November 05, 2006
ESWC - Robert Martin: Marketing - It's What We Do
ESWC - Robert Martin: Marketing - It's What We Do
Event type: Conference
Date: 2006-11-04
Robert Martin is VP of Marketing at Infacta.
Infacta...
- Make marketing software for micro-ISVs and SMEs
- Their main product is some email marketing software
- Sales are via their website only
- They use Plimus [as does MCQN Ltd.] as their payment processor
- Try to automate everything
70-80% of marketing goes through email
2 days after a customer has downloaded one of their products, they automatically send them an email from the CEO asking if they've had any problems installing or using the software, and if there's anything they want to know about. They've had a great response from it and refunds have dropped 60%!
They send a newsletter out once a month:
- Includes info on any updates to their software
- Aim to update their software once a month, even if it's just a couple of minor bug-fixes
Obviously they get permission from users before sending them the newsletter - let them choose:
- Do you want reminders from us
- Do you want the newsletter
Email newsletter contains:
- Updates on software
- Articles customers might find useful or interesting
- Tutorials about some part of the software
Often just reuse blog content in newsletter
Try the newsletter email out in GMail, Hotmail, etc. to check how it looks before sending it out.
Keep track of what people click on from the email
Use Shareware Tracker for software updates
Affiliate/reseller marketing...
- ~50% of sales
- Affiliates get 30-40% commission
- Most resellers sell the $249 version rather than $99 version
SEO - read www.google.com/webmasters.
Press Releases - try to release one every month or two
Search Engine Marketing (Adwords) - They didn't really make much money on it
Other areas where they market:
- Blog - Google loves it
- Articles / tutorials
- Presentations / conferences - not direct sales but helps branding
- Localisation
- Magazines - mainly interest from press releases. They come to us, not other way round
- MessagingTimes.com - a website of theirs:
- Tried to get Adsense revenue but it didn't work
- Using it to build community
- Microsoft Office Marketplace. Sends them 40 - 50 people per day. If you've a connection to Office somehow, you can join
- Lets bloggers build polls
- New service from Infacta
- Generated lots of buzz
- 20,000 visitors in the first couple of weeks
Basically they're trying lots of stuff. If it works good. If not then move on and try something else.
Customer service is king.
Release early and often mentality
Some stats:
- Only 1 day since 1999 with no sale
- 1 sale every 47 minutes since 2001
- Sales:downloads ratio 2.92%
- Visitor:sales ratio 4.9%
Measure and tweak.
Tags: ESWC European Shareware Conference Cambridge Marketing Software
This blog post is on the personal blog of Adrian McEwen. If you want to explore the site a bit further, it might be worth having a look at the most recent entries or look through the archives or categories over on the left.
If you want to hire my company to help you with the Internet of Things then get in touch. If you want to learn more about the Internet of Things, then buy my book Designing the Internet of Things (amazon.co.uk amazon.com).