McFilter

A Q&A session about marketing, based around questions from the audience. The panel consisted of:

• Robert Martin of Infacta
• Phil Schnyder of Avanquest USA
• Sharon Housley of Notepage
• Dave Collins of Shareware Promotions
• Gary Elfring of Elfring Fonts
• Bob Walsh of My Micro-ISV (Moderator)

First off, what does each of the panel think are the opportunities in marketing for 2007?

Robert: Web 2.0

Phil: Vista

Sharon: Social bookmarking, user-generated content, subscriptions - blogs/RSS

Dave: Google, especially Adwords

Gary: Selling

Bob: Vista or Office 2007. Blogs - influence chain. Localisation

Will email marketing still be effective? (given rises in spam, etc.)

Robert: Still useful. RSS coming up fast

Phil: Getting harder. Must be permission based. Prune mailing lists regularly. RSS only good for techies

How do I form communities?

Bob: You should look to connect deeper with customers. Blogs/forums/email/video/whatever.

Phil: Hard to get a community with business software.

Sharon: Key is communications and dialogue

Plain text vs. HTML email?

Robert: They've experimented. Let users choose.

Phil: His HTML was awful. Tried both. Plaintext had 3-4 times sales. Depends on user-base

Audience guy: Send both at name time, but write both of them by hand.

Bob: Reiterate that it needs to be permission-based.

Jeff Veit: When did you do the tests?

Robert: Late summer 2005. They found HTML was better

Phil: 4 years ago. HTML should get better, but depends on spam filters. It's all about testing.

Tony Wieser: Copyright issues on forums?

Bob: Use software to help. He admins the Business of Software forum on JoelOnSofware.com. Get some identity from users. Be ready to take stuff down quickly

Sharon: You will need to delete spam. But benefits for outweigh costs. Be quick to take stuff down and be courteous. Doesn't have to be mass communications - can be individual communication. They send follow-up email after any phonecall and after purchase.

Gary: Be aware of your local laws

One of my competitors was recently trashed by blogs - can they recover?

Sharon: Good point. Everyone should be doing ego searches so they know when they're mentioned on the 'Net. Plus ego searches for competitors. That lets you find these instances and respond. The key is how you reply to the conversation.

Bob: Agreed. Not just blog posts, also blog comments.

Gary: Don't get emotional. Don't attack back. Be reasonable.

Phil: Not everyone reads Blogs - don't get hung up on it.

Dave: Newzcrawler includes newsgroups in its searches. Sometimes it best just to ignore it. Or drown them out [issue your own PR or news items that will be of more interest].

[To Gary,] Is it easier sell now than a few years ago?

Gary: Yes.

What about increased competition?

Gary: Still yes.

Marketing plug-ins for other products: Any tips?

Sharon: Talk to people writing the main software.

Dave: Good things to sell because you're fixing a problem.

Email marketing is probably becoming less effective. Is there anything that'll be coming to replace it?

Dave: RSS. Even plug it into your software so customer don't have to know what RSS is.

Phil: Email still getting better as more people online.

Sharon: Don't need to replace. Provide all options so users can choose.

I'm getting 80% churn of email addresses for Yahoo, etc. Is that normal?

All: No. that's high

Bob: Spammers are always going to be there. Still key to get permission before using email addresses.

What's the difference between reseller and affiliate?

Robert: Resellers buy in advance, affiliates just get a %age afterwards.

Gary: Some companies can only by though resellers.

Robert: Some resellers provide support too. Resellers find them rather than the other way round.

Wrap up:

Gary: Your year to test things. Try watching your users. Check web stats.

Dave: Analyse your web server logs. Can't over emphasise! Don't use AWStats or whatever came with your hosting account. Buy something decent.

Sharon and Dave: Don't use Google Analytics!

Dave: Web Log Storming - $129. Clicktracks.com - not cheap but very good.

Sharon: Keep up with new trends. Try different things to see what works.

Phil: Vista will cause a spike in sales. Do a Vista specific version from day 1. People look for Vista specific version - could differentiate with competitors. Being Vista-compatible is a new feature.

Robert: Mobile. Localizations - maybe even use users to help translation. Choose one thing from the conference and do that.

Bob: Vista. Glidepath will help.

How do you set up Resellers?

Robert: He's not techie, so can't talk about details.

Phil: Need a pricing policy. Steal one. Is the product boxed or online? At some point there needs to be trust.

Robert: They start all resellers on the same deal but then set targets for resellers before doing things for them [e.g. if you sell X units, then we'll start providing support]. Be careful of what goes in the licence/contract.