoctrinate your developers as well; inspire them to think big and do more with less and less. Also, don't hesitate to solicit private advice from people who aren't selling you anything.

by mahmud 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

gscott 16y ago

Adbrite is great, costs 1/4th of Google. I spend about $500 a month on Adbrite and about $14,000 a month on Google Adwords for the company that I work for. Will I ever spend more on Adbrite then Google, of course not but sales are made from Adbrite ads and at the end of the day money talks. The poster mentioned being in a competitive marketplace. You have to pull out all of the stops if you want to come up high in the same searches as long established competitors Am I saying don't sponsor some event? Sure go sponsor an event. But what you need is the phrase you want to come up highest in the link text that people are linking to your site on, it is really the best way to displace other links. Since 1996 I have done a lot of different things for marketing but really when you are in a pinch tightly focusing on just the things that will raise your actual ranking quickest is best then go back and underpin that rise in rank with more long term items. Also, I love Amazon Mechanical Turk. I have spent about $800 on tasks at .05 to .10 cents each and it is huge. I have nailed number one rankings so hard I am pretty sure they will never go down.

mahmud 16y ago
You obviously know your stuff, but for selling business software, and by that I don't mean a <$500 shareware, it really doesn't make sense to waste money on peripheral advertising when you can go for the jugular and sell to your firms directly. For HR software, go to Monster and Indeed and build a list of companies advertising more than 5 jobs and not using a recruiter. There. Done. Now sit down from 9AM to 2PM and call them, one by one. 2PM - 5PM you do emails and follow ups. Incoming links and pagerank do jack squat for you if your clients have a habit of purchasing software solely through trusted vendors and relationships. You really are better off offering a 40% commission to mid-sized computer support companies and focusing on one city each month, instead of getting 100 blog articles written about you. At least then you can develop a training/certification program and allow support companies to call themselves "Licensed $FOO Vendor"; your buyers wont worry about support, since the guys in their neighborhood can help them with the HR product, and you might even get link-backs from the support companies themselves. Btw, I really urge you to blog about your marketing experience. My ex-employer's budget was $4k/daily, and I don't think they got much out of it (it kept the business solvent, and they made the money back, but not by much.)
- scottmagdalein 16y ago
  So you know, my software will cost $50-$500/month and be offered as SaaS on a per-position basis aimed at medium- to large-sized companies. Does that change how I should market the product?
  - mahmud 16y ago
    Yes it does. Your leads will not becoming from HR department heads and managers only, but developers tasked with the development of HR-related application. Which is good, because the dev-segment tends to be more vocal in plugging good software, and you would be a shoe-in if you can give them what they need. I can give you two pieces of advice: research, analyze and reverse engineer the business operations and historic growth of successful B2B SaaS providers, such as SalesForce. You are in for more interesting times than you can imagine at the moment. My second advice would be to find and follow successful "community ambassadors" and founders of SaaS companies, watch what events they speak at, grab any presentation decks you can get (I will highly recommend Mashery and their macho CEO Orin Michels; that's a cat worth emulating, imo.) Walking around with money in hand is a surefire way to lose. The more DIY and stingy you are the more successful you will be selling this. You need to indoctrinate your developers as well; inspire them to think big and do more with less and less. Also, don't hesitate to solicit private advice from people who aren't selling you anything.