Digital marketing for software companies is much more complex than having a website, creating content, and making blogging posts. Knowing the right mix of business strategy, customer acquisition, list building, crafting an offer, communicating successfully with prospects, setting up autoresponders, follow-up tactics that actually work, creating a lead magnet that people want to download – that’s what this post will teach you. We’re sharing the basics here – everything else is left out for you to research yourself.
The essence of the digital marketing strategy is to create a process that effectively builds interest among the customers, enables them to readily grasp the value proposition, and changes them into prospects.
Know Your Audience:
When it comes to digital marketing, the very first step in any campaign is to learn about and study who you’re trying to market your company to in the first. So as a software development company, your target audience is going to be people who are interested in technology and other tech-related information, products, and services.
Therefore, when it comes to implementing any form of digital marketing strategy for your software development company, these are the people to who you’re going to market your services. But it doesn’t end there. In fact, the more you’re able to learn about your target audience, the better you’ll be able to create content that they find valuable.
On the other hand, if you’re planning your strategies for an audience that isn’t actually interested in your company’s products or service, you’ll quickly start seeing your digital marketing efforts go bust.
Offer free demos:
Most users like to try software programs before buying them. Offer free demos of your program whenever and wherever you market it. Submit a shareware version to software directories and offer a trial version on your own website. The trial version can be for a limited time or provide access to limited features, as long as it shows users how they can benefit from buying the full version.
Start Your Programming Blog:
There’s no doubt about it: if you’re not blogging in today’s busy online world, you’re going to have trouble making a name for yourself in any industry. Think about it, why else would all of the world’s biggest tech companies be running and managing blogs? It’s because blogging works!
In fact, blogging is one of the easiest ways for software development companies to attract, engage, and delight their potential customers. That’s because companies can hone in on the specific type of information their target audience is looking for, and then tailor their own blog posts specifically to what their audience wants.
Create a Social Media Marketing Plan:
Another extremely effective strategy to help build your brand’s online presence is to get active on social media. While it may be easy to write tech-filled posts on your Facebook page, you need to go further to master the entire platform. Facebook marketing tools can help you find potential clients. Take advantage of what LinkedIn has to offer in terms of your target audience. You may find an untapped source of clients, looking for your services. Social media is an integral part of any marketing strategy, regardless of the nature of your business. According to experts at Dallas software development company, developers are likely to find the majority of their clients there.
Invest in SEO:
Without SEO, your marketing strategy is unlikely to achieve significant goals. Today, the high visibility on search engines is the key to success. Even if your company can’t offer highly unique services, which can attract numerous clients, SEO can help you do it. No matter how new or small your company, with the right approach to SEO, you can outrun older and more experienced competitors.
It’s important to note that SEO doesn’t work quickly. You would have to wait for the first results to show and be ready to change the strategy midway.
Run paid campaigns:
Aside from content on your site, you should also consider running off-site advertisements. One of the best ways to do this is with pay-per-click, or PPC ads.
If you run PPC ads in search engines like Google, users who search for terms related to your company will be shown your ad either above or beside the natural results. And like the name suggests, you only have to pay when people actually click on them and go to your site. Unlike traditional methods, like print and billboards, where you pay just to get your message in front of people, you only have to pay when potential customers take action.
Although every business arguably needs Internet marketing, for software companies, it’s a no-brainer. You have the opportunity to advertise and make sales all in one place, which can make the task of marketing much easier.
If you’re not already taking advantage of the Internet’s many opportunities for marketing, now’s the time to get started. And if you need help creating a strategy, feel free to contact us. Our talented team is more than happy to help you start using the Internet to grow your business.
Create A Lead Magnet:
Lead magnets are the number one method for building and growing lists of pre-qualified business leads. Essentially, a lead magnet is when a company offers some form of digital content in exchange for a person’s email address or other contact information. In most cases, this is a free, downloadable ebook. However, it can also be a premium, gated blog post, video, checklist, spreadsheet, etc.
Either way, the idea is to offer something that is valuable to your audience, in order to get consumers to willingly offer you their contact information. By doing this, you’ll be able to generate a list of people who are interested in what you have to offer as a tech company. This brings us to our next point: you can then use this list to run an effective email campaign.
Get Started With Email Marketing:
Once you’ve put together a lead magnet, you’ll start collecting a list of email addresses that you can use to directly market your company’s tech products or services.
According to Oberlo.ca, about 81% of small businesses rely on email marketing as their primary method for acquiring new customers, and in 2020, the average expected return on investment (ROI) is roughly $42 for every $1 dollar spent.
The reason that email marketing is so effective is that you’re able to market your products and services to people who have already expressed interest in your company when they willingly gave you their email address. This makes it significantly more likely that they’re going to interact with your brand in some way, potentially paying for a product or service and becoming a new customer.
Here are some other benefits of digital marketing for software companies:
1. Better tracking
Unlike traditional marketing tactics, which may or may not be measurable, Internet marketing is easy to track and monitor. With the right analytics tools, you can find out specifics — like how many people found your blog on a tech site, how many people clicked the “Request a Demo” link you tweeted, and how many search engine users saw your PPC ad. With these detailed analytics, you can easily see which parts of your software marketing strategy are working, and which ones you can eliminate.
2. Better branding opportunities
Your primary focus with any marketing strategy for a software product is sales, but the Internet also allows you to provide information and education that resonates with potential customers and creates brand awareness. This creates an opportunity for you to position your company as a trusted source of guidance and information.
3. Sales and service combined
Your customers are using your product while on their laptops or mobile devices, either online or off. If they’re online, they may run into trouble while using it, but they can easily reach out to you via email or social media to get their issues solved — something they can’t do on traditional marketing channels.
Conclusion:
Digital Marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or more forms of electronic media. The digital aspect relates to media, not the means or methods of commerce, which are the same as conventional industrial marketing. A digital marketing strategy is for software companies an essential ingredient to success. Developing a Digital Marketing Strategy is often the second step in developing a business strategy.