Andy Brice: “Notes from the Trenches: 8 years of Software Marketing Experiments” – MicroConf Europe 2013

The Challenge

• How do you get a potential customer’s attention in a cost effective way when countless other vendors are trying the same thing?
• 5.3 trillion display ad impressions delivered in the US in 2012
• Even Perfect Table Planer has >100 competitors

Organic Search / SEO

• Good content
• On-page SEO is not rocket science
• But:
  • It is a game where none of the players know the rules
  • Results are not guaranteed
  • It takes time
  • Blackhat tricks can get you banned
  • Everything relies on Google

PPC

PPC / Google Adwords (search)

• Can be highly targeted
• very cost effective
• Huge reach
• Quick results
• Lots of feedback
• But:
  • Complex
  • Requires significant tuning
  • Bid price inflation
  • Easy to waste money

PPC / Adwords (Display Networks)

• Potentially huge reach
• CPC can be cheaper than search
• Can use image / video ads
• Andy could never make it work

PPC / Microsoft Adcenter

• Less competition – may be able to get cheaper clicks than Adwords
• But:
  • Much less traffic
  • Painful UI
  • Minimum bid of 0.05 pounds

PPC / Facebook ads

• Demographic Targeting
• Huge reach (#2 on the internet)
• But:
  • People aren’t on Facebook to buy stuff, clicks may not convert well
  • No conversion Tracking
  • No downloadable products allowed

PPC / LinkedIn ads

• Can target by:
  • Job function
  • company
  • gender
  • age group
  • country
  • LinkedIn group membership (this is awesome!)
• Easy to set-up
• But:
  • Expensive (Minimum CPC $2, Minimum CPM $3)

Facebook Page

• Only need 25 ‘likes’ to get a vanity URL (http://www.facebook.com/PerfectTablePlan)
• Potential to reach out to friends of customers
• Free
• But:
  • A low ‘like’ doesn’t look great
  • Less control than own site
  • They show ads for other products
  • Clunky UI

Twitter

• Allows engagement with customers
• Useful for promoting ‘viral’ content
• Free
• But:
  • Hard to build up followers if you aren’t a celebrity
  • A low follower count doesn’t look great
  • Time consuming
  • 1:1 interactions don’t scale

Blogging

• Builds a relationship
• Can bring in a lot of organic search
• Free
• But:
  • Major time commitment
  • Some products easier to promote through blogs than others
  • Hard to do if you don’t like writing
  • Useless if not targeted

Bloggers (a.k.a. other people’s blogs)

• Mention on high traffic blog can drive significant traffic
• Helps with SEO
• Great if you can get a free mention
• But:
  • Hit and miss
  • Many bloggers expect to be paid
  • Getting a mention is unlikely to have long-term effects

Download Sites

• Can provide useful amounts of free targeted traffic for some types of products
• May still be important for some platforms (e.g. Mac)
• Free
• But:
  • Increasingly irrelevant
  • Engaged in race to the bottom (toolbar installers, Dubious PPC ads, Fake awards)

Posting on Forums

• Free
• But:
  • Time consuming
  • Most forums have ‘no follow’ links
  • Ethical issues (pose as a woman, etc)

Magazine Ads

• Buying a magazine shows commitment
• Repeatable
• But:
  • Expensive
  • Hard to track results
  • ‘Impedance mismatch’
  • Ads may become less effective over time

Press Releases

• Review and editorials have more credibility than ads
• Great if you can get it for free
• Online services, e.g.: prweb.com
• But:
  • Hit and miss
  • Press releases are only worthwhile if they are newsworthy/creative, e.g. not “ACME Corp is delighted to announce v1.23 of their revolutionary new…”

Partner Programs

• Sometimes free
• Well worth trying if available and free
• Examples:
  • Microsoft Office Partner Program

Affiliates

• >2 billion LBP of affiliates sales in the UK in 2006
• ‘Super affiliates’ can drive serious traffic
• Can be largely automated
• Performance based
• But:
  • May compete directly against you
  • Some affiliates expect 75% commission
  • Very few people seem to manage more than a few percent additional sales
  • A lot of spam going on

Email Marketing

• Potentially low cost and large reach
• But:
  • Hard to know how good the quality of the list is
  • CTR likely to be very low if no relationship
  • Spamming is bad for your reputation

1 Day Discount Sites

• Bitsdujour.com, AppSumo.com
• Can give exposure to a new audience
• But:
  • One-off
  • Heavily discounted
  • Price anchoring issues
  • May attract wrong sort of customer
  • Volumes probably not worthwhile for most niche products

Snail Mail

• Can include physical items
• Measurable, A/B-testing
• But:
  • Difficult to assess quality of mailing list
  • Expensive
  • Kills trees
  • Low response rates

App Stores

• Increasingly a feature of selling software
• Store owner is providing (some) marketing and infrastructure for you
• But:
  • Rejection is a real possibility
  • Big cuts for store owner (30% for Apple)
  • Interaction with the customer is restricted
  • Downward pressure on prices
  • Median sales for paid apps in the iPhone is $682/year

Make Product Promote Itself (Viral Marketing)

• Potentially exponential growth
• But:
  • Hard to pull off
  • needs right product

Word of Mouth

• Best marketing is done by your customers
  • Massive reach
  • Maximum credibility
  • Free
• But:
  • Requires customers first

Choosing the right method

• Best choice depends on
  • Type of product
  • value of sale
  • Your personality/skills
• In general prefer:
  • Targeted over un-targeted
  • Measurable over un-measurable
  • Scalable over one-to-one
  • Continuing over one-off
  • Performance based over flat fee
  • Cheap experiments over expensive ones
• Run the numbers
  • At %1 conversion rate and profit per sale is $20 –> CPC needs to be below 0.20
• Be creative (How to advertise on porn sites)
• Don’t neglect existing customers (Version upgrades, more expensive plans, optional extras)
• Try a lot of things!

-Christoph